Acharya Prashant: This one fundamental point must be deeply understood: The Aatma is not in us, the Self is not in us, we are in the Self.
But it is hardly ever put this way. It is the height of arrogance of the ego to say ‘my soul’. The soul is neither amenable to possession nor it is personal or individualistic. You cannot ‘have’ a soul. Yours is a personal mind, yours is a personality, yours is everything that is divided, fragmented, personalized, dualistic. But we talk of the soul as our property, as something that belongs to us. Not only does it belongs to us, we also pretend and speak and assume that we know a lot about it.
The Self or the Soul or the Truth is not an object exposed to knowledge. The Self cannot be known. When only the Self is there, what is there to know it? The Self is the absolute witness. If you are knowing the Self, then you are claiming to witness the Self; in other words, you are claiming to witness the witness. So neither it is appropriate to think in terms of having a Soul nor is it appropriate to talk in terms of knowing the Soul. Do we very frequently say, “This is the voice of ‘my soul’ or ‘my spirits’ are soaring?
The Self neither soars nor declines. It displays no movement whatsoever, though all movement is within it.
We have a great interest in talking in terms of a ‘personalized’ Soul because if the Soul, the Truth, the Spirit, the Self, Aatma is personal, then it is your’s, then it belongs to the ego. And if the Truth belongs to the ego, then the ego is bigger than the Truth, and that is the biggest dream of the ego—to be bigger than everything, to be bigger than even the Truth.
