The English word “soul” is NOT an equivalent to the Sanskrit word “Aatma''The Aatma is unchanging, static, immobile, vast, calm, and impersonal, the soul – as used in English – is something that passes on from birth to death, staying with the individual, through all lifetimes, never dies, unconditioned, abiding in gentle-purity but is non-static (unlike Aatma). It changes. Or rather, it appears to an individual as if it changes
The pranamayakosha is the repository of all our desires, cravings, wants, passions, lower motivations of jealousy, greed, anger, lust etc. Often when a person dies his body is no more, but his desires are intact as long as the pranamayakosha is not dissolved. This then is the realm of the pitris. They are almost like us, except they don’t have a body to fulfill desires.
At the moment of death this very soul, provided the death is peaceful and non-agitated (unlike in accidents), gets a change to choose from its life experiences and consciously decide the key features of its next incarnation. This process is called chitra-gupta. Chitra – images. Gupta – hidden.That is why it’s said that last thoughts determine next birth.Once a person is able to bring forth this soul from behind the heart, by untying the Vishnu-granthi, the soul will guide his spiritual journey completely. The inner Guru comes from here. Unfailing guidance.Aatma on the other hand is experienced not behind the heart, but above the physical head. There lie the planes of spirituality corresponding to the Vigyanmaya Kosha and beyond etc. It is vast and calm. It has no fluctuations. It does not participate in life and death. It watches silently. It is constant for everyoneFor the soul, being involved with us from life after life, contains a record of all our lives previous to this.
soul aatma death and rebirth
The pranamayakosha is the repository of all our desires, cravings, wants, passions, lower motivations of jealousy, greed, anger, lust etc. Often when a person dies his body is no more, but his desires are intact as long as the pranamayakosha is not dissolved. This then is the realm of the pitris. They are almost like us, except they don’t have a body to fulfill desires.
At the moment of death this very soul, provided the death is peaceful and non-agitated (unlike in accidents), gets a change to choose from its life experiences and consciously decide the key features of its next incarnation. This process is called chitra-gupta. Chitra – images. Gupta – hidden.That is why it’s said that last thoughts determine next birth.Once a person is able to bring forth this soul from behind the heart, by untying the Vishnu-granthi, the soul will guide his spiritual journey completely. The inner Guru comes from here. Unfailing guidance.Aatma on the other hand is experienced not behind the heart, but above the physical head. There lie the planes of spirituality corresponding to the Vigyanmaya Kosha and beyond etc. It is vast and calm. It has no fluctuations. It does not participate in life and death. It watches silently. It is constant for everyoneFor the soul, being involved with us from life after life, contains a record of all our lives previous to this.
soul aatma death and rebirth
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. IV-3-32 reads as:
Yajnavalkya tells Janaka that in deep sleep, it becomes transparent like water, the witness, and one without a second. This is the World of Brahman, Your Majesty. This is its supreme attainment, this is its supreme glory, this it its highest world, this is its supreme bliss. On a particle of this bliss other creatures live.
If you can be conscious in this state of deep sleep, that would be liberation from bondage. But that consciousness is not possible because of the presence of desires, which spread themselves as a thick layer separating the Jīva from consciousness.
If you can be conscious in this state of deep sleep, that would be liberation from bondage. But that consciousness is not possible because of the presence of desires, which spread themselves as a thick layer separating the Jīva from consciousness.
So,though you are virtually on the borderland of eternity and have temporarily transcended empirical experience in sleep, you are not conscious of it.
Liberation is different, where there is a fulfillment of all desires and a full awareness. There is a shift of emphasis here in the Upanishad, from sleep to the state of ultimate liberation. The Upanishad wants to tell us what happens in the state of liberation, together with its explanation of the state of deep sleep. In the state of liberation, there is only one desire - the desire for the Self which is freedom from all desires.
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