Our quality of life is concerned with the soul, and hence the word "consciousness" is very important because consciousness belongs to the soul. Consciousness is the symptom of the soul's presence. Because the soul is in the body, the body feels pleasure and pain. When the soul leaves the body, the body can be hacked to pieces, and yet it will not protest. This is because the consciousness is gone. We feel pleasure and pain because consciousness is present, and God enlightens us that it is this consciousness that is eternal, not the body. We have to purify our consciousness in order to understand that consciousness is eternal. If we can do this, our lives will be successful. At the time of death, our consciousness carries us into another body. There are the mind, the intelligence and the ego, which constitute the subtle body, and there is also the spirit soul, which is even more subtle. We know that we possess a mind, although we cannot see it. Nor can we see the intelligence, the ego or the soul. We can only see the gross material body, and when this gross material body ends, we say that everything is finished.
In order to understand these things, and achieve real happiness and success in life, we have to approach a bonafide spiritual master or guru in disciplic succession, just as Arjuna approached Lord Krishna.
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