When we perceive internally how can we differentiate between the mind and the soul?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, when we close our eyes and try to observe the inner observer, we just can’t because what we are looking with is what we are looking for. So, what is this inner observer? Who is that inner observer? If you consider three level model of the self, that is the body, the mind and the soul, then we understand that the soul is actually the inner observer and the mind is the inner screen. So, when we can, when we close our eyes, we can see the inner screen on which we may remember recent or distant events.
We remember close or distant people. They all appear as a parade on the screen of the mind, but we are not at screen. We are the observer of that screen.
So, now, this three level model of the self, the body, mind and the soul, where the body is the tool for observing outside, the mind is like the integrator of the perceptions that we get from outside and the soul is the observer. This explains various phenomena, both our experiences when we are awake as well as the experiences when we are asleep. Dreams often point to a intriguing possibility.
We are lying comfortably in bed. Our body is inactive. If the body were the experiencer, then we shouldn’t experience anything, but we continue to experience.
We may be playing sports matches. We may be going around with loud ones. We may be running away from dangerous attackers in our dreams.
And who is it that is experiencing it? The body is not experiencing it. So even when the body is inactive, the consciousness is active and that consciousness is coming from the soul, which is channeled through the mind. So in the waking state, the consciousness comes from the soul, through the mind, into the body, to the outer world.
That is called the waking state. In the sleeping state, the consciousness comes from the soul to the mind, but doesn’t come out of the body. So at the bodily level, we are largely inactive, but still we are conscious.
We are conscious of whatever we experience in our dreams. And thus, this is also another way to just the fact that we experience when the body doesn’t experience, that indicates that the experiencer is not the body. So that the inner observer on the that what we have the dream, who is it that observes and where is it observed? The dream is observed on the mental screen, on the mind.
And the experiencer of the dream, the observer is the soul. So we can never see the soul because we are the soul. We see, it is the soul who sees, but by the three-level model of the self, we can make sense of the seeing when we are awake, of the seeing when we are asleep, and we can infer the existence of the seer who exists beyond the waking state and beyond the sleeping states of consciousness.
That seer exists as the source of consciousness and spiritual growth comes when we become conscious of the consciousness beyond the channels of consciousness, beyond the mind, and of course beyond the body. Thank you.