Welcome to Devotional Service

I am a perfectionist spiritual teacher, investigating worldwide religions and philosophies currently studying Vedic philosophy. A misconception in the West is that upon death the spiritual soul goes either to heaven or to hell. According to the Vedas, at the time of death the Holy Spirit within the heart accompanies the atomic soul to his next body, whether it be an insect body, a dog body, or a human body. The Vedic literatures describe 8,400,000 species of life: aquatics, trees and plants, insects and reptiles, birds, four-legged beasts, and human beings. The spiritual soul transmigrates from one species to the next, evolving up through the 8,400,000 forms of life until he attains a human body. The human form of life has a special significance, for only in the human form is the soul’s consciousness developed enough to understand that the body is just his encagement, and that there’s a way to free himself from that encagement. Now let’s examine how the spirit soul’s consciousness evolves and how he manifests his consciousness in various bodies.

Does the soul’s transmigration from body to body take place in a random way, or does some higher authority supervise? In one lifetime the spiritual soul may enjoy as the lusty rogue, and in the next lifetime he may be kicked as the neighborhood dog. What determines a particular soul’s next body?

One answer given in the Bhagavad-gita is that each soul receives punishment or reward for the sinful or pious acts he performs during his human lifetime. This is known as the law of karma. Every act a human being performs is either in accord with the universal laws that God gives in the revealed scriptures, or it is contrary to those laws. God’s scriptural laws govern only those souls in the human form, because unlike the dull creatures in the lower species, the human being has sufficient intelligence to freely obey—or reject—the Lord’s scriptural instructions. However, along with that freedom comes accountability. Thus a sinful soul—one who breaks God’s laws—may be born as a dog in his next life, a pious soul may take his next birth as an aristocrat, and a self-realized soul may break free from the bonds of karma altogether and enter into the deathless spiritual world.

The Bhagavad-gita further explains that a living soul receives a particular kind of body according to his particular desires. For example, if my heart is filled with animalistic desires, then although I now possess a human body, my next body will be an animal body.

So we may think of the body either as the soul’s vehicle for expressing his material desires, or as the end result of good or bad acts the soul performed in his last human birth. Both concepts are correct. But in either case, we see that there must be a witness and controller who fulfills the particular desires of each spiritual soul, and who rewards or punishes each soul as he deserves. That witness, controller, and judge is the Supersoul.

Who is the Supersoul? The Bhagavad-gita says, “Besides the atomic spiritual soul, in this body there is another enjoyer—a transcendental enjoyer—who is the Lord. He is the supreme proprietor, overseer, and permitter, and He is known as the Supersoul” (Bg. 13.23). In other words, within each body there are two souls—the atomic soul (the individual spark of life) and the Supersoul (the supreme source of all life). The atomic soul and the Supersoul reside together within the heart of each and every body throughout the universe, and at the time of death the Supersoul accompanies the atomic soul to his next body. But the Supersoul is not an ordinary living entity. Only by the Supersoul’s arrangement does each atomic soul receive his proper body; only by the Supersoul’s sanction can the atomic soul fulfill his desires for happiness; and only by the Supersoul’s grace can the atomic soul think, feel, and act.

The Supersoul is the personal expansion of Lord Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Whereas the atomic souls are expansions of Krishna’s spiritual energy, the Supersoul is an expansion of Krishna Himself. The atomic soul dwells within the material body, and he suffers and enjoys the various pains and pleasures arising from his particular body. But the Supersoul, although fully aware of these pains and pleasures, is aloof from them. And because He is always aloof from the changing body, the Supersoul always stays in the same situation—transcendence par excellence—whether He accompanies the atomic soul within his insect body, his dog body, or his human body.

Now, when we hear that the Supersoul is present along with the atomic soul in each body, we should not assume that there must be many millions of Supersouls. There are an unlimited number of atomic souls, but there is only one Supersoul. The Bhagavad-gita explains: “Although the Supersoul appears to be divided, He is never divided. He is situated as one” (Bg. 13.17). A good analogy is the sun with its reflections: there is one sun in the sky, but if we place thousands of waterpots on the ground, the sun will at once appear within each waterpot. Similarly, the Supersoul is a single transcendental entity, but He can expand Himself into the hearts of all living creatures.

As the constant companion of each individual atomic soul, the Supersoul fulfills the desires and awards the particular material bodies of every living entity. And He accompanies them on their course of birth, old age, disease, and death—life after life. Lord Krishna explains in the Bhagavad-gita: “One who sees the Supersoul accompanying the individual soul in all bodies, and who understands that neither the soul nor the Supersoul is every destroyed—he actually sees” (Bg. 13.28).

Now, this may seem surprising: the Supersoul—God—is always with the individual atomic souls, yet they are suffering. Why doesn’t the Lord in the heart divert the atomic souls from their suicidal course of repeated birth and death? If the Supersoul is actually our well-wisher, why doesn’t He end our suffering? The Upanishads answer with the analogy of the two birds in the tree.