Who Am I?
Am I a body? Am I the personality within? Or am I something supernal and infinite? Am I a spirit or an entity of soul?
If you see the Vedas and Upanishads you will realize that the soul is like a bird that has just perched on the body.
The body is a machine, and the soul is its rider. When the body dies, the rider moves on to his next destination. The body is also called “the house of death” or “the field of action,” meaning life in the body is a preparation for death and action in the world.
The statement in the Upanishads is aham brahmasmi, “I am Brahman;” that is to say, I am spirit. The corollary is that “I do not matter,” and the meaning of that is, “I am not this body.”
The term aham or ego means “I am”; it is the “I-that-is.” Brahman, on the other hand, refers to the Universal Soul or Spirit, the Atman or real Self. So when we say aham brahmasmi, we are not saying something about ourselves. We are affirming something about our real nature.
Hindus maintain that when we say we do not have a body, what we mean is we are not this or that part of the body, physical body.
As per Vedas and Puran, we are not the body, but the soul in the body is called Atma. And Atma is eternal, unchangeable, self-luminous, all-knowing, all-powerful, universal spirit, free from all material desires and attachments.
We are none of our bodies, our names, or our forms. We are only the eternal soul.
We are that which knows, feels, and wills. We are that which gives all the activities to the mind and body. We are those who experience the objects of knowledge through the mind and organs of senses. We are that which is to be realized by controlling our senses and mind and our activities. We are to be known by knowing the Self within and not by the knowledge of the objects without.
Vedas tells us we are neither male nor female, not this body, not the mind, not even the life-breath, but the immortal, all-pervading living force called Brahman which is beyond the Triputi. That’s why you never find Brahman referred to as a male or a female in the Vedas. The soul is Atman, a female which can never be subjected to any other entity but herself. It is a Jivatman inside this Vivartavada body that got changes according to the gunas of Prakrti, the material cause of the phenomenal world. So Atman is never bound by this body or by the mind or by the vital air or even by the senses. It would be mistaken to think that we are our bodies, our minds, or even our feelings.
The main goal of the Soul is to attain freedom, liberation, and salvation. It is the inner self of man that makes its appearance from time to time in various bodies throughout life in this material world. As per Vedas and Puran, the soul is the real guide in the life of a person and makes him do virtuous or vicious deeds depending upon his deeds and karmas. Various types of karmas bring about happiness or misery in the life of a person. If a person does virtuous acts he becomes happy and when he does sinful deeds he becomes miserable. It is because of one’s selfishness, stubbornness, malevolence, and ignorance, man rejects the truth and inclines toward Untruth. Due to attachment and aversion towards worldly objects, man fails to see the real truth. Therefore, it is necessary to get rid of these tendencies to attain freedom and attain true knowledge.
I have gone through all the Vedas and many other scriptures, so far, there are so many references that mention the Soul and Brahman. I wanted to know if I am my body or not? The human body serves as a vehicle for the soul. The soul is what resides in the body and gives it life. The scriptures tell us that we are not our bodies. We are the soul occupying the body.
In this world, we see people dying every day. People lose their lives to accidents and tragedies, which means that their bodies and souls separate from each other. Death, then, is nothing more than the soul departing from the body. However, we do not remember who we were before we were born. Hinduism takes death very seriously because, in death, we are faced with our true selves and need to recognize who we truly are. In truth, we are pure spirits and we need to see ourselves as such.
The (Yoga) Sutras says that the spirit soul is the conscious energy of Krishna and that without the spirit soul, Krishna is just an inert material force. So from the Bhagwad Gita and the Yoga Sutras, we can understand that in the spiritual realm, Krishna is the supreme soul-conscious being, and all other living entities are His subordinate souls.
Anusasan Part 3.30: "The Supreme Lord God forgets nothing. He is near to everyone, yet he dwells far away from everyone. He has created this entire universe in such a way that it has its own free will.
There are many other ancient texts in Hinduism that support this view. The Vaisheshika Sutra states that: “The consciousness of every entity is dependent on the presence of an all-pervasive conscious soul, which is unconditioned and eternal.” The Samkhya Sutra states that: “There is all-pervasive spiritual conscious energy in the world. It is aprakrita (chain) [not created by something else], absolutely free from all adjuncts, indivisible, and not subject to change.”
Unconditional love, peace, and happiness in life can be achieved by overcoming four obstacles: ignorance, ego, desire, and fear. Spiritual Dhyana provides simple spiritual solutions to achieve a happy and peaceful life while living in the material world.
When we observe closely, we find that all our experiences like happiness, sorrow, joy, misery, worry, etc., are arising and disappearing within us without any need of any external help. All our experiences in life are only the modifications of our Self. The source or root of all these experiences is our Self only. We think that we are all separate individuals due to ignorance. But when ignorance goes away, we realize that we are all the same Self. This is the Upanishadic wisdom.
In the Kathopanishad (3-2-1), Katha means story and upa means near and ni means down. So Kathopanishad means near to the nearness. The Vedas were given as teachings to mankind by noble souls who were given that knowledge from God.
The human mind is the most powerful creature on earth. It can plan, create, destroy and it can be the reason for unhappiness or happiness. Our mind is filled with thoughts, feelings, and emotions. The Vedas, Upanishads, and Puranas have mentioned in great detail about the mind. These scriptures are considered as the words of God or as per these scriptures man is a ‘child of God’. This post is about the power of the mind and its connection with one’s Atman or soul.
In Hinduism, there are three levels of beings: 1) spiritual being, 2) human being, and 3) material is. The Atman or soul is known as a spiritual being and it is a particle of God that gets connected to the human body at the time of birth.
