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Chapter 6: Guru's Explanation about the Existence of the Soul
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For example, consider a person looking out from a window of his house. He sees the street, the houses, the people, and the vehicles passing by. If there are no obstructions, he can also see the trees or the lake and the hills that may be lying far beyond. But what is the role of the window in the act of seeing those objects? Does it see all that? No. The window is a means for seeing, while the person is the seer of the window as well as the scene. Moreover, the window cannot "see" the person inside, much like our eyes cannot "see" our soul. Thus, the soul is the seer of the eye as well as the sight.
Another question of the pupil was pertaining to experiencing the soul. By experiencing, we mean the feeling with which is associated the sense of 'I' or `mine'. The Guru tells him to analyze his experience and to find out who experiences the sense of 'I'. For instance, we walk with legs and undergo the experience of walking. That experience is thus associated with the ability of the legs to walk. Now let us analyze it. If, for instance, I lose the ability to walk on account of my legs being inoperative, can I still visualize the former experience of walking? Of course, yes. It means that the experience of 'I used to walk' was not associated with the legs. We can therefore eliminate the legs as being 'I'. As another example, I might have an infection in a finger which needs to be cut off in order to prevent spreading the infection. Now after healing the wound, can I visualize how much pain I had experienced? Of course, yes. Thus we eliminate the finger as having the sense of 'I'.
If we continue that process of elimination, it would be found that none of the limbs or the body parts, with which we normally associate the sense of 'mine' is the experiencer. It means that the act of identifying 'I' with the body is misplaced. The real 'I' is the invisible experiencer that stays within, and which continues to function irrespective of any physical loss, handicap, or disability. That experiencer is the soul.
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