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The first important spiritual truth given in Bhagavad-gita is that the living entity is an eternal individual spirit soul. Everything else is based on this:

na tv evaham jatu nasam
na tvam neme janadhipah
na caiva na bhavisyamah
sarve vayam atah param

“Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be.” [Bhagavad-gita 2.12]

Kṛṣṇa, God, is eternal, original and unlimited.

advaitam acyutam anadim ananta-rupam
adyam purana-purusam nava-yauvanam ca
vedesu durlabham adurlabham atma-bhaktau
govindam adi-purusam tam aham bhajami

“I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, who is inaccessible to the Vedas, but obtainable by pure unalloyed devotion of the soul; who is unique, without a second; who is not subject to decay; is without a beginning, whose form is endless; who is the beginning, and the eternal purusa; yet He is a person possessing the beauty of blooming youth.” [Brahma-samhita 5.33]

Purana-purusam means the oldest person. Because Kṛṣṇa is the original person, therefore He is also purana, the oldest. He is even older than Brahma, because Brahma is given birth by Kṛṣṇa. Therefore Kṛṣṇa has been addressed in the Bhagavad-gita as prapitamaha:

prajapatis tvam prapitamahas ca

“You are the first progenitor, and you are the great-grandfather.” [Bhagavad-gita 11.39]

Brahma is called pitamaha, the grandfather, and prapitamaha means “the father of the grandfather.” So Kṛṣṇa has been addressed as prapitamaha, “father of Brahma.” Therefore He’s adi-purusa: the first person. Lord Brahma is the original person within this creation, because he was firstborn. There was no other being before him. But he’s given birth by Narayana, from the abdomen of Narayana in the lotus flower.

Narayana or Kṛṣṇa is prapitamaha, the father of Brahma, and adi-purusa, the first person. Kṛṣṇa is the first person, and all other individual persons are descended from Him. Therefore Bhagavad-gita nullifies the Mayavadi philosophy. Because it is said,

na jayate mriyate va kadacin
nayam bhutva bhavita va na bhuyah
ajo nityah sasvato 'yam purano
na hanyate hanyamane sarire

“For the soul there is never birth nor death. Nor, having once been, does he ever cease to be. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing, undying and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain.” [Bhagavad-gita 2.20]

Mayavada philosophy says that the living entity is originally one with God, but has become individual on account of illusion. But Kṛṣṇa is the original eternal person from whom all other persons come, and He says,

mamaivamso jiva-loke
jiva-bhutah sanatanah

“The conditioned living entities in this world are My eternal, fragmental parts.” [Bhagavad-gita 15.7]

Mamaivamso is a compound word of mama + eva + amsa: “Certainly they are My parts.” That amsa, part and parcel of God, he’s an individual, sanatana, eternally. It is not that, because of illusion, he’s only thinking “I am separated.” He really is a separate individual always, sanatana. That is the statement of the Vedas. Last time we quoted the Upanisadic sloka, nityo nityanam cetanas caitananam.

Although the living entity is a separate individual, he is one in quality with the Lord. But his individuality, that he is a separated fragment of Kṛṣṇa, that is sanatana or eternal. It is not that by maya or illusion that we seem fragmental or separated; we really are eternal individuals. And so it is not true that when we are liberated, we merge into the body or the effulgence of God. We are separated in perpetuity.

In the Varaha Purana the living entity is called vibhinnamsa, “separated part and parcel.” So we should understand very clearly that, although we are eternal part and parcels of Kṛṣṇa, we are eternally separate individuals.

maya tatam idam sarvam
jagad avyakta-murtina
mat-sthani sarva-bhutani
na caham tesv avasthitah

“By Me, in My unmanifested form, this entire universe is pervaded. All beings are in Me, but I am not in them.” [Bhagavad-gita 9.4]

Everything is existing in Kṛṣṇa. But still, Kṛṣṇa is not the living entity. According to Kṛṣṇa’s statements in Bhagavad-gita and other Vedic scriptures, both Kṛṣṇa and the living entities are eternal individuals.

But at present, we are in illusion, because we are thinking that “I am this body.” Otherwise, why there is so much fighting in the world? Everyone is thinking, “I am this body.” The material bodily concept of life is maya: illusion or ignorance. The process of the Esoteric Teaching is to drive away the covering of ignorance so that our natural spiritual knowledge is revealed.

om ajnana-timirandhasya
jnananjana-salakaya
caksur unmilitam yena
tasmai sri-gurave namah

“I was born in the darkest ignorance, and my spiritual master opened my eyes with the torch of knowledge. I offer my respectful obeisances unto him.” [Sri Guru Pranama, a traditional Vaiṣṇava prayer]

Every one of us is covered by the darkness of ajnana. What is that ajnana? “I am this body.” “I am Indian.” “I am American.” “I am a man,” “I am a woman.” “I am this, I am that.” So there is fighting, due to ajnana. So first of all we have to drive away this ajnana. Therefore Kṛṣṇa is teaching Arjuna that “You are not this body. You are spirit soul.” This is the first spiritual instruction, that “You are not this body; you are an eternal person, a spirit soul.”

That dust of ignorance is removed by chanting your mantra, om namo bhagavate vasudevaya. It is the medicine recommended in the Esoteric Teaching to clean the ignorance of material consciousness from the soul. Then he can understand that “I am not this body; I am spirit soul, part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa. My duty is to serve Kṛṣṇa.” By following the process of the Esoteric Teaching, he becomes enlightened gradually.

The external form of the material body is different from the consciousness within, or the soul. Just like you are now covered with some type of clothing. So if you change your dress, does it mean that you are a different person? Your body is dressed in a certain type of covering. So, if you change this covering, does it mean you are someone else? Of course not.

Similarly, this material body is like clothing for the soul. So if I change my clothes, that does not mean that I am a different person. Suppose I am now a human being, and I change my body to become a demigod, or I change my body to become a dog. It does not mean that I am finished. I am still the same person; I have simply changed my dress, according to my karma.

sri-bhagavan uvaca
karmana daiva-netrena
jantur dehopapattaye
striyah pravista udaram
pumso retah-kanasrayah

“The Personality of Godhead said: Under the supervision of the Supreme Lord and according to the result of his work, the living entity, the soul, is made to enter into the womb of a woman through the particle of male semen to assume a particular type of body.” [Srimad-Bhagavatam 3.31.1]

Because of your karma, you’ll always have a dress, a body. The living soul is not destroyed after the destruction of this body. Therefore he remains, in his underwear, the subtle body: mind, intelligence, and ego. So according to the composition of his mind, he develops another body. This is the process of transmigration of the soul.

You, the spirit soul, are always the same, although you are changing bodies just like a person changes his clothes. Our problem is that we are perpetually changing bodies, but our desire is to have a permanent life. That is why we offer spiritual education. You can have a permanent life, a permanent body with a permanent identity and knowledge, if you become free from the body-changing problem. That is called mukti. The Esoteric Teaching is intended to stop this business of changing bodies and bring us to our eternal perfect body.

We have a distinction between our body and our self, the soul. But Kṛṣṇa has no such distinction. Kṛṣṇa’s body is completely spiritual. Just because Kṛṣṇa comes before us in a form like a human being, if we think that He is also like us, then we are fools. Kṛṣṇa does not change His body. Otherwise, Kṛṣṇa could not say that “Millions and millions of years ago I spoke this philosophy to the sun-god.” Because we change our body, we forget who we were in our past lives.

Therefore the purpose of the Esoteric Teaching is to educate everyone in the science of Kṛṣṇa, Bhagavad-gita As It Is. The perfection of spiritual consciousness is always thinking of Kṛṣṇa. As Kṛṣṇa says, Man-mana bhava mad-bhakto mad-yaji mam namaskuru [Bhagavad-gita 18.65]. These four principles: always think of Kṛṣṇa, become Kṛṣṇa’s devotee, worship Kṛṣṇa, and offer your respect and obeisances to Kṛṣṇa. This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

The fundamental question of our interest in self-realization is to know the soul. The form and definition of the soul, and how to know the difference between the soul and matter is described in Bhagavad-gita. Na jayate na mriyate: the soul is never born, and never dies; the soul is eternal. Nityah sasvato ’yam na hanyate hanyamane sarire [Bhagavad-gita 2.20]: even after the destruction of this body, the soul is not destroyed. This spiritual education is required to attain the goal of human life, self-realization.

The qualities of the soul are known to one who has become sober, dhira. If you want to realize the soul, the shortest way is through the tongue, by chanting the Holy Name of the Lord. There is the soul within this body, and the symptom of the soul is consciousness. We are all spirit souls. But we have no eyes to see this truth directly.

Just like the eye cannot see itself, you cannot see the soul. So what is the value of your eyes? You cannot see so many things, like electricity, yet you believe they exist. Because you cannot see the soul, it does not mean there is no soul. We have to accept some authority, so we accept Kṛṣṇa’s authority. We cannot see the soul in our present consciousness because our eyes are imperfect. So the proof that there is a soul is that as soon as the soul is gone, a living body becomes a dead body. That is the proof.

If you want to see the soul directly, you must be qualified. Tad viddhi pranipatena pariprasnena sevaya [Bhagavad-gita 4.34]. You must approach a self-realized person who knows the secrets of spiritual life and inquire by surrender, not by challenge. You cannot know about soul and God by a challenging spirit. You have to become submissive and accept a spiritual master who knows. Then by following his instructions, you will also come to know. That is the process of the Esoteric Teaching.