– Swami Vivekananda
How do we know that the soul is birthless, deathless and omnipresent? The answer to this question has been logically explained by Swami Vivekananda in his lecture: The Atman: Its Bondage & Freedom which is found in the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Volume 2.
According to the Advaita Vedanta philosophy, there is only one thing real in the universe, which it calls Brahman (Sat-Chit-Ananda Infinite Consciousness); everything else is unreal, manifested and manufactured out of Brahman by the power of Maya.
To reach back to that Brahman is our goal. We are, each one of us, that Brahman, that Reality, plus this Maya. If we can get rid of this Maya or ignorance, then we become what we really are.
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According to this philosophy, each man consists of three parts — the body, the internal organ or the mind, and behind that, what is called the Atman, the Self.
The body is the external coating and the mind is the internal coating of the Atman who is the real perceiver, the real enjoyer, the being in the body who is working the body by means of the internal organ or the mind.
Soul is Immortal – Birthless & Deathless
The Atman is the only existence in the human body which is immaterial (i.e. the Atman, the Soul is not made from matter). Because it is immaterial (not made from matter), it cannot be a compound, and because it is not a compound, it does not obey the law of cause and effect, and so it is immortal. That which is immortal can have no beginning because everything with a beginning must have an end.
Soul is Formless
It also follows that it must be formless; there cannot be any form without matter. Everything that has form must have a beginning and an end. We have none of us seen a form which had not a beginning and will not have an end.
A form comes out of a combination of force and matter. This chair has a peculiar form, that is to say a certain quantity of matter is acted upon by a certain amount of force and made to assume a particular shape.
The shape is the result of a combination of matter and force. The combination cannot be eternal; there must come to every combination a time when it will dissolve. So all forms have a beginning and an end.
We know our body will perish; it had a beginning and it will have an end. But the Self (Soul, Atman) having no form, cannot be bound by the law of beginning and end. It is existing from infinite time; just as time is eternal, so is the Self of man eternal.
Soul is Omnipresent
Secondly, it must be all-pervading. It is only form that is conditioned and limited by space; that which is formless cannot be confined in space. So, according to Advaita Vedanta, the Self, the Atman, in you, in me, in every one, is omnipresent.
You are as much in the sun now as in this earth, as much in England as in America. But the Self acts through the mind and the body, and where they are, its action is visible.
