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Samādhitantram
Mahāmati:
“O dear Mahāmati, your assertion that the soul's existence cannot be proved is flawed. Besides the four substances you mentioned, we also experience consciousness (cetanā) in the form of knowledge and faith. The soul, that is, consciousness, is non-corporeal while the body is corporeal. Body can be seen and experienced through the senses but the soul cannot be seen and experienced through the senses; it can be known only through self-knowledge. The body and the soul, therefore, are altogether different substances. Relationship between the soul and the body is like that between the sword and the sheath; the two have altogether different attributes. If you say that different parts of the body are produced by different quartets of earth, water, fire, and air, then each part should have different kind of consciousness. But same consciousness pervades in whole of the body and, therefore, the soul is one integral whole, not produced out of the four substances mentioned by you. Besides, under no circumstance, the body with form can produce something that is without form. If you argue that the senses that have form produce knowledge, which is without form, then we submit that the knowledge borne out of the senses is with form. The soul, when bound with karmas in its worldly state of existence, is with form, from a particular point of view. Thus, your insistence that a substance with form can produce a formless substance does not hold water. Substances, earth etc., get transformed into the body due to the instrumental cause (nimitta kāraṇa) of the worldly soul which is bound with karmas. Your assertion that the soul originates with the body, and is destroyed with the body - like the bubble that is formed out of water and ends in water - does not stand scrutiny as the body and the soul are two distinct, non-similar substances. Only the soul can be the substantial cause (upādana kāraṇa) of consciousness because
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