Gadhada Last Section Vach. 39 Vachanamrut Rahasyarth Pradeepika Tika

A disciple of God requires both the strength of a conviction about the soul (aatma-nishta) and the strength of understanding the greatness (mahatmya) of God. That conviction about the soul comprises of realising that the soul is separate form the body. Whilst staying amongst sadhus, someone may have occasional disputes for various reasons. In those situations, if he has congruency towards his body and possessiveness towards objects, and the flaws, such as arrogance (maan), anger (krodh), taste (swad), greed (lobh), lust (kaam), resentment (matsar) and jealousy (irsha), arise, it is possible that he will demerit the sadhu if he has not considered himself to be a soul. This will be extremely detrimental to him. A person should recognise himself to be a soul, which is separate from the body. That soul is not of the Brahmin, Kshatriya, or Kanbi castes. It is no-one’s son and no-one’s father. It has no caste nor does it belong to any clan. That soul is lustrous like the Sun and fire, and is conscious. The flames of a fire and the rays of the Sun are inert because if one touches them with a finger, they do not move. However, if one touches an ant with a finger, it halts and moves in the opposite direction. The soul is conscious and is described as being like the Sun or fire because like them, its form is lustrous. That soul has passed through numerous lifecycles. It is said that the amount of water in the ocean is equivalent to the amount of milk drunk by each soul from its mother’s breasts. In all those lives, it will have died in numerous different ways. Still, it is not dead; it is exactly the same as it always was. Even during that state of ignorance, when it believed itself to be the body, it did not die. So now that it has attained the knowledge about its form, how can it die? That soul should be believed to  be one’s own form.