Needs utmost attention and concentration while
reading,keeping in mind the topic.

Source: "Life after Death by Swami Vivekananda

IS THE SOUL IMMORTAL?
In the famous and great Sanskrit epic “MAHABHARATA”,
the story goes like this, Dharma asked Yudishthira to
tell what was the wonderful thing in the world? The
reply came that it was the persistent belief of
mankind in their own deathlessness in spite of their
witnessing death everywhere around them almost every,
moment of their lives. This is the most stupendous
wonder in human life. In spite of all the arguments to
the contrary urged in different times by different
schools of thought, in spite of the inability of
reason to penetrate the veil of mystery which will
ever hang between the sensuous and the super sensuous
world, man is thoroughly persuaded that he cannot die.

We may study all our lives and in the end fail to
bring the problem of life and death to the plane of
rational demonstration, affirmative or negative. We
may talk, write, preach or teach for or against the
permanency or impermanency of human existence as much
as we may like, may become violent or partisans of
this side or that, may lull ourselves into a momentary
rest under the delusion of having solved the problem
once for all, may cling ourselves with all our powers
to curious religious superstitions –but in the end we
find ourselves playing an eternal game in the bowling
alley of reason and rising intellectual pin after pin
only to be knocked over again and again. Behind all
these mental strain and stress, not infrequently
productive of more dangerous results than mere games,
stands a fact unchallenged or unchallengeable, the
fact, the wonder, which the epic points out as the
inability of our mind to conceive our own
annihilation.

Now before trying to understand what this curious
phenomenon means, it is better to note that upon this
one fact the whole world stands. The permanence of the
external world is inevitably joined to the permanence
of the internal and however plausible any theory of
the universe may seem which asserts the permanence of
the one and denies that of the other, the theorist
himself will find that in his own mechanism not one
conscious action is possible, without the permanence
of both internal and external worlds being one of the
factors in the motive cause. Although it is true that
when the human mind transcends its own limitations, it
finds duality reduced to an indivisible unity, on this
side of the unconditioned, the whole objective
world-that is to say, the world we know, is and can be
alone known to us as existing for the object and
therefore we would be able to conceive the
annihilation of the subject we are bound to conceive
the annihilation of the object so far it is plain
enough. But now comes the difficulty. I cannot think
of myself ordinarily as anything else but a physical
body. My idea of my own permanence includes my idea of
myself as a body, but the body is obviously
impermanent, as is the whole of nature a constantly
vanishing one. Where, then, is this permanence ?

There is one more wonderful phenomenon connected with
our lives, without which who will be able to live? Who
will be able to enjoy life a moment?-the idea of
freedom. This is the idea that guides each footstep of
ours and makes our movement possible, determines our
relations to each other-nay, is the very warp and woof
in the fabric of human life.

Intellectual knowledge tries to drive it inch by
inch from its territory, post after post is snatched
away from its domain and each step is made fast and
iron bound with the rail-readings of CAUSE AND
EFFECT.But it laughs at all our attempts and keep
itself above all these massive pile of law and
causation with which we tried to smother it to death!
How can it be otherwise?.The limited always requires
a higher generalisation of the unlimited to explain
itself. The bound can only explained by the free, the
caused by the uncaused. But again the same
uncaused,again the same difficulty exist. What is
free?The body or the mind ?It is apparent to all that
they are as much bound by law as any thing else in
the universe.The problem resolves itself into this
dilemma:- i.e either the whole universe is a mass of
never ceasing change and nothing more, irrevocably
bound by the law of causation, not one particle having
a unity of itself, yet is curiously producing an
ineradicable delusion of permanence and freedom or,
there is in us and in the universe something which
is permanent and free, showing that the basal
constitutional belief of the human mind is not a
delusion.

Now it is the duty of the science to explain facts by
bringing them to a higher generalisation.Any
explanation , that first want to destroy a part of the
fact given to be explained in order to fit itself to
the remainder , is not scientific, whatever else it
may be. Therefore , any explanation that wants to over
look the fact of this persistent and all necessary
idea of freedom, commits the above mentioned mistake
of denying a portion of the fact , in order to
explain the rest is therefore wrong.

The only other alternative possible then is to
acknowledge, in harmony with our nature , that there
is something in us which is free and permanent. But
it is not the Body or the mind, as the body is dying
every minute and the mind is constantly changing .The
body is a combination and so is the mind and as such
can never reach to a state beyond all change. But
beyond this momentary sheathing of gross matter ,
beyond even the finer covering of the mind is the
"Atman", the true self of man, the permanent and ever
free.

It is this freedom that his freedom percolating
through layers of thought and matter, is ever
asserting its unshackled existence, it is His
deathlessness, His bliss, His peace, His divinity that
shines out and makes itself felt in spite of the
thickest layers of ignorance. He is the real man, the
fearless one, the deathless one and he is free.

Therefore freedom is possible only when no external
power can exert any influence and produce any change.
Freedom is only possible to the being who is beyond
all conditions, all laws, all bondages of cause and
effect. In other words the unchangeable alone can be
free and immortal. This being the truth, this "Atman",
this real self of man, the free, the unchangeable, is
beyond all conditions and as such it has "neither
birth nor death". Without birth or death, eternal ever
existing is the "SOUL OF MAN"

The answer to the ? Is soul immortal? has now been
explained.

JK