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Verse 77
Body dies, not the soul The body and the soul are two entirely distinct substances. The body is made up of sense organs but the soul is devoid of the senses. The body is devoid of knowledge but the soul is the essence of knowledge. The body is perishable as it experiences birth, survival and extinction but the soul is imperishable. The body has a beginning and an end but the soul has neither beginning nor end.
Our desires for the gratification of the senses - touch, taste, and he rest – cause us injury, bondage, disgrace, and anguish, which are responsible for plunging the soul into the ocean of misery. In different incarnations, due to bondage, the soul has suffered millions of afflictions. In the course of its mundane existence, innumerable bodies have been discarded by the soul. He who contemplates thus is alarmed at the transient nature of the body and miseries of transmigration.
When a man turns his consciousness exclusively to the Ideal of the pure soul, he is saved from indulging in activities that result into perennial entrapment in the world. Knowing the body as unconscious, mortal, and a product of karmas, one who does not undertake activities pertaining to the body performs the essentials of detachment from the body. The soul has the intrinsic attribute of darting upward and the body, being physical matter, is an instrument of pulling the soul downward. The body, being a direct outcome of karmas, is absolutely worth dissociation and detachment for anyone who is treading the path to liberation. Only with such discrimination between the soul and the body can one develop interest and inclination towards the soul and disinterest and disinclination towards anything that is antithetical to the soul.
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