Tag: soul

  • Dorothy’s Airport Transformation: How Bhakti Turns Grief and Fear Into Inner Peace

    Dorothy’s Airport Transformation: How Bhakti Turns Grief and Fear Into Inner Peace

    An exhausting airport delay becomes the setting for Dorothy’s movement from rage and fear toward spiritual calm. Her encounter with Radhanath Swami explores grief, terminal illness, the fear of death, and the Bhakti understanding of the eternal soul. The discussion examines free will and karma while firmly rejecting guilt, fatalism, and victim-blaming. It explains how…

  • Ashtavakra Gita Explained: Powerful Wisdom on Soul, Bondage and Liberation

    Ashtavakra Gita Explained: Powerful Wisdom on Soul, Bondage and Liberation

    The Ashtavakra Gita is a profound Advaita Vedānta dialogue between Rishi Ashtavakra and King Janaka of Mithila on the nature of the Self, bondage, reality, and liberation. It teaches that the true Self is pure consciousness, distinct from the body, mind, ego, and changing experiences of life. The text explains bondage as misidentification with desire,…

  • Equality of the Soul: A Powerful Interfaith Reading of Vedas and Jewish Wisdom

    Equality of the Soul: A Powerful Interfaith Reading of Vedas and Jewish Wisdom

    This rewritten study presents a rigorous, accessible exploration of the spiritual parallels between Vedic philosophy and Jewish mystical tradition. It focuses on equality based on the soul, showing how the Bhagavad-gita, Srimad-Bhagavatam, Torah, Zohar, Bahir, Talmud, and Sefer Yetzirah can be read in dialogue without erasing their differences. The article explains dharma, karma, reincarnation, guru-parampara,…

  • Unraveling the Soul in Mimamsa: Ritual Power, Karma Mechanics, and Liberation in Classical Hinduism

    Unraveling the Soul in Mimamsa: Ritual Power, Karma Mechanics, and Liberation in Classical Hinduism

    Mimamsa develops a precise account of the soul (ātman) by grounding ethics in Vedic authority, ritual grammar, and the law of karma. It explains how apūrva (the unseen potency) links present actions to future results, safeguarding karmic justice across rebirths without requiring a discretionary deity. The soul is eternal, responsible, and known through robust pramāṇa…

  • From Mumbai Dawn to Metaphysics: Resolving to Live by the Soul (jivatma) with Clarity

    From Mumbai Dawn to Metaphysics: Resolving to Live by the Soul (jivatma) with Clarity

    This essay reframes an ordinary Mumbai dawn as an entry point into a rigorous inquiry about jivatmathe soulas treated in Hindu philosophy and Vedanta. It explains why the soul hypothesis remains philosophically plausible through identity continuity, the hard problem of consciousness, and the reality of normativity and agency. Readers gain a comparative view across dharmic…

  • What Happens After Death? Garuda Purana’s Vivid Journey of the Soul, Karma, and Liberation

    What Happens After Death? Garuda Purana’s Vivid Journey of the Soul, Karma, and Liberation

    The Garuda Purana’s teachings on what happens after death combine vivid narrative with careful ethics and ritual guidance. Rather than inducing fear, these descriptions function as moral instruction, emphasizing accountability (karma), communal care (śrāddha and piṇḍa-dāna), and the ultimate aim of liberation (moksha). Read alongside Upaniṣadic psychology, death can be seen as akin to deep…

  • Karma and the Realized Soul in Hinduism: Sanchita, Prarabdha, Agami and Jivanmukti Explained

    Karma and the Realized Soul in Hinduism: Sanchita, Prarabdha, Agami and Jivanmukti Explained

    This article explains how the threefold classification of karma in Hinduismsanchita, prarabdha, and agamioperates for both seekers and the realized person in Advaita Vedanta. It shows why Self-knowledge nullifies sanchita, prevents the accrual of agami, and yet allows prarabdha to complete its course until the body’s end. Readers gain scriptural grounding from the Bhagavad Gita…

  • Sacred Yet Transient: How Hindu Philosophy Illuminates the Soul’s Journey and the Body’s Role

    Sacred Yet Transient: How Hindu Philosophy Illuminates the Soul’s Journey and the Body’s Role

    Hindu philosophy presents the body as a sacred yet impermanent vessel for the eternal Atman, a view memorably expressed in Bhagavad Gita 2:22. Understanding this distinction encourages reverence for embodied life while cultivating non-attachment. The model of sthula, sukshma, and Karana Sharira explains experience across physical, mental, and karmic layers, clarifying why ethical action matters.…

  • At Death the Mind Shapes Destiny: Insights from Srimad Bhagavatam 10.1.36–45

    At Death the Mind Shapes Destiny: Insights from Srimad Bhagavatam 10.1.36–45

    Srimad Bhagavatam 10.1.36–45 teaches that the mind’s thinking, feeling, and willing at death direct the next embodiment. The principle links karma with a moral psychology in which habits and intentions shape destiny. Readers gain a practical framework: daily remembrance, scriptural study, meditation, and service stabilize attention and prepare consciousness for a peaceful transition. The message…

  • Soul’s Prayer in the Womb: Transformative Insights on Jiva and the Five Elements (SB 3.31.14)

    Soul’s Prayer in the Womb: Transformative Insights on Jiva and the Five Elements (SB 3.31.14)

    This post distills HG Anuttama Prabhu’s talk on Srimad Bhagavatam 3.31.14, where the soul in the womb prays to the Lord and recognizes separation while encased in a body of five elements. It clarifies how bhakti practice, supported by kirtan and scriptural reflection, can turn limitation into a catalyst for self-realization. The discussion uses a…

  • A Mother’s Final Words: A Complete Breakthrough in Dharmic Understanding of the Eternal Self

    A Mother’s Final Words: A Complete Breakthrough in Dharmic Understanding of the Eternal Self

    A late-night call informed that a mother had passed, yet her final words“I’m not this body… I’m going to Krsna!”reframed grief into reflective calm. The account situates her transformation within dharmic perspectives on the self, liberation, and impermanence. It connects Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, and Sikh insights, showing how they converge ethically on fearlessness, compassion, and…

  • Atman in Karmic Religions

    Atman in Karmic Religions

    atman, (Sanskrit: “self,” “breath”) one of the most basic concepts in Sanatan, the universal self, identical with the eternal core of the personality that after death either transmigrates to a new life or attains release (moksha) from the bonds of existence. As Karmic religions like Hinduism (and its various sects), Jainism, Buddhism & Sikhism arose…