Fragile Bodies, Durable Souls
Although we take much pride in our physical bodies, it is a fragile thing. A small injury, even an attack by a tiny virus can cause huge damage to it or even bring its life to an end. However, while this body is fragile within it dwells a durable soul. It does not die when this body dies. Weapons cannot cut it, fire cannot burn it. When this physical body is destroyed or worn out with age, it goes on to acquire a new body, just as it had acquired the present one. A soul changes bodies just as bodies change clothes. The soul is our essential self from which our feelings, desires and aversions emerge. Our conscious mind may not remember past lives but the soul does. Impressions of our past lives are imprinted upon it. Attached to the soul is consciousness, which is in fact a part of the infinite consciousness that pervades the universe. However, focused on the activities of the mind and inputs of the senses of the body to which it is attached, the individual consciousness ...