The Soul of ordinary people thinks itself as body. The advanced Soul thinks itself as subtle body. The Saint thinks himself as mind. This thinking is not the Soul's direct thinking. Soul as Soul is Infinite, aloof from mind, body and Maya; but the Soul, the Infinite who has mind due to Maya, we now call the Soul, the thinker and doer.

It is the mind that thinks and the body that does, but how can you grasp the Soul not thinking as you are, the body not doing as you do? Because Maya has you in her grasp. Say, for example, you do something. Would you say, 'I feel my soul is not doing it, my body is doing it,' or would you say, 'I am doing it'? So your Soul, mind and body all make you the 'I', who is doing it. It is Maya. This illusion that you are doing it, you, meaning the Soul and mind and body, is created and caused by Maya. This is illusion and it is Maya which gives the illusion.

Where God is, Maya is, because it is God's shadow. God is Infinite, so Maya is Infinite. Maya causes illusion in the finite. The universe is finite, everything is numberless and the number of things is countless. Ants are finite. The glow that you see as stars is numberless and huge, but finite. All creation, all illusion that is caused by Maya is finite, but Maya is Infinite.

God is Infinite. Maya is Infinite. God is Eternal. Maya is Eternal. Now comes the real enigma which only Realization makes it possible to understand. This understanding is called Dnyan (Knowledge). What is Dnyan? That Maya is reality does not exist.

Maya ceases to exist in two states: in God's original unconscious state and in God' s Self-conscious state, or as they call it, God's Super-conscious state. In God' s unconscious state, or original state, Maya does not exist. In God's Self-conscious state Maya does not exist. But in God's duality, i.e., conscious state (which means in God's gross conscious state; in God's subtle conscious state; and in God's mental conscious state), Maya exists, but Maya is Infinite.

If you think of the Soul as something divisible, then it is hopeless to know Maya. There are different minds, different egos, different bodies, but One Soul. Ego plus mind means the spirit. We in India use the term 'spirit' not as it is used in the West. Many use 'spirit' for individual Soul, but here that is not what it means. Mind plus ego is spirit. So you have a different spirit, different mind, different body, but One Soul. Soul is beyond mind. Soul cannot think. Soul is Infinite Thought, Infinite Intelligence. How can intelligence have intellect? Soul is beyond mind, beyond intellect. But mind plus ego does the thinking and has as its background the one individual Soul.

Now, you are the Soul. The same Soul behind your mind and ego, experiences, owing to Maya, different experiences of duality. The same Soul behind E. . . .'s mind and ego, due to Maya, experiences duality. So we call the Soul the one who thinks and the one who does, when, as a matter of fact, Soul is beyond thinking, beyond doing. When your mind and ego realize themselves, the Soul knows that mind, ego, body, did not really exist. It was just the illusion, due to Maya, that Soul is mind, Soul is body. It will be very clear if you take yourself for example. What makes this Soul, which is beyond thinking, appear to think? Maya. To know Maya is to know God.

Sometime I will explain to you about looking within. Everyone looks without and yet wants to know what is within.

Soul and Its Delusion

The Soul experiences God through Self. When Soul comes down from the highest experience of Oneness with God then Soul gets universal mind and sees itself as God and sees itself in everything.

Now it is definitely, imperatively established that out of a million souls one becomes subtle, out of one million subtle, one becomes mental, out of a million mental souls, one becomes God-realized (Sadguru).