We saw in last post that we are ever-present, constant souls, who get transformed into various bodies.
How does this happen? A disclaimer before I go further: What I am humbly about to present is strictly Vishishtadvaitic interpretation of Vedas. As we go on it will become clearer as to what is this "Vishishtadvatic" philosophy all about and why this interpretation scores.
So, now that I am not my body, what are my characteristics innate to me that I can leverage on apart from this body?
Vedas say that a soul or aatma is ever-constant, unchangeable, has knowledge as its inseparable attribute and is infinitesimally small in nature. There's more, but we'll see it later.
A vedic passage which is quoted by scholars often expresses how small a soul is. It says if you want to find out how small you are, cut the tip of one hair of a cow's tail. Cut that tip into 100 pieces. Take one piece out of that and cut it into 100 more pieces. Go on like this until you can do it physically and then mentally. If you reach a stage where you can't cut it further, then that is the size of a soul or aatma.
The concept is that a soul or aatma is the smallest thing. There is nothing which is smaller than that. Can't believe it? There is a very sound logic behind this whole thing. We saw earlier that a mosquito, a dog or a human - all are essentially souls in different bodies.
If a same constant soul has to take different bodily forms, then it has to be the smallest being so that it can take any form from smallest to largest.
Also, a soul can't be destroyed simply because it is the smallest being. To destroy something, you need something smaller and sharper than that object. When you kill an insect with a stone, the force with which you hit the insect, which is sharper than the insect, is what kills the insect. The same way you can't cut a photon particle with a knife, you can't cut a soul as well with anything.
All this sounds fine in concept, but proof? We see that there are living and non-living things around us. We understand that a mosquito lives a life of its own like we do. Why that, there is world's smallest human being and tallest human being. All of us equal as living beings. How? Only if the ever-constant I, the soul is the same kind for all of us.
We, the ever-constant, ever-present souls are like self illuminated light particles - we are self-illuminated with knowledge (what knowledge? we'll see that later).
But, then how and why is it that one soul is a mosquito and myself a human being? Who decides that and how? What are my boundaries?
Who decides which soul would enter which body? When does the soul enter the body, How? We all know how it exits. Which is easier to explain.
ReplyDeleteYou write well :) But am not convinced with this post, maybe there is more?
ReplyDeleteThere's more obviously... :) But shoot your questions here.. It'll help me understand how much of it reached and how... I'll try and answer that in the comments or in subsequent posts...
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