Yogi Bhajan Lecture: The Soul & the Subtle Body

Excerpt of a lecture given by the Siri Singh Sahib, Yogi Bhajan on May 27, 1981:

What I believe, I don’t expect you to believe. And basically what I say, I don’t care whether you believe it or not.  Because the consequence and sequence of life is an individual affair. It is not requirement of life that you must do everything good and nice. There are virtually two ways of life.  You can live by ego and you can live by consciousness. And it’s a very simple scientific fact, that consciousness in proportion of the use of the ego and ego is in proportion to use of the consciousness.  And the result end is always negative to each other.  So if you use anything in your life with the power of your ego, that much proportionately you shall be away from consciousness.  And as much you will use your consciousness, that much you will be proportionately away from ego.  It’s a ratio proportion.   Nobody can change it. It is a law which God Almighty cannot change it. Ego is an identity, ‘I did it, I am lecturing, you are listening,’ this is an ego.  All which is identifiable or is identified is ego.  And all which is not identified and is an infinity, is consciousness. Did I make clear? Basic problem today is people… I ask somebody, “What are you studying?”

“I study the consciousness.”

I said, “What is it?”

He said, “I don’t know.”

So that is how much people study.

So basically, in your life purpose is not to receive God and be with God and become God people and all that.  That is not the purpose.  That is a very phony explanation. Purpose of life is to be happy.  That is the basic purpose.  Whether you find God or not, God is everywhere.  God doesn’t run away and doesn’t care whether you want to find Him or not.  If you don’t bother Him, He will be grateful, rather than being bothered all the time.  ‘Almighty, come on Jesus Christ, this, and that’. These are all your own commotional gestures. If you have a guitar, you have to tune it, tune it in the name of God.  You have a consciousness, you want to tune it, you want to tune it with infinity.  So you say this is this, that is God, this is it.  Actually, God doesn’t get disturbed by your goodwill or with your abuses.

The fact of life is that, God has given you lifespan at the rate of proportion breath.  So you have to use your breath of life.  Use it anyway you like.  At a particular time, switch will be off and you will be gone. What shall be gone? Two things will be missing right on the spot.  One is your soul.  The other is your subtle body.  What shall remain? Other eight bodies of yours. You are a total combination of ten bodies. Did I say something new?  Must be.  Because your faces look like you are hearing something very special. No, this is a very common thing.

You have a spiritual body; you have mental negative, mental positive, mental neutral; then you have this physical body; the arc body, which you call it halo; then you have this simple auric body; then you have a subtle body, pranic body, radiant body.  Ten.  And they are interlocked.  But two are free to go. Whenever the soul desires to leave, the arc body and all other bodies remain behind, they have no combination. The pranic connection with the pranic body totally breaks.  And with the subtle body, the soul leaves.  That means your identity is gone.  But you understand what that indicates?   That subtlety, that is what subtle body is.  If in subtlety, you become very refined and in activity, you become very subtle, very subtle, you are very near to your soul.  Because there is a direct relationship between the subtle body and the spiritual body.  The spirit and the subtle body are very much related.  They never leave each other. So anything which you do refined, refined art, refined acts, refined speech which is not gross, will put you nearer to the soul. That is rather a simple way of reaching your God consciousness.

Listen to the full lecture here: