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I am the Soul Of course, in a body too there are changing states. First of all it is a child, then a youth and then it turns old. Through these various states of the body, atma remains the same. The changing states were not of the atma. The one who recognised and accepted childhood, is the same one who recognises youth and enjoys it and recognises old age and bears it. All these three states were experienced by the same atma. It remembers everything. The state of the body changed, but the self did not. This is the proof of the permanence of atma. That it is eternal and states or modifications are subject to formation and abating, therefore impermanent.
Atma is a substance and knowledge etc., are its characteristics. Characteristics are also subject to change. That is to say, there is formation and abating of modifications in them too.
Knowledge is a power that knows. The knowledge in atma, knows the atma itself, experiences it. That is its natural modification. When knowledge introspects, it knows the atma. But when it becomes extrovert, it accepts the subjects of the senses. Senses are instrumental in enabling the knowing of substances. Knowledge in its extrovert state, knows the substances of the world through the senses. This is the affected modification of knowledge. Knowing the world is not the intent of knowledge, not the natural form of atma. But with the arising of karmas providing a reason, the extrovert transaction of knowledge takes place and then it gets attached to the world. Knowledge that is attached to the world knows the inanimate substances, yet it does not itself become inanimate. The knowing of varying substances from time-to-time are its changing modifications from time-to-time. These modifications form and abate, but the characteristic of knowledge never forms, and never gets destroyed. Sometimes due to amnesia, the acquired knowledge gets forgotten, and it appears as if knowledge got
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