The Voice of the Soul

[Guest guest]

The awakened soul says in effect to the mind and body, 'I am not identical

with you. I do not want what you require. I have so long believed that I was

identical with yourselves and that our interests were the same. But I now

find that I am really and categorically different from you. I am made wholly

of the principle of self-consciousness while both of you are made of dead

matter. Being matter you can act and be acted upon by matter under the Laws

of Nature. Nature makes and unmakes you, but she has no power over me. I am

not benefitted by your growth or harmed by your decay. You grow and decay by

the laws that govern your relationships with this physical universe. Falsely

identifying myself with you, I find myself compelled to suffer pain and

pleasure due to physical vicissitudes that overtake you. I find myself

unnaturally yoked to your functions such as eating, drinking, producing

thought etc. etc. and am forced to believe them to be my own functions by

which I am benefitted. I shall of course have to stay with you as long as it

is intended by Providence that I should suffer the consequences of this

unnatural alliance with you. I shall permit you to do only what I consider

to be necessary for my well-being viz. getting back into my natural position

of free conscious existence unhampered by the unnatural domination by

longing for material enjoyment. I refuse to be any more a slave of the

sensuous inclinations of the mind and body.'

 

From

 

Real and Apparent

 

by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura