The classical description of ‘who we are comes’ from Adi
Shankaracharya’s Bhaja Govindam, where he says that even the wife refuses to
touch the same physical body after death, with which she has been fondling all
these years and if she touches it, a ritual bath has to be taken. This means
physical body is not what we are.
If we weigh physical body before and after death there will
be no difference. The life force also called consciousness or atman has no
weight, shape or dimensions.
In Bhagavad Gita, Krishna
in Chapter 2 describes its characteristics as “fire cannot burn it, air cannot
dry it, weapons cannot cut it, and water cannot wet it. It is omnipotent,
omnipresence and omniscient”.
Though modern medicine may not talk about soul but it does
differentiate life and death based on certain parameters.
Vedic description describes five different movement forces
in the body: apana vayu expulses urine, stool, baby and menses; samana vayu
controls the intestinal movements; vyana vayu controls the circulatory system;
udana vayu controls the neurological impulses and the connection between soul
and spirit; and prana vayu controls the brain stem reflexes.
Soul or consciousness is linked to udana vayu and prana
vayu. The best description of these five forces apart from Ayurveda text comes
from prasannopanishad.
A patient with brain stem death can be kept on ventilator
for months together, as the body has normal vyana vayu, sana vayu and apana
vayus. The patient will therefore, maintain blood pressure, GI functions,
urinary functions and reproductive functions. These three vayus are controlled
by the atmospheric oxygen and not by the life force.
Can anyone remember the weight, height, abdominal
circumference or size of collar, waist or shoes of Lord Krishna? He is only
known only from his actions and the soul profile.
All of us have physical, mental, intellectual, ego and soul
characteristics. Soul characteristics in all are same & are positive. The
examples are love, compassion, care, humility, etc. These soul characteristics
are influenced by the subtle mind, intellect and ego characteristics.
While introducing ourselves, most of the times we talk about
define our intellectual or ego profile and not the soul profile. When we
describe our status, house, car or money, we are describing our ego profile and
not the soul profile. Our aim in life should be to understand our soul profile,
as without the soul nobody will come near us. The same very people will dispose
off our body at the earliest opportunity they get.
Most of us co-relate life span with the life span of the
physical body, which has to perish sooner or later. When we ask people how long
they want to live their usual answers are 60 yrs, 70 yrs, 80 yrs or 90
yrs. Nobody thinks beyond physical death. People like Mahatma Gandhi, Indira
Gandhi, Mother Teresa are not dead. Though their physical body does not exist,
their good karmas, work, memories and the soul profiles are still alive.
The purpose of life should be to create an atmosphere or an
aura in such a way that the society remembers us after the death of our
physical body. This is only possible when we shift our thinking from the ego
profile to the soul profile.
Soul is nothing but an energized field of information and
can be equated to the live information fed in any computer or mobile phone.
Both computer and mobile phones with and without information weigh the same.
Similarly, weight of radio does not change weather the radio is on or off. The
live data information in the TV, radio or mobile phone can be termed as their
soul. A computer without this soul is useless, so are the mobile and radio
sets.
The information is always static and still without any
movements. This information in a computer requires a software to run. The
static soul in our body also requires a software called life force.
Soul, thus van be described as a combination of the life
force and the static information. In Hindu mythology this is called shiva and
shakti. Some people describe them as prana and chitta. In vedic philosophy by
controlling prana one can control chitta and vice versa.
For a computer to operate one requires two softwares:
operational software and application software. Operational software makes the
computer do basic work and application software helps one to manipulate the
data the way one wants.
All of us our born with the operational software or the life
force. We develop and create our own application software over a period of time
by using the triad of action, memory and desires.
To understand oneself, therefore, one needs to control our
own application software and do not let them go beyond its desired scope of
work.
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