Soul and Body

We often assume the body and soul to be one and same. However these two are totally different concepts.  Let’s  try to differentiate between body and soul. Soul is part of god inside us and has nothing to do with this materialistic world. The body belongs to this world and all our needs are demanded by body.

We often say I am going to office; I want to eat; I am hungry. Let’s look at the significance of I.  I refer to our body and not soul. Our existence is defined by the combination of body and soul. But we are so much engrossed with the needs of body that we forget the sheer existence of our soul.

A person is known by his name. Once he dies we refer the person by body and not name. We say the body needs to be burnt. The body dissolves in the panch tattva Water, Air,Fire,Earth and space after death.

Do we ever realize what happen to our soul? The soul cannot be burnt; cut; suffer any decay. The five forces of nature have no influence on soul.The soul is permanent or unchangeable. It is indestructible, incombustible and insoluble. After death the soul take residence in a newer physical body.(not necessarily human being ) This is called rebirth.

So when this rebirth is stopped? When the soul meets god; human being is freed from endless cycle of life and death; this is called salvation.[moksha].

The bigger question is how to achieve moksha. There are lots of theories around it. However by way of action (karma yoga); knowledge ( gyan yoga) and devotion (bhakti yoga) one can achieve moksha in this human life. However it is up to individual to find his own way to achieve moksha.

Imagine there are 8.4 million species and it’s only in human life one can attain salvation. This very fact underlines the importance of getting birth in human life. The objective of human birth according to bhagwat geeta is to attain salvation. However the materialistic world, aspirations,relations force us  to give importance to body only and forget entirely about soul leave aside attaining moksha. If we succeed in withdrawing our senses and look inwards; we might feel presence of soul.At least we need to see our self as a soul with body rather than a body with soul.