Chapter (অধ্যায়): THE SOUL AND GOD PAGE-494Page: 494 of 521
There are two sorts of races, the divine and the demonic. The divine think that they are soul and spirit. The demonic think that they are bodies. The old Indian philosophers tried to insist that the body is nothing. "As a man emits his old garment and takes a new one, even so the old body is [shed] and he takes a new one" (Gita, II.22). In my case, all my surroundings and education were trying to [make me] the other way. I was always associated with Mohammedans and Christians, who take more care of the body. ...
It is only one step from [the body] to the spirit. ...[In India] they became insistent on this ideal of the soul. It became [synonymous with] the idea of God. ...If the idea of the soul begins to expand, [man must arrive at the conclusion that it is beyond name and form]. ...The Indian idea is that the soul is formless. Whatever is form must break sometime or other. There cannot be any form unless it is the result of force and matter; and all combinations must dissolve. If such is the case, [if] your soul is [made of name and form, it disintegrates], and you die, and you are no more immortal. If it is double, it has form and it belongs to nature and it obeys nature's laws of birth and death. ...They find that this [soul] is not the mind...neither a double. ...
Thoughts can be guided and controlled. ...[The Yogis of India] practised to see how far the thoughts can be guided and controlled. By dint of hard work, thoughts may be silenced altogether. If thoughts were [the real man], as soon as thought ceases, he ought to die. Thought ceases in meditation; even the mind's elements are quite quiet. Blood circulation stops. His breath stops, but he is not dead. If thought were he, the whole thing ought to go, but they find it does not go. That is practical [proof]. They came to the conclusion that even mind and thought were not the real man. Then speculation showed that it could not be.