​How is one soul different from the other?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Okay. How is one soul different from the other? Every soul is an individual.
In structure there is no difference because right now the soul is a spark of consciousness. The soul has a spiritual form in the spiritual world. This world Okay.
Let me explain. Yeah. Okay.
I agree. So let’s look at it in progressive way. We see all of us are different.
Now where does our individuality come from? We may say it comes from our genes. Our genes make us different. But then we can see that there are twins and among twins also there are monozygotic twins.
Monozygotic twins means the one sperm and egg come together. They form one zygote and then during the growth in the womb that zygote splits into two and then two twins are born eventually. So in this case both of them have not just similar genetic content but identical genetic content and still even monozygotic twins with their own, with identical genetic content, they still have their different personalities.
No, no. I am just talking about I am tracing things backward. What I am saying is that it’s not just physical appearance.
Twins may have physical appearance which is similar. That is a part of the genetic structure. But I am talking about the personality is different.
So where does this difference in personality come from? This is not coming from the biology because the point which I am making is that by, see we cannot know anything about the soul right now because the soul is not something which is perceivable. We cannot put it under microscope to see it. We can learn about the soul through a chain of inference.
So I am drawing a sense of inference that if there are two twins which are genetically identical yet they are different persons then where is their difference coming from? That difference is coming from their spiritual essence. That is their souls. So the soul is an individual and just like another example I could give to understand this is that sometimes when we come to a new place, we may have a rented house over there.
And we stay in the rented house and people come to meet us first. What they see is the shape of the house. Okay, you are staying in an apartment or you are staying in a row house or you are staying in a bungalow, whatever it is.
Now these are all rented houses but eventually if we earn enough, if we save enough, then we move from a rented house to an old house and the old house also has its structure. So like that the material bodies that we have right now, they are like rented houses. Just like a rented house has a particular clause where you can stay for a particular number of years.
So like that, these bodies, they have their own just like every house has its own shape, its structure, its appearance. Like that our bodies also have structure, shape, appearance. But eventually when we become purified, when we become liberated we acquire our own house.
So that own house is an expression of our original eternal individuality. So that original eternal individuality may not be expressed much at present. So once we talk about abstract things, actually that way the whole, everything spiritual is abstract.
It is not just the difference between one soul and another soul that is abstract. The concept of soul itself is abstract that way. But by a chain of inference, we can recognize that our individuality and… No, I am talking about personality.
Where does our personality come from? Is our personality a function of our body? Well, as I said then genetically two monozygotic twins are having identical genetic content. So, in fact their twins… Yeah. Yeah, okay, see we can say that we have not reached that stage of identifying the difference.
That is true. But broad patterns in everything there are principles and there are details. Details with respect to anything are infinite.
I can take a bar of a mic stand and I can do a PhD thesis on this. What is the ideal size? What is the ideal color? What is the ideal weight? What is the ideal angle? I can do that. So in any field we can go in more and more detail and study things.
But the point is that even if we do more and more exhaustive neural mapping of the brain structure, the brain functioning, ultimately that neural mapping is basically going to show us the electrochemical states of the brain cells at different points. Essentially it’s nothing but electrochemical states of neural cells. That itself is not a describer of personality.
That is simply a describer of physical states of the brain. So the two are different. It’s like an example to illustrate this is that say somebody sends me a message and then I look at that message and I suddenly feel angry.
Now what is that message somebody sent me? You are a stupid nut. You are a fool. I read that and I feel angry.
Now that paper on which it has been written. Now suppose it has been written in a language which I don’t understand. There is some pattern of ink over there but I don’t understand it.
Now the ink pattern is still there. But there has to be a conscious observer who observes that ink pattern and makes some sense out of it. So like that, now what is the pattern of ink on paper? Essentially when we study the brain, what we will find is there is a pattern of neurochemical states, electrochemical states in the brain cells that is there in the brain.
But that pattern itself does not have any significance. In the paper if it is written you are a fool, the paper is not going to become angry. There has to be a conscious observer who observes that and becomes a response to that.
So no matter how much we map the brain certainly by mapping the brain more and more we will get more details. But in principle there is a difference in category between patterns in patterns of chemicals or patterns of ink and the emotion that is experienced in observing those. So the one of the characteristics of the soul that is described in the Bhagavad Gita is that it is Achintya.
Achintya means it is inconceivable. Now the commentators in the Gita explain that Achintya means not just that it is inconceivable, rather it cannot be conceived by any means by sense perception or mental speculation. It is understood through spiritual revelation.
That is why it is a different methodology that we have to use. I will conclude with this point that say if I have a fishing net which has holes of say 1 inch by 1 inch. I may keep that fishing net for 100 years in a river which is filled with fish, but I will never catch a fish which is smaller than 1 inch by 1 inch size because the net is so small that it will slip out.
So for every activity if I have to catch fish of a particular size, I need a particular net like that with our material senses, with our material mind, when we cast a net around the world and try to understand things. There are certain things which we understand, certain things which we cannot understand. This does not mean that we just accept in blind faith, but rather we adopt a different methodology.
The Bhagavad Gita offers us spiritual knowledge. So just like in science there is theory and there is experiment. Theory uses some postulates.
This may be like this, this may be like this. This is a proposition. And the experiment enables us to verify it or to disprove it.
So like that in spirituality there are two aspects. There is philosophy and there is religion. Philosophy uses the postulates and at the level of postulation there is no certainty.
It is like at the level of theory when it is postulated, it is not certain whether it is true or false. So at the level of philosophy we can discuss. Now theory can make sense but it is not proven.
So like that philosophy if we study, we discuss, it may make sense. But there are practices which we do. So for example, when we start practicing meditation, when we start increasing our spiritual awareness, then we start understanding that I and you, we are different and this difference is not just coming from anything superficial.
We start perceiving ourselves. yatra uparamate chittam niruddham yogasevaya yatra chaivaatmanatmanam pashyanatmanitushyati Krishna says in 6.20 in the Bhagavad Gita yatra uparamate chittam niruddham yogasevaya. By the practice of yoga consistently, the material movement of consciousness stops and then the consciousness turns inwards.
yatra chaivaatmanatmanam with the self one perceives the self pashyanatmanitushyati at that time, on seeing this one delights in oneself. So this is something which happens by gradual spiritual practice. So at an intellectual level, I gave a chain of inference by which we can infer our individuality.
But there is a different methodology which involves individual practice and realization. Material science is experimental. But spirituality is not experimental, it is experiential.
Because our consciousness becomes a laboratory in which we experience through purification higher spiritual realities. And that’s how the postulates that are given in the philosophy in spirituality, they become living reality for us. Thank you very much.
Do we have time or should we stop?