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Chapter 8: Guru's Explanation of the Soul's Everlastingness
Explanation & Discussion:
After explaining that the body cannot know the emergence and the extinction of the soul, the Guru asks the pupil to consider who can know about it. It can be stated as a matter of principle that the agency, which knows the emergence and the extinction of an object, must be different from that object. It is therefore clear that only a substance, other than the soul, can experience the emergence and the extinction of the soul.
This concept may seem a little abstract. Let us therefore explain it with an illustration. Suppose the birth or death of a person is to be known. In that case, is it possible for that person to know his own birth or death? Obviously not. Only some one else can know that the person has come into being or that he has come to an end.
Now, if the soul emerges with the body and disappears with its death, as it has been argued, the question would be: "Who knows about such emergence and extinction?" It was explained above that the inanimate body is not capable of knowing anything and only the soul (consciousness) has the property of knowing. Further, there is no other agency that can know about it. Hence to contend the soul's emergence or extinction turns out to be merely imaginary. Thus, there is no emergence or extinction of the soul and it is everlasting.
જે સંયોગો દેખિયે, તે તે અનુભવ દશ્ય; ઊપજે નહિ સંયોગથી, આત્મા નિત્ય પ્રત્યક્ષ.
IIS XII
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