“Who Am I?” Body vs. Soul, Compassion vs. Duty, and Rebirth — A Clear Q&A

Question

Ma’am, if you have time, I want to ask something.

We’re told we should know our true Self. That means giving up attachment to the body, getting free of worldly bonds, and living as the energy of the soul. My point is: the soul is that in which there’s no emotion — we’re free from all ties and feelings because we want liberation; we don’t want another birth. But then a person would become like a machine. If so, he won’t be reborn. But suppose there’s someone whose very aim is to do evil. Even when he gains the sense of right and wrong and also attains Self-knowledge — will he still be reborn?

Rishis say we should look at everyone with compassion and love. But if we give compassion and look at everyone with love, or we have a soft corner for someone, how do we carry out our duties? Suppose a child has committed a crime and must be punished, but we love him very much. On one side there’s justice; on the other, compassion. Then how will we fulfill our responsibility and still punish him? I’m totally confused.

And about rebirth — when we say that as soon as the soul leaves one body it immediately enters some womb, what exactly is that?

Answer

Look, all the points you raised — right now inside you there’s a mixture. Like putting many colored pebbles in a box and shaking it: all the colors get mixed. The thoughts inside your mind are like those mixed colors. First, we need to separate them — lay out each color on its own.

That begins with the primary question: “Who am I?”

Right now we take ourselves to be a body, and all relationships connected to the body as “mine.” We live in that thought: “I am this body, and the people related to the body are my own; for them I must do things — even wrong things if needed.” This is a distorted thought. In the Ramayana, this very thought is called “Ravana.” The text’s main purpose is: how to end this Ravana within.

This Ravana isn’t new — it’s from many births. It’s so strong it has sunk from the conscious mind down into the subconscious as a deep imprint. If it were only a passing thought in the conscious mind, we could erase it quickly — like pencil marks rubbed out with an eraser. But this was written in “ink,” so to speak; it’s deep. “I am the body” has become a habit, a samskara. That’s why we can’t remove it easily.

So the very first step on the spiritual path is to know our true identity: Who am I really? We have two options before us. One: continue as we are — “I am the body.” Two: change. And the spiritual journey means change — to shift to “I am not the body; the body is mine. I am the conscious power that runs this body — the soul.”

So we must change the thought to: “I am not the body. The body is mine, but I am the conscious Self that operates it.” Work at this. Even 10–20 times a day, repeat within: “I am not the body; the body is mine; I am the conscious soul.” The old thought became strong because we chewed on it millions of times. Now keep “chewing” this new thought.

“Chewing” means what a cow does: it keeps working the grass until it turns to juice. In the same way, keep turning this understanding over and over — but do it with comprehension, not blindly because someone said so.

Why? Understand the reason. The conscious power — what we call soul/Paramatma — is one. Is it not in me? Not in you? Not in a cat or dog? The One became many — that one conscious power pervades all: plants, insects, birds, animals, humans. The bodies differ, but the Life that runs them is the same.

How do we know that Life runs the body? Simple: when a person dies, the body remains exactly as it was — eyes, ears, hands, heart — everything is there. What changed? Why do we now call it a corpse? Because consciousness is gone. That very consciousness — that’s the soul, that’s the Divine presence. While it was in the body, the body functioned; when it left, the body doesn’t.

This creation-wheel has never stopped; it keeps turning. In all this movement we see the body, but we don’t see the power that runs it. The soul isn’t visible. If you draw a horizontal line through the brow center and a vertical line down the middle of the skull, where the lines meet — that is called the seat of the soul. When consciousness departs, it exits from where it abides.

Because the body is visible and the Self isn’t, over hundreds, thousands, lakhs of years, we’ve started believing we are the body. Seeing the moving body, we concluded, “I am this.” So inside us, things got jumbled: the mover and the moved — we made them one. Now we must separate them: the power that runs, and that which is run. Only then will we grasp: “I, the conscious Self, operate this body. The body is inert; it cannot run anything.” The inert needs the conscious to move — and that conscious power is what I am.