Those who say, 'the body is not you' should also add, “… but do not ignore it. It is yours, to cherish and keep fit, and to use for your own good and for others.”

Those who say "the mind is not you" should also add "…. but pay attention to it. It is yours to keep focused, to act, create and to learn. To forget some of it, too, once that learning has become a part of you."

Those who say "your soul" are mistaken. If it is "your soul" who are "you" who possesses the soul? Nay, the Soul is who you are, activating the body, using the mind. Indeed, the Soul is who you Are.

Being so, remember this - the body-mind are in the Soul, which is multidimensional and much larger than can be confined in this body-mind. Only a part of the Soul may be present as You. Another small part may even be activating someone else and, perhaps, one day, you may find your “soulmate”, the phrase used in its literal sense rather than in the poetic one.

Those who say, "We are but a felicitous combination of chemicals and energy, to fade away one day, dust to dust" are prisoners of their mindset and show lack of understanding of the reality. They ignore countless evidence of rebirth and other phenomenon. They are the spiritual equivalent of "flat-earthers", fearing they will step off this existence into nothingness one day.

There are many who mistake perception for consciousness. This includes eminent scientists, with their experiments showing which parts of the brain light up with what thought.

 

Consciousness creates perception. However, it exists beyond the body mind, in the realm of the Soul.

You use conscious but consciousness is not who you are. Consciousness is a characteristic of the Soul, who you are. It is the medium that makes the Soul, and your body-mind, aware. In a way, saying that you are consciousness is like saying that ice is coldness.

Do you think that much of what you do is done by you for others? That you act out of love, or compassion, or hate or some other emotion and your actions are for the benefit of others? No, whatever you do, you do for the Self. Think about this behind the surface of emotions guiding your actions.

Those who say God will judge you, imagine their God in the image of powerful, judgemental people they have met or heard of. But then, if there is no God sitting on a throne judging you, who is the judge? The answer is, “You!” The body acts as the mind wills, and the Soul keeps track, learning from its experiences and keeping a record of the body-mind’s misadventures, too

Actions have consequences and what you do unto others will come back, in some form, to be experienced by you in this life or the next. The man who mistreats women, for example, may be born as a woman the next time around and suffer what he made his victims go through. The good that you do, lives on, as does the evil. Your existence is, eventually, a zero-sum game played over many life-times.

God has been called by many names but in reality, the Divine has no name, and, if truth be told, as the Soul, neither have you. In that reality you are neither man nor woman. There is no sexual orientation for you and the 'Soul you are' may have lived as a man or a woman many times in past births.

Some have mentioned a hierarchy of worship, saying that “The highest form of worship is the realisation of the Supreme in all. Meditation on the Supreme is the middling state; prayers to and praises of him with silent repetition of his name is still lower and external worship is the lowest of all.”

While this indicates progress on the spiritual path, in practice this is not entirely correct. There are many paths to self-realisation, and the truth is that every path is valid for an individual at a certain stage in that person’s spiritual progress. For some, it is knowledge, for others action and for yet others worship. The eventual goal is the realisation of the Supreme in all and all paths, travelled with deeply held faith, lead to that.

Those who say that Hindus are idol worshippers, know not the nature of the “idols” that we worship on our altars. These idols are like spiritual mirrors in which the worshipper sees the reflection of his or her chosen deity. The idols of stone or wood or of anything else, are not ‘devis’ and ‘devatas’ themselves, merely a means of visualising the divine. The worshippers worship the deity, not the idol that reflects it.

For this reason, those who say that our idols cannot even defend themselves, miss the point. Mirrors do not defend themselves – they are just a medium. The faith is what is eternal.

Learn to look behind the obvious. Try to understand what our idols symbolise. They were designed by enlightened minds and have different meanings at different levels – the overt and the hidden. This is to suit people at different stages of spiritual development. Try to understand the underlying symbolism of the imagery. It is very different from what you see outside and learning it will open spiritual doors for you.

Many seek scientific proof and deny spiritual phenomenon that lacks such proof. If one were to go back to pre-historic times when the only way to create fire was to rub two sticks together and showed those people a matchstick or a torch, they would consider it a miracle. It is the same with the spiritual phenomenon. One day science will discover that what is said in our ancient books and what seers have mentioned is scientifically provable. Till then, keep an open mind. Dismissing anything out of hand that you cannot understand is for the close-minded and the bigoted.

Kishore Asthana

kishore.asthana@gmail.com

7.01.2025