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I am the Soul
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__ भासे जड चैतन्यनो प्रगट स्वभाव भिन्न,
बन्ने द्रव्य निज निज रूपे स्थित थाय छ । It is due to ignorance that the body and the soul seem one, and as a result, the various activities - like illness, sorrow, misery, although they belong to the body have been misconstrued as those of the soul. However, it is not so in fact. The characteristics of both the substances are absolutely different and will remain so.
The characteristic of atma is chetan - spirit. The feeling of knowing and seeing. Body is pudgal, inanimate. Its characteristics are degeneration, degradation, demolition and destruction. The characteristics of atma cannot be in the inanimate. Similarly, the characteristics of the inanimate cannot be in the atma. Both substances are altogether independent. Whatever objects come before the atma, it gets to know them all. Whereas the inanimate would not know anything even if things were lying before it for thousands of years; because knowing is not the quality of the inanimate.
This body is made out of a group of atoms. The body which is a skandha - group of infinite atoms, is prone to getting degenerated, withered, worn out and destroyed. If we have seen the strongest of the bodies withering and wearing out, it is due to this characteristic. While, even after the body withers and wears out, the soul residing in it does not wither or decompose. It remains just as it was. There appears no difference in it whatsoever.
Indeed, body is in the form of inanimate. Atma is formless. Inanimate things are apparent to the senses. But atma cannot be sensed through the senses. We have only seen the body, not the atma. Therefore, Srimadji tells the disciple, ‘Brother! You have acquainted with the body from eternity and got attached to it, and have believed that I am the body itself. As a result you are not prepared to accept that the atma is different from the body.
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