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Why has the Soul falled into this world of illusion?

The true self is unborn and beyond the illusion of life and death. You are not the temporary identity you speak of; you are, in reality, one with the divine. This perceived separation is an illusion born of ignorance. The Ātmā, your true self, is indestructible like space; it cannot be cut, burned, or killed. It is immortal, pure consciousness. From this consciousness, a divine will expressed itself as the primordial sound, Oṁ. This sound is the creative vibration from which all universes manifest. You originally existed within this as a joyful, divine being. Traveling on the waves of time, individual qualities emerged and coalesced into a soul, causing you to forget your original, unified state. This forgetting is the pollution of ignorance. The entire play of creation is not a mistake. By realizing your true self, you transcend fear and see the body as a temporary burden, returning to your original, happy nature.

"‘This Ātmā, which you are, no weapon can kill.’ Death cannot take it away, and no elements can destroy you."

"‘Eko'haṁ bahusyāmi.’ I am one, and I will multiply."

Filming location: Adelaide, Australia

This question has been put to me, I believe, nearly 750 times. "Sir, you must have a good answer." Yes, that is it. So, I have already practiced this answer. The answer is very long, but I try to make it short: in reality, there is no life, no birth, and no death. You are not this what you are talking about now; you are, in truth, in reality, with God. This is your illusion. But who is talking this? In the Bhagavad Gītā, Ādiguru Śaṅkarāchārya said: "This Ātmā, which you are, no weapon can kill." Death cannot take it away, and no elements can destroy you. You are that unborn, immortal, everlasting, pure, cosmic consciousness. What the question has been put, and who is thinking like this, is that pollution or the ignorance. The Ātmā is like space. This space from this wall to this wall, let's say, take one knife and cut. Move the knife a thousand times, and then take a magnified glass and look if there are any scratches. Nothing happened. One thing happened only: that tomorrow you will have sore muscles. Now take the fire, the gas, and like a welding flame which has a very strong heat, and try to burn the space. After, put off the fire and see if the space has a hole or some burn somewhere. Even death itself is existing in the space. The elements exist in the space, and so Ātmā is that. Now, the other is that it is said this is the divine will: that out of this cosmic consciousness the sound awoke, what we call Nādarūpa Parabrahma. The nāda is the resonance or sound, Parabrahma is the supreme, highest, or the cosmic self. "Eko'haṁ bahusyāmi." I am one, and I will multiply. And with this desire—we call it desire, and in spiritual language we call it the divine will—there the sound awoke. That's called Oṁ; in yoga, it's called the Oṁ. A, U, M: beginning, middle, and end, all in one, is like one circle. When we draw here a circle, or you have one ring, you don't know the circle's summit, the circle's midpoint, from where it began to make the round. Similarly, everything is round. And from that sound, everything is created: endless planets and stars, and thousands of solar systems. It's called Anantabrahmāṇḍa, Śaṣṭra Sūryas—endless universe and thousands of the solar systems created by one creator. That's called his divine will. And so the resonance, the form of the Supreme, is the resonance, only the sound. So in the space, the consciousness and sound, you cannot see, but you can feel it. And that sound cannot spread unless there is space. But though space is there, if there is no movement and energy, the sound cannot go even far. And so there is another element of energy called expanding, which brings the sound from me to you and back to me. So there are many, many functions in this, and you were inside as the happiest and divine individual, feeling beauty and joy. What happened? On the waves of time, through the entire universe, you began to travel happily. But suddenly, these qualities came, and individual qualities began. And that quality is collected, that becomes a soul, and now we lost our memory that we were that one. So we have to go to the origin; and therefore, this is a pollution of our ignorance, pollution of our desires. And so, therefore, when a person becomes self-realized and holy, then even the body becomes a burden for that person, you know, and that person has no fear, is completely spiritual, and sitting and happy and this; so we have to come there. So this whole entire game, we have to understand, it is not a mistake, and it is not unpleasant. It is very good, but we are afraid, and we lost the original cause of it.

This text is transcribed and grammar corrected by AI. If in doubt what was actually said in the recording, use the transcript to double click the desired cue. This will position the recording in most cases just before the sentence is uttered.

The text contains hyperlinks in bold to three authoritative books on yoga, written by humans, to clarify the context of the lecture:

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