What is the Soul?

 What is the Soul

What is the soul and can we see its beauty. Do we recognize that the essence of our soul is the same essence in everyone’s. Do we sit with it. Do we silent our minds so that we can hear…

There is no duality where the knower and the known are as one.

The Song of the Soul sung by Sankaracharya in his Atma Satkam, as printed in Light on Yoga by B.K.S. Iyengar

Atma means the true self that is known after enlightenment.  Satkam is a song written in a six stanza form. So after Sankaracharya reached enlightenment this is what he wrote about the soul.

Song of the Soul

I am neither ego nor reason, I am neither mind nor thought, I cannot be heard or cast into words, nor by smell or sight ever caught: In light and wind I am not found, nor yet in earth and sky – Consciousness and joy incarnate, Bliss of the Blissful am I.

I have no name, I have no life, I breathe no vital air, No elements of have molded me, no bodily sheath is my lair: I have no speech, no hands and feet, nor means of evolution – Consciousness and joy am I and Bliss in dissolution.

I cast aside hatred and passion, I conquered delusion and greed; No touch of pride caressed me, so envy never did breed: Beyond all faiths, past reach of wealth, past freedom or desire, Consciousness and joy am I and Bliss is my attire.

Virtue and vice, or pleasure or pain are not my heritage, Nor sacred texts, nor offerings, nor prayer, nor pilgrimage: I am neither food nor eating, nor yet the eater am I – Consciousness and joy incarnate, Bliss of the Blissful am I.

I have no misgiving of death, no chasms of race divide me, No parent ever called me child, no bond of birth ever tied me: I am neither disciple nor master, I have no kin, no friend – Consciousness and joy am I, and merging in bliss is my end.

Neither Knowable, knowledge, nor knower am I, formless is my form, I dwell within the senses but they are not my home: Ever serenely balanced, I am neither free nor bound – Consciousness and joy am I and Bliss is where I am found.