By: BK Dr.Savita
Source: The Daily Guardian https://epaper.thedailyguardian.com/view/2016/the-daily-guardian/15
Dated: February 8th, 2025

The idea of immortality has fascinated humans for ages, and scientific efforts to prolong life and perpetuate youth began in earnest about a century ago. Such efforts are, however, misdirected. It is absurd to seek physical immortality. The body is made of the five elements and, like all organic matter, is subject to decay. That is the law of nature.

Spiritual immortality, on the other hand, is an actual fact. We are all souls, not bodies - the body is merely the physical medium through which the soul expresses itself. It is because we have forgotten this fact that we identify ourselves with our body, and fear death and everything it connotes. 

The soul, eternal and immortal, is the sentient being that lends life to the body. Consciousness resides in the soul, and the mind and intellect are the soul’s faculties. It is the soul who thinks, feels, reasons, and makes decisions. These activities shape the person’s identity and go towards creating their personality.

But we mistakenly link our personality with the body. Doing so is akin to an actor identifying himself with the costume given to him for his role. Just as a good actor can play a role well in any costume, a strong soul is not limited or hindered by its body. The proof of this are the real-life stories we hear of physically disabled persons achieving feats that are difficult for even healthy individuals.

When we recognise and accept our spiritual identity, and begin to live by it, we start becoming free from the negative thoughts, feelings, and ideas that arise from identifying the self with the body.

The soul has no gender, race, religion, or nationality. Fundamentally, all souls, and therefore all humans, are equal. We all are children of the Supreme Soul, whom people call by many names, including God, and the Almighty.

This spiritual awareness, which frees us from the illusion of being mortal, does not come just by knowing that we are souls. We need to repeatedly remind ourselves of this fact and be aware of it while interacting with others and going about our daily tasks.  

In order to understand the drama of life being played out by billions of human souls on the stage of planet Earth, we also need to know where souls come from and where they go after leaving a body.

The original home of human souls is the soul world, an abode beyond the universe where souls and the Supreme Soul live. Each soul departs from that home for this world to play its part at its appointed time. Souls start arriving in this world in the Golden Age, which is also called ‘Amarlok’, the world of immortality. That name comes from the fact that all souls there are aware of their true identity and know that they are immortal. In the Golden Age, physical death is regarded merely as departure from an old body to take birth in a new one. There is no sense of loss, sorrow, or fear.

Gradually, as souls play different roles through successive lives, they lose their power. Eventually, a time comes when they forget their true identity and start identifying themselves with their body. Body consciousness brings with it the fear of death as well as vices that corrupt humans. Lust, anger, greed, ego and attachment have their roots in body consciousness. When souls start acting under the influence of vices, they experience the karmic return in the form of suffering of various kinds, including untimely death. That in turn increases their fear of death. When untimely death becomes commonplace, this world comes to be called ‘Mrityulok’  or the land of death.  

It is in this world of suffering that God arrives, as described in the Bhagavad Gita,  to remind us of our true identity, rid us of vices, and usher in the Golden Age, the age of immortality, once again.

BK Dr. Savita is a Rajyoga teacher 
at the Brahma Kumaris headquarters in Abu Road, Rajasthan.