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I am the Soul
367 Through the words of the Guru, Srimadji says that the jiva has been repeating a mistake from eternity. It is because of this mistake that the jiva is wandering in this material world. Had the mistake been eliminated then the wandering would have stopped. But because the mistake was not corrected the jiva is struggling. This mistake is the dehadhyas - the attachment with the body.
What is dehadhyas? There are two words deha and adhyas here. Of those, the word adhyas = adhi + as. Adhi is a prefix. It has two meanings : one, inside and two, above. The word as is derived from the root stha - tishtha. It means to sit. Therefore, the word adhyas means 'to sit within, or above?. Here, by combining it with the word deha - body, the meaning derived is 'to sit in the body'. That is attachment with the body. The deception that 'I am the body' is dehadhyas.
At first there is abhyas - a study, and then there is adhyas. Something that you study deeply i.e. memorise repeatedly, are acquainted with repeatedly, that is abhyas and not forgetting even for a moment the continuity of this abhyas is adhyas.
The biggest adhyas that is there in a jiva is for the body. It can forget a lot of other things. But it has never forgotten that it is a body. What is the reason? This jiva has taken infinite births until today. In every birth a body was always there. Eyes, ears, nose, tongue may well not have been there. Sometimes there may have been two, three, four or five different senses but there never was a birth where he had to remain without a body. Therefore, the jiva has developed a familiarity with the body. The jiva has been living with the body for infinite time now. It does not for even a moment forget the body and this memory remains even while asleep.
If a mosquito bites in the middle of deep sleep at night, it registers immediately. The soul realises that the body is hurt.
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