What are the sizes of the soul and the mind?
Answer Podcast
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, the soul is said to be secular than the mind, and the soul is said to be one-tenth of the tip of a hair.
So, what is the size of the mind? Yeah, actually, when Keshava Shatabhaga says, the Upanishads say that the soul is the one-tenth of the tip of a hair. Now, this is actually indicative. It is not descriptive.
Because how are you going to define the tip of a hair? Now, how much is a tip, first of all? This much a tip, or this much a tip, or how much is a tip? The Bhagavad Gita also says, is immeasurable. Immeasurable doesn’t mean immeasurably built. It means immeasurably solved.
So, basically, the measure of the soul that is given, it is not literal. It is indicative of the smallness of the soul. The soul is extremely small.
That is the emphasis over there. And the measure is given as an indication of the smallness. And, as far as the mind is concerned, the mind is basically like a covering around the soul.
So, just like if I have a computer, I can say how much is the weight of the computer. Maybe 1 kg or whatever. But if somebody asks me, what is the weight of the software? Well, weight is a parameter that is not applied to the software.
Software is subtle. So, like that, when you talk about physical dimensions in terms of physical size, that is something which is not applied to the mind. Physical dimensions are applicable to gross objects.
They are not applicable to subtle objects. Like sometimes, some people are very burdened by thoughts. Maybe they are burdened by worries.
Now, can you measure the weight of the worry? We cannot measure the weight. It is a burden, no doubt. So, when I am saying it is subtle, it does not mean it is not real.
It is real. But we cannot put a weight on that. This is one of the great limitations of science.
For example, all of medical science is meant to free people from pain. But, in all of medical science, there is no machine to measure pain. You know, we cannot, we don’t have a tenometer.
We can quantify to say, okay, the hand is, the bone is broken this much, it is misaligned this much. There must be a lot of pain. It is a little displaced, there must be a little pain.
We can get a rough inference. But, it says emotions, they are not quantifiable. We cannot put a mathematical measure on it.
Similarly, the mind is subtle, we cannot put a mathematical measure on it.