How is the soul’s consciousness transmitted at the liberated stage?
Answer Podcast
Transcript
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That is the meaning of achalya. At the liberated stage, how does the soul’s consciousness get transmitted? See, now there are two kinds of liberation. There is Videha Mukti and there is Jeevan Mukti.
Videha Mukti means the soul leaves the body and goes back to the spiritual world. Videha, at that time there is no body. So, this kind of liberation happens after death.
And there is Jeevan Mukti. Jeevan Mukti means there are some souls who may become so spiritually evolved that even in the present stage, they may be able to perceive themselves as different from the body. They are able to perceive themselves spiritually.
So, to explain this, consider an example. Say a person is watching a TV and on the TV a cricket match is going on. And that cricket match is so consuming, this person is so caught in watching the cricket match that that person forgets the whole reality.
That okay, I am sitting on a sofa and I am sitting in a room and there are so many other things in the room. They forget all that and they focus completely on the cricket match and get totally lost in the cricket match. But, if somehow they gradually become aware, Oh, actually I am sitting in this room and there are so many other people over here.
There are so many other things over here. So, that may happen, maybe say, if their favourite team starts losing the cricket match and they get frustrated with it. Or it may happen because if there is some upheaval in the room around them and they see what is happening.
But otherwise they are consumed in whatever is being displayed on the TV. So, like that at present for us, the soul, say the soul is here and the soul is at one place and the TV is like the body-mind complex into which the soul’s consciousness is going and is going outwards. So, as long as the soul has to function in the body, the soul is going to use the body-mind complex.
But the soul who is liberated is not attached to the body-mind complex. Just like to go back to the earlier example of cricket, some people may be so lost in the cricket match that they just forget everything else. Others may be watching the same TV but they are watching it to get some news update.
But they know I am different from the TV, I am different from whatever is happening on the program. But for getting information of a particular thing, I am watching that program. So, like that the liberated souls who are there, they also as long as they have to function in this world, they need the body and the mind.
Because the soul for functioning in this world requires that as the instrument. But they don’t misidentify with the instrument. They are not attached to that instrument.
But for functioning in this world, they use the instrument. And the soul ultimately becomes liberated. So, this is the state of Jeevan Mukti where one is using the body and the mind but is not identifying with it.
Whereas at the end of life there is Videha Mukti when the soul leaves the body and the mind here and returns to the spiritual world and attains the spiritual world where it has a spiritual form to perform spiritual activities of love with God, Krishna. Does it answer the question? Yes, yes, because the soul is no longer captivated with the body-mind complex. So, the soul has the capacity for self-reflection and self-perception.
But as long as the soul is captivated by the body-mind complex, it does not have that capacity for self-reflection.