The Immortality of Self

When Arjuna is reluctant to go to battle, because some of the princes on the enemy side are his relations, Shri Krishna explains to him that the Self cannot be slain:

I have always existed, you too have always existed, and those princes have always existed. The time shall never come when we shall all cease to exist. Just as the Self within the body goes through childhood, manhood and old age, so also it passes to other bodies; a wise man is not puzzled by this.

What is not there cannot exist; what is there cannot be anything but existent. The distinction between these states has been recognized by those who study truth. That which pervades this universe is imperishable; no one can destroy that changeless being. It is these bodies that house the everlasting, imperishable, incomprehensible self that have an end. Therefore fight. 

He who thinks the Self can be a slayer, and he who thinks the Self is slain, are both mistaken. The Self does not kill, nor is it killed. For the Self is never born and never dies, nor may it ever become non-existent. This unborn, everlasting, abiding Self is not slain when the body is slain. Knowing the Self to be unborn, imperishable, everlasting, changeless, Arjuna, how can a man slay anyone or be slain?

As a man gets rid of worn out clothes and put on new ones, so the Self puts away outworn bodies and puts on others that are new. Weapons do not cut the Self, fire does not burn it, waters do not wet it, the wind does not dry it. Not capable of being cut, burned, wetted, or dried, the Self is everlasting, present in all things, unchangeable, unmoveable, for ever the same.

Knowing that the soul is immaterial and unalterable, you should not grieve, Arjuna.

Consciousness and Social Being

Shri Krishna and Gopis, Indian temple hanging (pichvai) c.1840
National Gallery of Australia.

"Human consciousness is not located in the head, but is immanent in the living body and the interpersonal social world. One’s consciousness of oneself as an embodied individual embedded in the world emerges through empathic cognition of others. Consciousness is not some peculiar qualitative aspect of private mental states, nor a property of the brain inside the skull; it is a relational mode of being of the whole person embedded in the natural environment and the human social world."

-Evan Thompson, Professor of Philosophy, University of Toronto.

Consciousness is associated in particular with the Visshuddhi Chakra (subtle centre located on the throat but which is also the origin of the brain). It is believed that play evolved in order to develop consciousness in living creatures. Intelligent creatures, such as dolphins and apes, tend to be playful. There are many stories about the playfulness of Shri Krishna, the aspect of the Divine who rules over the Visshuddhi Chakra, and whose life exemplified social being, the interplay of collectivity.

The Singular Source of all mental states

"From Me alone
arise the manifold states of mind
of created beings."
-Shri Krishna
Bhagavad Gita 10, 1-8

Shri Krishna presides over the Visshuddhi Chakra, the subtle centre located in the throat. It gives the ability to communicate and integrate with a collective sense of self. It also gives the power of detachment without which it is impossible to witness the thoughts arising in the mind and thereby enter a state of thoughtless awareness (Nirvichara).

The Visshuddhi is the vibrational level of ether and sound, and is the source of the mind. Western philosophers have concluded that the conscious mind consists of words and has no material substance because words do not have a material substance.

Western science is trying, without success, to discover how a sense of self from the mind. From an Eastern mystical point of view, the mind arises from the Self, not the other way around.

The Knower of all Fields

Kahlil Gibran, The Divine World

"I am the knower of all fields.
When one understands the field

as well as the knower,
one has acquired true knowledge."
-Shri Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita

The 'field' refers to the field of consciousness (the body and the senses).
By saying that He is the Knower of all fields, Shri Krishna is stating that there is only one Self. Until the Knower has been realised, this seems impossible because it flies against the apparent fact that 'I' know only my own field. But this possessive ego knowledge is in fact non-knowledge. The only real knowledge is knowledge of the Knower.

One may ask, "If there is only one Experiencer, why do I not experience all the billions of billions of fields, all the human and animal bodies, that have been, are, and will be?" This is because one expects to see the images of these lives and hear the words of their thoughts, but words and images are the realm of the illusory mind. True knowledge is felt directly on the central nervous system, not usually as either verbal or visual impressions, though some mystics have had such experiences. The Knower is the brain and the nerves, not the mind and the thoughts. This is why the Knower, and the knowledge of all fields, can only be experienced in a thoughtless state. And this is why prophets such as Lord Muhammad have said cryptic statements such as: "Your hands will speak".