Who Am I?

LOCATION OF THE SOUL

LOCATION
I am located at the centre of the forehead, near the organs of control for the body, near the organs of communication with the physical world.  It is from here that I exercise control total control.

The brain is a physical instrument operating by electrical impulses. When I make a decision it reaches the brain instantly and is translated into activity via the entire body system.  I receive stimuli through my senses to the brain.  From the brain, impulses reach “the soul”.  Thus from the outside, I am stimulated into further thought and possibly action.


SOUL, BODY AND THE “THIRD EYE”
“Human being” means the consciousness, the soul or “being”, experiencing life through the insentient body, the “human”. The body is perishable and temporary, whereas the soul is eternal and without physical dimension. The soul is the driver, the body is the car. The soul is the guest, the body is the hotel. The soul is the actor, the body is the costume.

I can use a knife to cut a tomato. I can use the same knife to stab someone. The knife neither decides nor experiences, but can be washed easily under the tap.

Now look at the fingers which held the knife. They neither decide nor experience the actions. They too can be washed under the tap. It’s easy to realize that the knife is an instrument, but it is more difficult to realize that the fingers are instruments too; not only the fingers but the arms also. The legs are instruments for walking, the eyes for seeing, the ears for hearing, the mouth for speaking, breathing, tasting, the heart for pumping food and oxygen around the body, and so on. Even the brain is an instrument used like a computer to express all thought, word and action programs through the body and to experience the results. If every physical part of the body is an instrument, who or what is it that is using the instrument?

Very simply it is “I”, the self, the soul that uses the word “I” for itself and the word “my” when referring to the body; “my” hand, “my” mouth, “my” brain, etc.  “I” am different from “my” body.


WHERE IS THE SOUL SITUATED IN THE BODY?
The dualities of matter/anti-matter, sentient/insentient, physical/spiritual can be understood easily with the awareness of the mechanism by which human consciousness operates through the body. The soul has three basic functions to perform;

• to give and maintain life,
  
  
• to express and experience its role, and
  
  
• to receive the rewards or fruits of past actions performed in previous existences.

(Also see reference - Karma and Raja Yoga).

These functions are controlled and monitored through the nervous and hormonal systems from a particular point in the area of the brain housing the thalamus, hypothalamus, pituitary and pineal glands. This region is known as the seat of the soul, or the “third eye”. The connection between the physical and the non-physical is by the medium of thought energy. Many religions, philosophies and esoteric studies place great importance on the third eye, or “eye of the mind”.

When viewed from the front, this region appears to be between and slightly above the line of the eyebrows. It’s for this reason that Hindus use a “tilak”, a dot in red or sandalwood paste in the middle of the forehead. Christians also make the sign of the cross in this region. Even when one makes a mistake or expresses tiredness it’s to this region that we put the hands in the characteristic gestures of self-dismay or exhaustion. After all, the soul subconsciously knows that it makes the mistakes and not the body. When people are frowning or concentrating deeply in thought it is this area of the forehead that creases into lines on the skin.


THE FORM OF THE SOUL
In deep meditation one can perceive the soul as an infinitesimal point of non-physical light surrounded by an oval-shaped aura. The soul is not an invisible or ethereal duplicate of the physical body. The soul-energy which manifests as thoughts, feelings, etc. has no physical size and for this simple reason it is eternal. Something which has no physical size cannot be destroyed.

. . . Next Page - How the Soul Works

Index Page - Click Here