How can the cravings of the soul be identified?

Shri Hrushikesh Pudipeddi brought the following question to the attention of Swami. The question was posed by a devotee on an online forum after the devotee read one of Swami’s discourses related to Advaita. The devotee asked “How can one know that the soul wants something? How can one identify if it is the craving of the soul?”

Swami replied: The correct term to be used when referring to the awareness present in a particular human being is the ‘individual soul’. The term ‘soul’ refers to the inert energy that is required to generate the awareness (individual soul) in the person’s functioning nervous system. The inert energy, thus, forms the basic essential material of awareness. This awareness takes different forms called as pulses (sphota) and a bundle of these pulses is the individual soul. When we talk about cravings, it is the awareness or the individual soul that craves. Non-aware inert items like stones can neither think nor crave for anything. The individual soul is loosely called as soul. That is, the individual soul, which is a bundle of thoughts, is loosely called awareness. It is just like calling a bunch of golden ornaments simply as gold. This point is just basic commonsense and does not involve much logical analysis. The individual soul, which can be loosely called the soul, is what craves since only awareness is capable of craving. Inert items have no awareness and hence, cannot think or crave for anything. It is an extremely simple concept that is known even to a just born baby! We recognize the soul by the existence of the process of thinking and the absence of thinking shows the non-existence of the soul.

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