In this exciting journey through Chapter 2 of the Bhagavad Gita, we delve into the essence of spiritual wisdom. Krishna compassionately guides Arjuna as he unveils profound truths about spirit, duty, devotion, and enlightenment. This immersive course offers a transformative experience, with online classes and accessible recordings. Join us for an enlightening exploration!
Hare Krishna!
We explored an introduction to the first part of Chapter 2, and now part 2 coming up.
Chapter 2 of the Bhagavad Gita is called “सांख्ययोग” / “Saankhya Yoga” – Contents of the Gita Summarized.
Krishna, the Perfect Teacher, summarizes the subject matter of the Bhagavad Gita in this course.
Arjuna, paralyzed by his material compassion, accepts Krishna as his spiritual master. Krishna first berates Arjuna, and then masterfully begins to instruct Arjuna.
Actually, Arjuna, as Krishna’s eternal associate, needs no instruction, but Arjuna is playing the part of the rest of us materially entangled souls so that Krishna can mercifully delivery the knowledge of the Bhagavad Gita to us, those whose need is great.
We explore how Krishna explains this knowledge from different perspectives… Krishna appeals to Arjuna’s sense of honour and chivalry as a warrior, then explains the fundamental spiritual truths regarding the soul, and in terms of the duty of the embodied soul, the art of work without attachment – karma yoga.
Krishna goes on to explain working in devotion, working in Love for the Supreme, Bhakti Yoga, with permanent and ever-increasing bliss beyond the short-lived results from the Vedic rituals.
Arjuna asks intelligent questions, and then Krishna describes the fully enlightened Bhakti Yogi, the perfect Jiva.
The topics introduced in this second chapter will be explained in detail in later chapters, and Chapter 2 serves as a key to the rest of the Gita.
We rely on the Bhagavad Gita As It Is with translations and purports by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, published by the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, as our textbook.
Please contact if you’re interested in joining this course.
Next Class is online, on Friday May 3 / Saturday May 4, depending on your timezone. The class is online and recordings are available to everyone registered.
Thank you for engaging me in the study of Bhagavad Gita.
If a spirit soul is eternally existent, and karmic reactions only attach when in the material realm, how could spirit souls originally accumulate karmic debt?
Question:
If souls always existed , how did karmic substance get attached to the souls for the first time ?
Answer:
There are an unlimited number of spirit souls, manifesting eternally from Krishna for the purpose of having a loving relationship with Him. An infinitesimal fraction of them decide to enjoy separately from Krishna. That is an infinitely large number…
Why? Because for love, there must be free will. There must be the freedom to leave. Krishna does not force anyone to love Him. He gives them freedom to leave if they wish to.
But when a living entity comes from the spiritual realm, the only position fit for the soul is as Lord Brahma of a Universe. There are an unlimited number of Universes, and therefore an unlimited number of Brahma posts available.
Some of these Brahmas are Bhaktyonmukhi (devotionally inclined) Brahmas, in other words, they see the material world and make a U-turn and go back home back to Godhead, after that one lifetime as Brahma.
Some of them, foolishly, are Bahir Mukha (materially inclined) Brahmas, choose to experience other lifetimes, say, as Indra, Chandra, as an Apsara, and so on…
The way karmic reactions work, one karmic action is sufficient to create an unlimited number of reactions. Why? Think of a banyan tree that gives figs… how many seeds are there inside each fruit? And how many trees can sprout from one fruit? In other words, how many banyan trees are inside one little seed? Actions and reactions, easily and quickly pile up.
Remaining inside karma chakra, the cycle of fruitive action and reaction, or doing things like trying to be artificially nonviolent is of no use. We unavoidably create karmic reactions at every moment, just by breathing, speaking, eating, or sleeping.
Karmic reactions exist as manifest as fruits, unmanifest, hidden, in seed form etc., but they are gradually destroyed through the process of vishnu bhakti.
Do you strive to look good? Body building? Sculpting? Plastic Surgery? Fashion? Chic? Couture? Do you know that you may be bound up, trapped, shackled, your freedom of choice stripped from you? Do you know you could be trapped?
Are you into body building or body sculpting? Like for example, making sure those abs, biceps, triceps are just perfect? Do you invest in protein shakes and supplements just so you can make your body look just so? Have you undertaken plastic surgery to hide the ravages of time? Does it make you feel good when people admire your body?
Are you into trendy fashion or hair or makeup? Are you always up-to-date with your wardrobe striving to look like that fashion model on the ramp? Are you a fashionista? Do you strive to dress up or look chic? Are you constantly striving to turn heads with the way you look?
If you answered even a partial yes to one of the above questions, I’m sorry to say that you are a prisoner. You have been forcibly taken away from yourself and bound up, hand and foot. But your shackles, yeah, they look amazing.
Needless to say, it doesn’t matter how nice those shackles look, they’re still shackles. A shackled person has no freedom of movement. A shackled person also has extremely limited freedom of choice.
Why do I equate a sculpted body or a keen sense of fashion consciousness you ask? Please consider this.
देही नित्यमवध्योऽयं देहे सर्वस्य भारत । तस्मात्सर्वाणि भूतानि न त्वं शोचितुमर्हसि ॥ ३० ॥
Let’s say you drive a car, let’s say the car is of a particular brand, let’s say it is an old Honda. One fine day, if the car stops working while you are out and about, it just won’t go, you gotta’ get it towed. Were “you” towed or was it the car that was towed?
Now, let’s say you drive another car… and this time, the car is a brand new 2023 Jaguar. Now let’s say you were feeling hungry and you went to a service station… the attendants at the service station fawned over your new car, refueled it, inflated the tires, and handed you a bill. But they didn’t give you anything to eat. But did they not refuel you? Ah, not you? They refueled your car?
There is a story about a woman and her bird in a cage. She polished and polished and polished the cage every single day. But no matter how hard she polished her cage, the bird inside kept getting weaker and weaker… until one day the bird in the cage dropped dead. Well, duh, you might say, the woman forgot to feed the bird!
And that is exactly what being overly conscious of our body or our clothes does to us… this applies to our other vehicles too, our bikes or cars, our homes or offices… ultimately we are not these body, clothes, vehicles or dwellings.
We are spirit souls. Each and every one of us. Including the trees and the insects and the birds and the fish and the animals. Every living being is a spirit soul.
विद्याविनयसम्पन्ने ब्राह्मणे गवि हस्तिनि । शुनि चैव श्वपाके च पण्डिता: समदर्शिन: ॥ १८ ॥
vidyā-vinaya-sampanne brāhmaṇe gavi hastini śuni caiva śva-pāke ca paṇḍitāḥ sama-darśinaḥ
The humble sages, by virtue of true knowledge, see with equal vision a learned and gentle brāhmaṇa, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a dog-eater [outcaste].
When I flex my muscles and look in the mirror, when I dress to attract the attention of whoever is likely to be attracted by my attire, I am causing myself to forget that I am a spirit soul. I am causing the others to forget that I am a spirit soul. I am entrapping myself and others!
This consciousness is so pervasive and has become so deeply rooted in our psyche, that we feel we’re doing this for “me”, for ourselves. But it’s a mere reflection of us, a shadow at best.
Why is bodily consciousness so bad for us? Because this makes us forget the core of who we are, spiritual beings living in a world of illusory perceptions, unnecessarily suffering through the travails of the material realm.
Excessive attachment to the body and mind, to the point where a person neglects their true needs, which are spiritual in nature, is the cause of all our problems. In other words, a person may be in the human form of life, but is acting no better than a lifeless object or a soul living in the lower species.
तरव: किं न जीवन्ति भस्त्रा: किं न श्वसन्त्युत । न खादन्ति न मेहन्ति किं ग्रामे पशवोऽपरे ॥ १८ ॥
taravaḥ kiṁ na jīvanti bhastrāḥ kiṁ na śvasanty uta na khādanti na mehanti kiṁ grāme paśavo ’pare
Do the trees not live? Do the bellows of the blacksmith not breathe? All around us, do the beasts not eat and discharge semen?
Ultimately, bodily consciousness traps us in the most enticing of sensual pleasures, sex. Even if a person has become old or invalid, someone who has not cultivated spiritual consciousness is still entrapped by this deadly attraction.
Indeed, sex is the main thing that keeps a spirit soul entrapped!
yan maithunādi-gṛhamedhi-sukhaṁ hi tucchaṁ kaṇḍūyanena karayor iva duḥkha-duḥkham tṛpyanti neha kṛpaṇā bahu-duḥkha-bhājaḥ kaṇḍūtivan manasijaṁ viṣaheta dhīraḥ
Sex life is compared to the rubbing of two hands to relieve an itch. Gṛhamedhis, so-called gṛhasthas who have no spiritual knowledge, think that this itching is the greatest platform of happiness, although actually it is a source of distress. The kṛpaṇas, the fools who are just the opposite of brāhmaṇas, are not satisfied by repeated sensuous enjoyment. Those who are dhīra, however, who are sober and who tolerate this itching, are not subjected to the sufferings of fools and rascals.
As a child of God, we have a most wonderful life in the spiritual realm, complete in every respect. We are now just like a rebellious child of prosperous loving parents, living on the street without proper food, clothes, and shelter.
The living entities in this conditioned world are My eternal fragmental parts. Due to conditioned life, they are struggling very hard with the six senses, which include the mind.
Yes, to stay healthy, a body needs a balanced diet and exercise. Despite all this care, the body does grow old, get sick, and die. So doing anything beyond the minimum for the body is but a waste of time and energy.
Why, you ask? Well, just think about what will happen to our body after our death? Either it is offered to the fire and burned to ashes, or it is buried underground and becomes earth… or, in some cultures, the body is fed to the vultures, and ends up as the droppings of those birds.
deva-saṁjñitam apy ante kṛmi-viḍ-bhasma-saṁjñitam bhūta-dhruk tat-kṛte svārthaṁ kiṁ veda nirayo yataḥ
While living one may be proud of one’s body, thinking oneself a very big man, minister, president or even demigod, but whatever one may be, after death this body will turn either into worms, into stool or into ashes. If one kills poor animals to satisfy the temporary whims of this body, one does not know that he will suffer in his next birth, for such a sinful miscreant must go to hell and suffer the results of his actions.
To keep the mind healthy, it needs some amount of recreation and social interaction. The body assists the mind with this, giving it the stimulation it needs through the senses. The mind needs some amount of exercise too, but beyond that, no matter how much you serve the mind, it will remain as flickering, as unpredictable as ever. It will not stop flip-flopping either, one moment like, the next moment hatred… one moment happy, one moment sad. Now agreeing, now disagreeing. Will you make up your mind, my dear mind? No, the mind is the mind.
Unless the mind is engaged in the service of the intelligence it will remain bound up in its own little petty nonsense. The intelligence, which is beyond the mind, must be engaged in the service of the spirit soul.
And the spirit soul, which is a part-and-parcel of the Supreme Spirit, must be engaged in the service of the Supreme Divine. This Supreme Divine is referred to by many names depending on the knowledge and culture, but ultimately, is referred to as God in the impersonal sense. But of course, God is a Person, just not a person like us.
God is the eternally ever-perfect, manifesting each of us in order to have a loving personal relationship with us. He manifests uncountable living entities, and uncountable Universes. As long as we remain trapped in bodily consciousness, we can never make spiritual advancement.
Would you like to be free of your shackles? Ask me how!
Is the Supreme Absolute Truth One or Many? Is Krishna One or Many? How is it that Krishna is One without a Second? How about Love? How about Relationships? How to understand this?
Jyoti Gupta, 27 April 2020
Hare Krishna
If you could explain Chapter 5, Text 17 of Bhagavad Gita, where it has been told that there is duality in Krishna-simultaneous identity and individuality.
One more thing I would like to know – He is one without a second.. kindly explain .
Thank you
🙏
Hare Krishna
Jyoti Gupta
Mahabhagavat Das, 28 April 2020
Dear Mother Jyoti,
Hare Krishna!
You are referring to BG 5.17, where in the purport Srila Prabhupada writes: “A Kṛṣṇa conscious person can thoroughly understand that there is duality (simultaneous identity and individuality) in Kṛṣṇa, and, equipped with such transcendental knowledge, one can make steady progress on the path of liberation.”
What this means is that Krishna is a person originally, and that He has impersonal aspects.
Before we go to Krishna, let us look at ourselves…
You are a person, but if you completely ignore someone, then that is your own impersonal aspect. Also, when you are angry, then anyone who comes in your way will experience your anger, whether they did something to deserve your anger or not, so in this way, your anger can be said to be impersonal, even though you are a person yourself.
Similarly, Krishna, has His own impersonal aspects. The primary impersonal aspect is His Brahman feature. In the Brahman feature, which is His bodily effulgence, there is no individuality. Another one of Krishna’s impersonal features is time, time does not care for any person, it is impersonal, time just moves on and forces the world to keep moving along with it.
In addition to Krishna’s impersonal features, there is also the “localized Supersoul” or Paramatma feature, where Krishna expands into unlimited expansions, enters into the heart of every living entity along with the Atma, and also enters into the atoms and the space within the atoms. Even though Krishna expands in this way, Krishna still remains Krishna individually.
His closest, most intimate feature is Himself, His personal form, name, and identity.
Another crude example is – you may get a letter from the Government… inside the Government there is a department, and that department has a head, and that head has a boss, that boss has another boss, and ultimately it is the President or the Prime Minister who is the top power of the government. But when we see a policeman on the street enforcing the order of the government, then that policeman has the combined force of the entire government, and if necessary, through that policeman, the entire government can act. So, the government can be seen as some sort of “Brahman” – the government is impersonal, but inside that Brahman, there are so many little government representatives… Of course all of this cannot compare to SrI Krishna because Krishna is inconceivable by material means.
Krishna is one without a second because when you rank someone #1, #2, #3, etc., then it implies that there is some measure by which #1 is superior to #2, and #2 is superior to #3… so if #3 tries a bit harder, then they can overtake #1 and become the new #1… but in the case of Krishna, there is no comparison whatsoever, no one else can compare or match up to Krishna!
There may be occasionally some delay in answering questions sometimes, but rest assured that we are here to serve you on your spiritual journey.
I hope this helps.
Sincerely,
Mahabhagavat Das
dasadas.com
Jyoti Gupta, 29 April 2020
Hare Krishna !
Thank you so much for the kind response, and for bringing clarity to my mind.
Regards
Jyoti Gupta
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Recently, an accomplished young lady committed suicide. What is the root cause of it? What is the consequence of it? What can we do to stop this?
In recent classes on the Srimad Bhagavatam, my spiritual master mentioned this sad news.
Why did a beautiful, young, highly educated young lady, crowned as Miss America recently commit suicide? Yes, Cheslie Kryst, former Miss America, an attorney, committed suicide on Jan 31, 2022! This was incredibly sad that such a gifted person thought it fit to end her valuable human life in this way.
Not long ago, a young school girl, Mallory, just 12 years of age, committed suicide too.
These are just two sad examples of many, many.
Some people are faulting social media, and Big Tech. The argument goes that these platforms are designed and created to be addictive, and these platforms don’t enforce discipline or proper behavior among the users, and so, harassment from others is the cause of the suicide. There is some truth to this.
But just like all other material solutions to material problems, it is only a partial truth. Partial truths only create more problems further down the road.
It is true that platforms like Facebook and Instagram are designed to be addictive. In Mathematics, there is a concept called “necessary and sufficient condition”… sometimes a condition is “necessary” but not “sufficient”. This means that unless all the necessary and the sufficient conditions are met, a certain statement is not true.
The fact is that there are a lot of different causes that cause this problem. If you start analyzing the problem, you will find that our entire social order, our systems, our institutions, and our societies each contribute to this problem. But how to attack the problem at it’s root?
When we examine harassment on social media, negative body image, resulting depression, and reduction of self-confidence to the extent of committing suicide, the primary condition to cause all the other problem is bodily consciousness.
What is “Miss America”? It is an external material designation, awarded to someone almost arbitrarily, on the basis of their body, and to some extent, their mind. So, the very “achievement” deepens and locks someone into bodily consciousness. So this Miss America thing is a big part of the problem, because of course, every idiot has their own idea of what is beautiful and what is not. Everyone who organizes it, everyone who participates in it, everyone who watches it, and everyone who attaches any value or any importance to it is a victim of this terrible disease of bodily consciousness.
Yes, bodily consciousness. Thinking that we are these bodies is the fundamental root cause of the problem.
We are spirit souls, or “Atma”. We are completely non-material.
In fact, the spirit soul wears two bodies, just like we wear outwear and underwear… The “outerwear” in the case of the spirit soul, is these gross material body. And the “underwear” in the case of the spirit soul is the subtle material body, consisting of mind, intelligence, and false ego.
What is false ego? Exactly the very root of the problem. False ego means “I am this body, I am this mind”. To confuse and conflate the identity of the pure spirit soul with temporary identities like the gross and material bodies is the pastime of fools like Descartes. And due to these very smart and clever fools, innocent people are being misled, even to the point of suicide.
In the material energy, the principal manifestations are eight, as above mentioned. Out of these, the first five manifestations, namely earth, water, fire, air and sky, are called the five gigantic creations or the gross creations, within which the five sense objects are included. They are the manifestations of physical sound, touch, form, taste and smell. Material science comprises these ten items and nothing more. But the other three items, namely mind, intelligence and false ego, are neglected by the materialists.
Spiritual life begins at the point when we realize our identity as spirit soul. Any religious, philosophical or scientific tradition which does not clearly help us understand this is purely material in nature.
It is extremely sad that violence is being committed upon God’s dear souls every single day. And one should be extremely angry with those who are perpetrating this violence?
What is violence and what is non-violence? Violence means denying someone their right. If you have a right to be somewhere, and someone denies you that right, then that is violence against you.
Dear Spirit Soul, you are not this body, you are spirit soul, an eternal associate of God. Why are you accepting this horrible violence being perpetrated on you, making you believe that you are this body, you are this mind?
Wake up! Free yourself from these shackles! And the moment you do, you will no longer be fodder for those peddling sense gratification. You will not be addicted to Wordle, you will not be addicted to Facebook, you will not be addicted to Instagram, you will not be addicted to LinkedIn, and you will never have a negative thought about yourself for all of eternity.
Because you will know who you are, and you will be who you are. Eternal, Full of Knowledge and Ever-increasing Bliss – these are your qualities as a spirit soul.
You will then participate in the most enlivening, adventurous, loving interactions, together with other spiritually perfected beings, in the service of God.
Are you struggling with any negativity because of being misled like these unfortunate souls? Do you know someone suffering like this? Send them this article! Let me know, I will gladly point in the right direction, and you will be ever-increasingly happy.
To the gross materialist who cannot see anything beyond the gross material body, there is nothing beyond the senses. Therefore his occupational activities are limited to concentrated and extended selfishness. Concentrated selfishness centers around the personal body—this is generally seen amongst the lower animals. Extended selfishness is manifested in human society and centers around the family, society, community, nation and world with a view to gross bodily comfort.
At the minimum, you should know the consequence of committing suicide… when someone kills their gross material body, they are not released from their subtle material body. So, the soul, because it is not yet time to acquire a new gross material body, has to remain in the subtle material body till the allotted lifetime is finished.
This is called, remaining on as a ghost. The ghosts, they do not possess a gross material body or senses, though they have many material desires for sense gratification. Just imagine how frustrating it is to want to drink water but have no hands, no tongue, no throat, and no stomach! Such is the fate of the ghost. In order to enjoy material experiences, ghosts have a need to inhabit other material bodies… and this happens when a person becomes intensely angry, or unspeakably morose, drunk, drugged, or otherwise inebriated. When this happens, a ghost finds it easy to enter such a body, and act through that body.
Ghosts are bereft of a physical body because of their grievously sinful acts, such as suicide. The last resort of the ghostly characters in human society is to take shelter of suicide, either material or spiritual. Material suicide causes loss of the physical body, and spiritual suicide causes loss of the individual identity.
This is why we find instances of perfectly normal people doing things they would have never dreamed of doing. For example a gentle schoolteacher might murder someone, a devoted mother might abuse their child, a policeman may end up committing a most heinous crime. Of course, the ghost cannot be punished in a human court of law!
So it is all very very sad. This intense bodily consciousness and the resultant side effects must be stopped.
How can you stop this? First you have to perfect yourself. How can you do it?
And to understand who you really are, read this book carefully The Bhagavad Gita As It Is. To be free is your right, don’t surrender it! I can help you get your own copy!
O Lord, with this corpselike body, always full of fear, we bear the burden of the relative happiness of kings, which is just like a dream. Thus we have rejected the real happiness of the soul, which comes by rendering selfless service to You. Being so very wretched, we simply suffer in this life under the spell of Your illusory energy.
Why is the body called corpselike? Well, it has no value, no use after the soul leaves it! No matter how beautiful a man or woman may have been, while millions might desire that person while they were alive, no one wants to associate with a dead body (with exceptions, there are always exceptions).
Why is that? If it was the body we really wanted, we’d have no problems associating with corpses. What we really crave for is the association with the spirit souls that animates and enlivens that corpse.
Which brings us the point – how do we get a ‘corpselike’ material body?
Material desires! What are material desires? Desire to be #1, the desire to be Lord and Master of all I survey, Desire to be the Center of the Universe, the Desire to be this, that, and other, the Desire to be what we are not.
Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown
William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part II, 1597
Well before Shakespeare, it was known that material desires create material bodies.
One material body per material desire, at least.
Influenced by the illusory material energy that is all around us, we’re creating our next millions and billions of material bodies right now. The desire for money, the desire for sex, the desire for fame, the desire to be powerful, the desire to have blue eyes or smooth skin or long hair, the desire to do this or that… all corpses in disguise, seductive but deadly.
But why do we want to create yet another corpse? How many have we carried already? How many do we have yet to carry?
Better to be free of this material bondage, repeated, birth, death, old age, and disease!
जन्ममृत्युजराव्याधिदु:खदोषानुदर्शनम्
janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi-
duḥkha-doṣānudarśanam
the perception of the evil of birth, death, old age and disease
A genuine spiritual practice, devoid of the trickery of material sense gratification disguised as religion leads to this perception of who I am, not this body, but a pure spirit soul, eternally part-and-parcel of God.
Not carrying a corpse in the material world, as a spirit soul, free to be me!
The mind is a fascinating entity. Human society strives to define what is the mind, to understand it, to make sense of what is this thing.
The subject matter of “mind” is very deep and complex, no doubt, but there is one thing we need to understand…
The mind is not the brain.
Modern science has gone in the direction of equating the mind with the physical, chemical, and electrical features of what is observed in the brain. And there has been some apparent success too, stimulating a certain part of the brain causes certain emotions, cutting off a certain part of the brain causes certain memories or abilities to disappear, observing the electrical signals in the brain gives a sense that “this part of the brain is responsible for that type of thought or activity”.
So one may be forgive for thinking that the mind is the brain.
However, looking deep into the Vedic texts, one finds that the mind is described as a subtle material entity…
Bg. 7.4 भूमिरापोऽनलो वायुः खं मनो बुद्धिरेव च । अहंकार इतीयं मे भिन्ना प्रकृतिरष्टधा ॥ ७.४ ॥ bhūmir āpo ’nalo vāyuḥ khaṁ mano buddhir eva ca ahaṅkāra itīyaṁ me bhinnā prakṛtir aṣṭadhā Earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence and false ego – all together these eight constitute My separated material energies.
Analyzing the body itself, including the brain, all the material elements of the brain fall into the “earth, water, fire, air, which all take ether (space) categories. The mind is distinct from these, and what is interesting, is that the mind is also distinct from intelligence and the sense of identity (ego).
So how do we understand the role of the brain in the manifestation of the mind?
We can turn to modern computer science. In a typical computer, we see the hardware, the wired up silicon wafers. By themselves, they are pretty much worthless, no more useful than beach sand.
There’s also something called the “software” which is also pretty useless until it actually runs on those silicon circuits. Software is written by conscious entities, and represents their thought process. It comes “alive” when it runs on the hardware.
Going one level deeper, there is something called the “firmware”, which is the first layer of basic software which allows the silicon circuits to be able to run the software. All these of course are useless unless there is an expert programmer who can combine the right hardware, firmware, and software together to create something useful.
In the context of the body, you, the spirit soul, atma, are the driver of both your body and your mind, that is, if you don’t let the machines randomly drive you here-and-there chasing after mirages.
To those in the know about the essence of spirituality, life comes form the spirit spark that inhabits the body, the ego represents the sense of identity of that spirit spark, intelligence represents the discrimination that comes from that sense of identity, and the mind represents the actualization of the intelligence into thinking, feeling, and willing.
This makes the brain merely the subtle hardware, where the mind manifests its own workings, which then manifests in the gross hardware, as words and deeds.
But this does not make the mind simply the brain just as an electrical wire delivering power to a lightbulb is not the power generation station.
This deserves some reflection… you are not this body, and you are certainly not your mind, and contrary to what is commonly understood today, your brain is not your mind. You carry your mind with you life after life after life, until of course, you are free of the material mind, being completely pure in your spiritual identity and consciousness.
![The humble sages, by virtue of true knowledge, see with equal vision a learned and gentle brāhmaṇa, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a dog-eater [outcaste]. BG 5.18](https://dasadas.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/image-31.png?w=1024)
Freedom through Genuine Spiritual Progress 