What Is Our Individual Soul Nature?
SHLOKA 26
Our individual soul is the immortal and spiritual body of light that animates life and reincarnates again and again until all necessary karmas are created and resolved and its essential unity with God is fully realized. Aum.
BHASHYA
Our soul is God Siva's emanational creation, the source of all our higher functions, including knowledge, will and love. Our soul is neither male nor female. It is that which never dies, even when its four outer sheaths-- physical, pranic, instinctive and mental--change form and perish as they naturally do. The physical body is the annamaya kosha. The pranic sheath of vitality is the pranamaya kosha. The instinctive-intellectual sheath is the manomaya kosha. The mental, or cognitive, sheath is the vijnanamaya kosha. The inmost soul body is the blissful, ever-giving-wisdom anandamaya kosha. Parashakti is the soul's superconscious mind--God Siva's mind. Parashiva is the soul's inmost core. We are not the physical body, mind or emotions. We are the immortal soul, atman. The sum of our true existence is anandamaya kosha and its essence, Parashakti and Parashiva. The Vedas expostulate, "The soul is born and unfolds in a body, with dreams and desires and the food of life. And then it is reborn in new bodies, in accordance with its former works. The quality of the soul determines its future body; earthly or airy, heavy or light." Aum Namah Sivaya.
How Is Our Soul Different from Siva?
SHLOKA 27
Our soul body was created in the image and likeness of the Primal Soul, God Siva, but it differs from the Primal Soul in that it is immature. While Siva is unevolutionary perfection, we are in the process of evolving. Aum.
BHASHYA
To understand the mysteries of the soul, we distinguish between the soul body and its essence. As a soul body, we are individual and unique, different from all others, a self-effulgent being of light which evolves and matures through an evolutionary process. This soul body is of the nature of God Siva, but is different from Siva in that it is less resplendent than the Primal Soul and still evolving, while God is unevolutionary perfection. We may liken the soul body to an acorn, which contains the mighty oak tree but is a small seed yet to develop. The soul body matures through experience, evolving through many lives into the splendor of God Siva, ultimately realizing Siva totally in nirvikalpa samadhi. Even after Self Realization is attained, the soul body continues to evolve in this and other worlds until it merges with the Primal Soul, as a drop of water merges with its source, the ocean. Yea, this is the destiny of all souls without exception. The Vedas say, "As oil in sesame seeds, as butter in cream, as water in river beds, as fire in friction sticks, so is the atman grasped in one's own self when one searches for Him with truthfulness and austerity." Aum Namah Sivaya.
How Is Our Soul Identical with Siva?
SHLOKA 28
The essence of our soul, which was never created, is immanent love and transcendent reality and is identical and eternally one with God Siva. At the core of our being, we already are That--perfect at this very moment. Aum.
BHASHYA
At the core of the subtle soul body is Parashakti, or Satchidananda, immanent love; and at the core of that is Parashiva, transcendent reality. At this depth of our being there exists no separate identity or difference--all are One. Thus, deep within our soul we are identical with God now and forever. These two divine perfections are not aspects of the evolving soul, but the nucleus of the soul which does not change or evolve. From an absolute perspective, our soul is already in nondual union with God, but to be realized to be known. We are That. We do not become That. Deep within this physical body, with its turbulent emotions and getting-educated mind, is pure perfection identical to Siva's own perfections of Parashakti and Parashiva. In this sacred mystery we find the paradoxes of oneness and twoness, of being and becoming, of created and uncreated existence subtly delineated. Yea, in the depth of our being, we are as He is. The Vedas explain, "The one controller, the inner Self of all things, who makes His one form manifold, to the wise who perceive Him as abiding in the soul, to them is eternal bliss--to no others." Aum Namah Sivaya.
Why Are We Not Omniscient Like Siva?
SHLOKA 29
The three bonds of anava, karma and maya veil our sight. This is Siva's purposeful limiting of awareness which allows us to evolve. In the superconscious depths of our soul, we share God Siva's all-knowingness. Aum.
BHASHYA
Just as children are kept from knowing all about adult life until they have matured into understanding, so too is the soul's knowledge limited. We learn what we need to know, and we understand what we have experienced. Only this narrowing of our awareness, coupled with a sense of individualized ego, allows us to look upon the world and our part in it from a practical, human point of view. Pasha is the soul's triple bondage: maya, karma and anava. Without the world of maya, the soul could not evolve through experience. Karma is the law of cause and effect, action and reaction governing maya. anava is the individuating veil of duality, source of ignorance and finitude. Maya is the classroom, karma the teacher, and anava the student's ignorance. The three bonds, or malas, are given by Lord Siva to help and protect us as we unfold. Yet, God Siva's all-knowingness may be experienced for brief periods by the meditator who turns within to his own essence. The Tirumantiram explains, "When the soul attains Self-knowledge, then it becomes one with Siva. The malas perish, birth's cycle ends and the lustrous light of wisdom dawns." Aum Namah Sivaya.
How Do Hindus Understand Moksha?
SHLOKA 30
The destiny of all souls is moksha, liberation from rebirth on the physical plane. Our soul then continues evolving in the Antarloka and Sivaloka, and finally merges with Siva like water returning to the sea. Aum Namah Sivaya.
BHASHYA
Moksha comes when earthly karma has been resolved, dharma well performed and God fully realized. Each soul must have performed well through many lives the varna dharmas, or four castes, and lived through life's varied experiences, in order to not be pulled back to physical birth by a deed left undone. All souls are destined to achieve moksha, but not necessarily in this life. Hindus know this and do not delude themselves that this life is the last. While seeking and attaining profound realizations, they know there is much to be done in fulfilling life's other goals, purusharthas--dharma, righteousness; artha, wealth; and kama, pleasure. Old souls renounce worldly ambitions and take up sannyasa in quest of Parashiva, even at a young age. Toward life's end, all Hindus strive for Self Realization, the gateway to liberation. After moksha, subtle karmas are made in inner realms and swiftly resolved, like writing on water. At the end of each soul's evolution comes vishvagrasa, total absorption in Siva. The Vedas say, "If here one is able to realize Him before the death of the body, he will be liberated from the bondage of the world." Aum Namah Sivaya.
Scriptures Speak on the Soul
The atman pervades all like butter hidden in milk. He is the source of Self-knowledge and ascetic fervor. This is the Brahman teaching, the highest goal! This is the Brahman teaching, the highest goal!
Yajur Veda
The inspired Self is not born nor does He die; He springs from nothing and becomes nothing. Unborn, permanent, unchanging, primordial, He is not destroyed when the body is destroyed.
Yajur Veda
Now, the teaching concerning the atman: the atman is below, it is above, it is behind, it is before, it is in the South, it is in the North. The atman indeed is all that is. He who sees, reflects and knows this--he has joy in the atman.
Sama Veda
Verily, he is pure, steadfast and unswerving, stainless, unagitated, desireless, fixed like a spectator and self-abiding. As an enjoyer of righteousness, he covers himself with a veil made of qualities; [yet] he remains fixed--yea, he remains fixed!
Yajur Veda
He who with the truth of the atman, unified, perceives the truth of Brahman as with a lamp, who knows God, the unborn, the stable, free from all forms of being, is released from all fetters.
Yajur Veda
A part of Infinite Consciousness becomes our own finite consciousness, with powers of discrimination and definition and with false conceptions. He is, in truth, Prajapati and Vishva, the Source of Creation and the Universal in us all. This Spirit is consciousness and gives consciousness to the body. He is the driver of the chariot.
Yajur Veda
He who dwells in the light, yet is other than the light, whom the light does not know, whose body is the light, who controls the light from within--He is the atman within you.
Yajur Veda
Pure consciousness, taking form as knowledge and action, is present in the soul everywhere and always, for the soul is universal in its unfettered state.
Mrigendra Agama
The three impurities are anava, maya and the one caused by actions.
Suprabheda Agama
When the state is attained where one becomes Siva, the malas--the bonds diverse, mental states and experiences that arose for the individualized soul--will all fade like the beams of the moon in the presence of the rising sun.
Tirumantiram
When jiva attains the state of neutrality to deeds good and evil, then does divine grace in guru form descend, remove attributes all and implant jnana that is unto a heavenly cool shade. The jiva is without egoity, and the impurities three are finished. He is Siva who all this does.
Tirumantiram
In the primal play of the Lord were jivas created. Enveloped in mighty malas were they. Discarding them, they realized themselves and besought the feet of their hoary Lord. Thus they became Siva, with birth no more to be.
Tirumantiram
A goldsmith fashions several ornaments out of gold. So God, the great goldsmith, makes many ornaments--different souls--out of the one Universal Spirit.
Natchintanai
The atman is eternal. This is the conclusion at which great souls have arrived from their experience.
Natchintanai
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Index of Contents
Mandala Seven: Karma and Rebirth