Gita 02.20-30 Go beyond lamentation by understanding the eternality of the soul and the multiplicity of its reincarnations
Bhagavad Gita chapter 6 Sorry chapter 2 Text 20 to 30 And here The stress in the Bhagavad Gita Section Of the second chapter Is on Freeing oneself From lamentation Jiva Goswami In his Satsang Darbhas Analyses How do we understand The essential message of a book And he says we can look At the bracketing statements What comes in the beginning And what comes in the end So the first words of instruction That Krishna speaks to Arjuna Is of Arjuna You are lamenting for that which is not Worthy of lamentation And then the last words that he speaks That is of instruction Again 18.66 Is Maa Shuja Hmm So in both these cases His focus is on Hmm Do not lament So Sometimes you may feel that the Bhagavad Gita is having too much Complex philosophy But all that complex philosophy Has a simple purpose And that purpose Is to free us from Lamentation So this is the bracketing statements That do not lament And The main reasoning For not lamenting That Krishna gives in this section Is that The soul is eternal Therefore what reason do you have to lament Because the soul is Eternal So therefore you can simply Recognise the eternality Of your own spiritual identity And thus Stay free from lamentation And you can recognise the eternality of others And thereby stay free from lamentation So now this eternality Krishna analyses it In a very specific way Many religions Have an idea that There is an afterlife, there is another world And that is where we are going to go But if you look at the biblical literature They do talk about The soul quite extensively But The soul Is More like a Metaphorical reference To our non-material essence It is not A tangible Entity So they don't have this conception That the soul and the body can exist Separately They have the idea that is why they They don't cremate the body They bury the body And their idea is That actually when resurrection Happens, the body is going to be Restored So although the idea of soul is there But the soul Has been distinct from the body That is not so much There in their tradition Yeah So because of this The result Is that when people Even Conceive of The higher world That higher world is also conceived In material terms So Just understanding That there is another life That alone is not enough For spiritualization Of consciousness Christianity and to some extent Islam They believe in soul But they do not believe in reincarnation Buddhism Believes in reincarnation But it does not believe in the soul So now you wonder what about reincarnates If you say Buddhism doesn't Believe in the soul They say that Sorry Yeah Yeah They have the idea that The samskaras Which are all combined together They act as some kind of energy of Consciousness And then they move onwards from one life to another life And when all those impressions Of coming from Past life of our desires Of our memories Of our experiences, they are neutralised At the state of samadhi Then they just There is a dissolution of existence So the example That they give for this Is a standard example That they suggest That the candle is there The candle appears to us To be The candle's flame appears to be a fixed entity But actually there is no such thing as a candle's flame The candle is burning and the flame is Appearing So their consciousness is like that And when the candle gets extinguished There is nothing left But this is not a complete Explanation. The Bhagavatam also uses this Example. But the point is To know that the candle's flame Is not continuous There has to be some observer who is Continuous So we cannot say all of reality Is simply a Hazy Discontinuity that simply appears continuous So Sometimes if you have a Lighted candle Or if you just move it round and round fast It appears like a circle That's because of persistence of vision So actually there is no circle of fire There is only a candle which is moving Or a light stick that is moving But to recognise that this is an illusion That there is no circle There has to be some continuous observer So there is consciousness Which is eternal And that consciousness Transmigrates from one body to another body That is the Bhagavata's understanding So we can have on one side The soul without reincarnation And the other side we can have the reincarnation Without the soul And both lead to incomplete Understanding of reality When we conceive the soul Without reincarnation Then we have the Christian idea Of one life only Otherwise you have eternal damnation If you don't surrender to God And that makes God out to be a very cruel person Who Who gives only one chance And for many he doesn't even give that chance Because what about many people who have never heard about Jesus They live and die without hearing about Jesus So The idea of soul without reincarnation Leads to Very fragmented Understanding The idea of reincarnation without soul Again makes existence ultimately pointless Yes existence is distressful And the end of it all is just to end our existence And end our distress So both of these are not very Affirmative visions of life And now The Bhagavad Gita has still now Talked about The difference between the body and the soul From 2.11, 2.12, 2.13 Krishna introduced that you are not the body or the soul And he talks about the wise people see the spiritual See the material And they are not disturbed When we lose the body That which pervades the body is imperishable That was 2.17 2.18 was The body is perishable but the soul is imperishable So now we come to 2.20 So here Krishna speaks about How when we perceive The body The body and the soul The difference he lists In certain terms So he says The soul there is neither birth nor death It has not come into being It is not going to It will never come into being So what this means is This can seem a little paradoxical Essentially there is a conception of Eternality in all religions But again the conception of Eternality is also different Many Christians have the idea That when a man and a woman unite At that time a new soul is created Because they don't accept The idea of Reincarnation Reincarnation means after this life we come again So when they don't accept reincarnation They can't even accept pre-existence So their idea is that Every time when a man and a woman unite A new soul is created And Their idea is From the point of creation the soul is eternal So their conception of eternality is From here to infinity Not from From infinity in the past To infinity in the future So it's like if you have infinity as a symbol You will have like half infinity Their conception is that eternality means From now onwards to eternity But it's more of half infinity When Krishna is saying that The soul doesn't come into being The soul does not have birth It does not mean that How does it exist? It exists outside The time domain So it is not the question of Coming into existence It is for something which is in the time domain But something which is not in the time domain The question of coming into existence doesn't come The first thing he is saying here is That actually the soul is Beyond the jurisdiction of time It does not have a beginning It does not have an end And that's why So it's unborn It is beginningless, it is eternal, it is indestructible And more categories In Arjuna's context he says Actually it is not destroyed when the body is destroyed So the body Undergoes Six different changes Does anyone know what are the changes the body undergoes? It's born Something like Maintaining itself And then there was growth Let's contrast it To understand Had the changes registered Let's simply compare it With what happens To non-living material objects Sometimes people may ask Is there any Objective way We can know a soul exists So one way Is that we see Matter in which soul is present And matter in which soul is not present They behave in categorically different ways Say This chair is here The chair It's life cycle has basically three phases It's creation Deterioration And destruction Three phases are there But when there is life present In a particular material structure In the body or whatever There are three more stages First is growth Infant after getting born Grows No matter how well designed A machine we make With the best technology We can't get a machine to grow We can get the data on it to grow We can get the garbage on it to grow We can get the junk on it to grow But we can't get the machine to grow So what it is The presence of consciousness That causes Growth to happen The second distinctive characteristic Of what we could call as En-souled matter Normally we talk about embodied soul The soul is present in the body But we can also talk about En-souled matter That means matter in which soul is present That matter Behaves differently from ordinary matter The second characteristic is That it maintains itself So for example If I get a knife And cut this wood The crack will remain there forever But If I get a knife and cut my hand The cut will be there But soon Clotting will happen, healing will happen The body will try to maintain itself So again En-souled matter It doesn't just exist, it grows And it tries to maintain itself And third is Reproduces It is common Reproduces Even with the best of technology We can't have A robo A male robo or a female robo Coming together and producing a baby robo Sometimes science fiction movies may It may happen Science fiction movies may depict like that The challenge with saying that it may happen In the future Is that there is At a biological level Something fundamentally different happening That we just don't know With the current conception of science Because Science currently considers Biology as derived From physics and chemistry That physics is We talk about matter, atoms, molecules For example, atomic particles And their interactions are discussed And that's how biology comes up Now With respect to Producing life In terms of starting from scratch From matter and producing The challenge is that we just don't know How Unconscious matter Leads to consciousness The more Machines have advanced The more machines are able To do information processing And in many cases There are robots which can do information processing Better than what we humans can do But They do it all Without experiencing any emotions So A chess playing computer Can play Chess better than A world champion May defeat the world champion also But the chess playing computer Does not experience any emotions at all It's just crunching numbers It's just doing 0,1,0,1,0,1,0,1 permutations Combinations at very high speed So If we try to compare human Intelligence with machine intelligence The question We ask is not whether machines can Do things as well as humans Do or machines can do things better than humans Can do.
They may be able to do Information processing better But We have feelings We experience emotions This is what Philosophers of science as well as scientists Call as a hard problem of consciousness The hard problem Of consciousness is why do we have Feelings If a machine can do Most of the information processing that we humans Can do and can do it better And if our goal is simply Information processing then why do machines have Why do we humans Have been given consciousness at all There are two different categories Of existence So the reproduction Is something Which is distinctive because we As conscious beings Have Eternal life originally And we try to eternalise our existence In many ways One is we try to eternalise our own bodies Another is we try to eternalise existence by Reproduction Some part of me will continue To live through reproduction So Krishna is telling that these changes These exchanges which happen In the body Do not happen in the soul And that's why he is saying The soul will be destroyed The body is destroyed but the soul is not destroyed So he says Again Krishna is Emphasising that soul is eternal Know it to be So if we know the soul to be eternal Then what happens Krishna says that How is it possible That Who will kill and who will be killed Because actually the soul is eternal So Krishna is telling That at the body level Destruction is inevitable Now of course This is not a licence For wanton killing This is not a licence for indiscriminate violence Saying that oh ultimately The soul is never destroyed The Bhagavad Gita itself Has sections where it talks about Ahimsa Non-violence And the Bhagavad Gita If it's argument is simply The soul is eternal, the body is destructible Therefore destroy the body Then there would be no need to talk so much 18 chapters, Krishna would have completed the Bhagavad Gita In just the first chapter, in the second chapter itself So One should not cause violence to other living beings That's the fundamental principle But At certain times If some living beings are misusing their freedom terribly They are hurting themselves And they are hurting others Then at such times it may be required So the Bhagavad Gita is talking about An exceptional situation And after describing this Arjuna is told Confronted with a rhetorical question Who is going to kill And who is going to be killed So don't get so worked up About that which is anyway Unavoidable, so he is telling him that Actually the body is going to die And to Stress this point that Existence Doesn't end with Body in the existence Krishna gives an example now In 2.22 he states So he says that just as The body, this is the person Gives up an old dress and takes a new one Similarly the soul gives up An old body and takes a new body Now this dress example is Very significant Because We keep changing our dresses And we may, sometimes we have a particular Set of clothes which we wear We may become attached to them also I look so nice in this But it is just, nobody keeps wearing the same Clothes for the rest of their lifetime Keeps changing clothes So this is a normal part of living So Krishna has given this example to illustrate that Leaving the body Is a normal part of living This is we get a We wear a new dress after we discard one Similarly we leave this body and we get another Body, there is no need to get worked up about it And this also Brings up subsidiary points That Firstly if I Have found a My dress has become old, I want to get a new dress So how do I Purchase new clothes What are the factors that I consider When I purchase new clothes Money That's one thing, and second Quality, what is quality related with From our perspective Our liking, isn't it So our desires and our budget In Sanskrit this can be called as Our karma and our karma Karma is our desire Our karma is our The kind of karma that we have done That is like our budget So when the soul leaves one body And goes to another body What kind of body it will get It's same two criteria Which determine what kind of dress we will get So what is the kind of karma That we have done, that is the karmic budget And what is the Kind of karma that we have done What is the kind of Desires we have So say people in India May desire, oh I dream About going to America But if they are living in very Materialistic consciousness Just pursuing animalistic pleasures Then They will be born in America In a future life, the desire is there But if they don't have the karma Then they will be born in America Not in a human body But they may be born as an American mouse The desire will be fulfilled But the desire will be fulfilled In a way that adjusts with the karma also So Krishna is stressing Two things over here It's a natural process, we change the dress And giving up all the dress Does not mean losing the personality Or losing the person, the person continues to exist Similarly Krishna is creating A sense of detachment for Arjuna Don't worry so much Those whom you love Bhishma and Drona They are going to get a new body And in a sense When a person dies At one place There is lamentation of this person has died But At another place a child is born And there is celebration over there Just like When we Buy a new set of clothes We get a new set of clothes, we are happy about it I got new clothes now So The same situation Which At one level Is a cause of distress Of lamentation That same situation At another level is a cause of celebration And this Dynamic of celebration And lamentation Going together I lost my old cloth, if I am going to focus on that I will lament I got new cloth Then I can celebrate Krishna is saying Arjuna don't lament so much And then He Moves forward After telling this example He says that actually the soul and the body Are categorically different So he stresses Is it that When a person dies Okay I am going to shoot arrows at Bhishma and Drona So are the arrows going to hurt them Aren't they going to feel pain Krishna has told earlier That there is always going to be pain at the bodily level Pain and pleasure both need to be tolerated That he spoke in 2.40 Tam sthitikshasubhad Which is tolerated But here he stresses That actually There is no need for you To fear that They themselves, the core of the soul Is going to be hurt Because he says Nainam chindanti shastrani Nainam dahati pavakaha Nachainam kledayantyapo Nishoshayati marutaha That All the ways in which The body can be destroyed None of those can destroy the soul Nainam chindanti shastrani Weapons can't pierce the soul Nainam dahati pavakaha Fire cannot burn the soul Nachainam kledayantyapo Water cannot dissolve The soul Nishoshayati marutaha Nor can stormy wind Wither away the soul Now here Krishna speaks In terms of actions And then Next verse he speaks the same point In terms of characteristics We can say fire burns So burning is Action and fire Burning is a verb Fire is a noun that describes the action of burning So the same point Which Krishna has mentioned In terms of actions In 2.23 he reiterates In terms of qualities In 2.24 So for example We put some We put some object It falls in fire It's going to be destroyed Some object falls into Say we have some phone It falls into a bucket Oh no my phone is going to be destroyed And then I take it out and I say Nothing has happened. Oh it is waterproof So at one level I may say that the phone Is not going to be damaged When you put it in water When it falls into water That's one way of stating it And second statement I may say Why is it not going to be damaged Because it is waterproof So Krishna has said in the first verse In 2.23 he said that It's not going to be pierced by weapons Why is it not going to be pierced by weapons That he describes in the next verse He says over here that He says that in none of these ways Is the soul going to be destroyed The soul is eternal So he says So he says So he says the same four characteristics It is indissoluble It is insoluble It is non-inflammable It is non-pierceable And it is non-witherable And then he says further things It is nitya which we mentioned earlier Eternal It is all pervading Now There is a whole different subject But according to Vedic cosmology Life is not restricted to The earthly planetary system itself Now what scientists can say Is That life as we know it Cannot exist on other planets But they can't make a statement That life itself doesn't exist Because how do we know that life doesn't exist We basically look for atmospheric conditions Is there enough oxygen Is there enough water Is the temperature suitable But what if there is some other kind of life form Which does not require oxygen Now deep inside Scientists have discovered a kind of species Called as extremophiles Extremophiles means Extreme is extremities as we say Phile means to love So extremophiles are living beings Which live in extremely hot conditions Or extremely cold conditions So deep under the earth's ground Where we would think that Things are very very hot Deep in the crust They found certain bacteria which live At temperatures which are as high as fire So colloquially they are Doubled as fire bacteria Which can live literally in fire Similarly deep inside the ocean At places where no sunlight can ever reach There has been found life forms Which actually breathe in nitrogen dioxide They don't need oxygen to breathe They breathe in nitrogen dioxide and live So the soul So the point is life is remarkably Variegated In how it can flourish So logically speaking If you consider the earth Prabhupada gave a simple reasoning If you look at the earth Even in a tiny crack in the earth We will find ants We will find grass growing He says on the earth We see life even in the cracks And then we say there is no life Anywhere else So what a waste of space Here even in the tiniest Of cracks we find life And other places there is no life In the whole cosmos All that we can say is life as we know it Doesn't exist But life doesn't Have to be as we know it Because the soul Is not Limited Is not affected by any material condition So in different Material conditions the soul will be provided With the appropriate body By which it can exist Yeah You had it Paramatma Yeah Yeah Yeah So What is the difference between the Paramatma And us Is there one soul or two souls present We are parts of the Supreme At the same time We are not parts Which are integral So for example We are separated parts So for example If I have a car And the car has a Wheel which I am driving The car has some spare wheel Which is kept in the back side So basically The car has parts One part will be removed Another part may come over there The part belongs to the whole For it to function But the whole doesn't depend on the part If one tyre is removed Another tyre can come and it can function So like that We are parts In the sense that We are meant to function with the whole But we have our individual identity Right now you are having Certain emotions, certain feelings I am having certain emotions, certain feelings Certain thoughts So we are all individuals Our individuality is not to be denied But what is The reality is That along with our individual Consciousness, there is another consciousness And that consciousness Is the consciousness of the Supreme Being So for example Sometimes when we get inspiration How do we get that inspiration? What happens? How do we suddenly get Hey, this is what happened How do we understand that? That's actually through Through spiritual wisdom Through the presence Of the Supersoul in the heart The Paramatma, He gives us the intelligence At one moment We don't know the answer, at another moment Suddenly we know the answer Most of the scientific breakthroughs have happened through inspiration Suddenly people get Hey, this is the answer So that's how we can Infer to some extent that there is a higher Intelligence present beyond us So we are connected with that The connections of a part and a whole But the part and the whole are not the same They are two different So they are not entirely unconnected But they are not entirely conflated also They are two distinct entities Which are connected So there is the small soul That is we, and there is the big soul The Anuatma and the Vibhuatma Or the Paramatma The Paramatma is a manifestation of God Does that answer your question? Okay, so you are saying Our soul is like A little piece And then the Paramatma is Krishna Himself Correct, yes So we are like sparks, Krishna is like the sun Okay, yeah but it is confusing Because we all have the Paramatma also But it's just one Oh yeah, so When we have the Paramatma within us That is one Paramatma who is manifested in many forms It's like the sun may be in the sky And if I keep 10 pots Of water on the ground Then the same sun Will be seen in all the pots Sun is one Similarly it is said in the 13th chapter That although the soul is The supreme soul is one But he appears as if he is separately situated Okay, thank you You had a question somewhere? Okay, vibhu means very big So the great soul Or as Prabhupada translates Super soul It's actually Prabhupada's own translation Like we have superman, so super soul The soul who has extraordinary powers So vibhu is the great soul Anu is the small soul So we are the Anuatma And the Lord is the Paramatma So I'll try to go through the remaining verses quickly Now Krishna continues describing the characteristics One more characteristic he describes here is Achelo yam sanat Achelo means the soul is immovable Now you may say how is the soul immovable? Just now Krishna has said that The soul goes from one body to another body So what do you mean by immovable? Krishna is talking here in the context of matter The soul is not movable By anything material The soul moves only by its free will So even when the soul goes from one body to another body It is Quite instructive I'll tell you how it happens Say somebody is caught in watching a TV And some thief comes in the house And a thief picks up the TV And starts running away And this person is so caught in watching the TV This person follows the thief And keeps watching the TV So like that We as souls When the agents of death They come, they catch The subtle body The mind, intelligence, ego And they drag the subtle body And the soul is so attached to the subtle body The soul goes to the subtle body So that's how the soul is immovable But the soul moves by its own will Because of its attachments Now 25th is Avyaktoyam chintoyam Avikaryoyam uchyate Tasmadevam viditvaynam Nanushochitum arhase Now says that the soul is unmanifest The soul is inconceivable The soul is unchangeable So basically throughout Krishna is here Using the method of negation It's not like this, not like this Not like this So whatever matter is, soul is not like that And knowing this Therefore Arjuna does not lament Tasmadevam vinitvainam. Knowing this, do not lament.
Nanu shochitu marhasi. I said the Gita's central message is do not lament. And we'll see this theme being repeated verse after verse.
In the 26th verse, he says, Atachainam nityajatam nityam vamanyasemrtam tathapitam mahabaho nainam shochitu marhasi. Therefore, do not lament. Krishna is just for the sake of argument now, using another thread of thought.
If you still think that actually we are simply lumps of matter, and suddenly somehow life has come. Basically, life is simply chemical transformation. So many chemicals are processed in the laboratories every day.
We don't lament for them. One chemical comes into a box, another chemical may come into a beaker, another chemical may go out of the beaker. We don't cry about that.
Krishna is saying that if you think that life is simply a lump conglomeration of chemicals, then that it's constantly being chemicals are getting manufactured, chemicals are getting destroyed. Why lament about that? So Krishna is taking the sceptical argument over here. The atheistic argument, and he's saying from that perspective, there's no meaning to anything at all.
So we are simply a lump of chemicals which has somehow come alive. And chemicals keep constantly changing. So why lament about this particular change? जातस्य हि धुर्वो मृत्यो धुर्वं जन्मा मृत्यो तस्माद अपरिहारियर्थे नत्वं शोचितुमर्थस्य। Again, Krishna says, do not lament.
That is a consistent theme. And he says, for one who is born, death is inevitable. And Krishna says, if we understand soul's eternality, then for one who has died, birth is also eternal.
तस्माद अपरिहारियर्थे Therefore, for that which is unavoidable, why do you lament? See, a sign of wisdom is to not waste our breath on that which is unavoidable. Like say, if it's very cold on a particular day. It's so cold, it's so cold, it's so cold, it's so cold.
And what is it going to achieve saying like this? It's cold. Well, I have to get some warm clothes. I have to do what I need to do to adjust.
But I have to move on. So once, most of the times we lament about a particular state of affairs, as long as we feel, oh, if only it could have been some other way. But once we accept this is not going to change, then just move on.
Just move on. That's what Krishna is telling over here. And then he says, अव्यक्ताधीनि भूतानि व्यक्तमध्यानि भारत अव्यक्तनि धनान्येव तत्रकापरिदेवन So he says that actually the soul was unmanifest before, then it becomes manifested, then it becomes unmanifested.
So he's referring to soul here, consciousness. So life is not there initially. Life is manifested, after that it becomes unmanifested.
So what's the big deal in the change in all this? So if you look at it from material perspective, the existence is just like a dream. First we were awake, then we had a dream and the dream went off. What is the point? Okay, the dream is over.
The dream was never really there. So while I'm at, oh, I had a wonderful dream, it's over now. So don't bother about it, Krishna says.
Then there is a verse which is filled with poetic ornaments over here. आश्चेर्यवत पश्चति कश्चिदेनं आश्चेर्यवत वदरित तहीं आश्चेर्यवच्चैनवन्यः शुनोति शुत्वाप्येनं वेदनचैवकश्चेदेन् Krishna says that आश्चेर्यवत, amazing, soul is amazing. And he's talking about from a perspective of knowledge, how different people can seem amazing in different ways.
That for one who sees the soul, such an amazing concept, the soul, there's one tiny soul. So eliminating, which is animating the body of an ant. And at the same time, a similar tiny soul is animating the body of a wing, huge body.
How is it so amazing? And some people hear about it. That's what they come to know about it. My God, there's something called a soul.
That's astounding. They get enlightened by that. Some people, they hear, they just don't understand, no matter what happens.
So Krishna is talking about a fourth category, some people who talk about the soul. We talk about it and we get more and more realising, I am not the body, I am the soul. So in this way, Krishna says, yes, this idea, inside the body, there is a soul.
This is an amazing conception. And he says, देही नित्यमावध्योयम् देहे सर्वस्यभारत तस्माद परिहारे अर्थे नत्वं शोचितुमर्हसी He says, देही नित्यमावध्योयम्, where Krishna is concluding the section. Therefore, knowing that the soul is eternal and indestructible, that inside the destructible body, therefore, Arjuna, do not lament.
Do not lament for anyone, सर्वाणि भूताः. Actually, everybody is eternal, nobody is going to die. Therefore, do not lament.
So the Gita's message is, do not lament. And we personally can apply this in our lives when we feel distressed too much about something, I lost this, this didn't work out, that went off like that in my life. But just, I as a soul am indestructible.
None of this is actually affecting me. If it's not so easy to contemplate like that, but even at an intellectual level, if you contemplate that, there's some calmness that comes. There is, we understand that life to some extent is like a movie.
But it is a movie that we don't have to always watch. Just like when a movie, some nasty things are there happening, just close your eyes, I don't want to see this. So, we have to function in the world, but we don't have to be obsessed with the world.
Many times when distressful things happen, to the extent we think about those things, to that extent the distress is increased. But if we have something else to think about, we just close our eyes, that means we turn off our consciousness, away from whatever is in this world, and think of something else. That will calm us down.
That will help us to not become overwhelmed by negativity and lamentations. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.
Thank you. Any last question? Very quickly, yeah. So, what you mentioned about the experience that the soul, one way of differentiating this machine from the living entity is the experience that the person gets.
And so, I was just thinking that, well, that generally just gives an explanation of like the subtle body of the mind experiencing it. But what could be, say, like a similar scientific way of representing for, you know, explanation of soul or how the soul is such? Okay. So, your question is that, how can we explain scientifically that the soul is achitananda? If we say that there is experience, then that simply points to a subtle body.
Not necessarily. Firstly, we have to choose our battles. That means we can't fight a hundred misconceptions at the same time.
So, the first battle we fight is, is there something more than the body? Now, what is beyond the physical? What nomenclature we use? That's something we can discuss later. But first point is, is there something beyond the body? So, we experience emotions. And if you consider the body as made of simply biochemicals, that biochemicals themselves don't have consciousness.
So, how do we experience emotions? There's something beyond the body, which is the experiencer. Now, what exactly an experiencer is, that is another category of question. Now, to deal with this, we have to understand that the same word can have different meanings in different contexts.
So, for example, the word mind. Now, we normally, we refer to the mind as the intermediate between the body and the soul, like a software in a computer system, the hardware and user of the body and the soul respectively. But that is not the way the mind, the word mind is used all the time.
We may say, have you lost your mind? Here, what does mind mean? It means intelligence. Why are you acting so foolishly? So, here we refer to the mind as intelligence. If somebody is getting distracted looking at you, give this your full mind.
It's an important issue. Here we are referring to mind as attention. Pay attention.
Give this your full mind. So, here we use the mind in a different sense. Sometimes we may use the word mind to also refer to not just intelligence, but intellectual capacity.
Einstein was one of the greatest minds of the last century. That means the person with a great intellectual capacity. So, like that, the word mind can be used in different senses.
So, we sometimes may use the word in a particular sense and others may have another sense. So, your question essentially is that beyond the physical, how can we know there are two levels, there is mental and there is spiritual? So, first of all, in Western philosophical thought, they often talk about mind-matter duality. And when they use the word mind in Western philosophical thought, that they refer to anything non-physical.
So, in their philosophical thinking, mind and soul are conflated together in one level. Whatever is not matter, that is mind. That is what Rene Descartes said, Descartes had Cartesian duality, which is mind and matter.
So, when we come to processing, we focus on the principle that the mind is actually eternal. Sorry, there is something in us that is eternal. If we just understand the concept, the terminology, we are talking about the mind as a means of interface.
So, in our terminology, how we define mind is, it is a tool for the interface of the soul and the body. Just like the software is a tool for the interface of the computer and the user. So, if we clarify this terminology, then we will understand that the mind alone cannot be enough.
Because the mind is also software. It's not the active agent. It doesn't have desires.
There is a user who has desires, who makes the software active and then makes the hardware active. So, if you just clarify what the terms mean, then within this conception, which we have three-level conception, the mind cannot be the ultimate reality. The soul has to be the ultimate reality.
Now, somebody will say, okay, then just propose the soul. Why do you need the mind at all? Beyond the body, there is a soul. Why do you have to conceive of something called a mind at all? But the point is, there is a big philosophical discussion of how does the soul interact with the body? The soul is spiritual.
The body is physical. How does the soul interact? So, that interaction is through projection. Projection means, somebody says playing a video game, maybe the Grand Auto Theft or something like that.
They're playing that. They're running, they're chasing, they're going there, going there. And maybe the criminals are ahead, the police are behind.
And suppose they go by a bridge. And suddenly the bridge collapses. And the car falls into the river.
And say, the car driver dies. Now, what has happened? The player also feels horrified. What happened? Now, actually, nothing has happened to the player.
But the player feels horrified because the consciousness is projected into the virtual reality. So, now, what happens on the video screen, the connection of the user, of the player, that has to be done through some mechanism. So, something may happen on the screen, but if there's no mechanism connecting, then there will be no experience.
So, matter, in terms of physical matter and soul, the mechanism for connecting them is required. And that mechanism, which facilitates the projection of the consciousness from the soul to the body, that is what is called the mind. Thank you very much.
Exactly. In fact, any kind of, enjoying any kind of fiction requires suspension of disbelief.