Generally people accept the concept of immortality of the Soul on the basis of inherited faith or tradition, but there lurks a doubt about its authenticity. Let us not accept this concept blindly without reasoning. It could be hearsay? If you are told to sit for meditation and are asked to conceive: 'I have died', it may appear a simple proposition; but when you actually begin to do so, it would be impossible to think that you as an individuality have ceased to exist. It would not be difficult to have such a simple imagery for those who have been practicing the elaborate exercises of visualization given in the previous pages. The moment one thinks about one's death, although an image of one's dead body is formed in the mind, at the same time there is an awareness: 'I am standing aside looking at it.' This 'I' is ever vigilant, ever present. Try as one may, one cannot conceive the death of this 'I'- the seer. The analytical faculty of one's intellect (
Vichar Buddhi) thus insists that the Soul (
'I') is immortal.
In this way deep within human consciousness is entrenched an unwavering faith in the immortality of the Soul. By no endeavor whatsoever can this intuitive faith be rooted out. It is based on numerous past experiences of death (of the body) in earlier births, beyond which the Soul has continued to exist. When a person becomes unconscious because of a shock or under the influence of drugs, this 'I' remains wide awake and alert. Otherwise, on regaining normalcy, how could a concerned person know that he had been unconscious? Firm faith in one's real Self as indivisible, immortal and beyond the reach of physical, sensory perceptions, is an essential pre-requisite for starting on the path of Self-realization.
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