“Those with the vision of eternity can see that the soul is transcendental, eternal, and beyond the modes of nature. Despite contact with the material body, O Arjuna, the soul neither does anything nor is entangled.” (Bg.13.32)

In spiritual training, perhaps the single most important point to understand is that you are not your body. You are the soul within it. The soul is completely transcendental to the body, and does not come under the same designations that we give to the body. It does not belong to a certain family name or ethnic group. The soul is not Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, etc. It is also not American, Indian, Russian, Chinese, Pakistani, or anything else. According to the Upanishads it is also not happy, sad, frustrated or content, nor does it imagine anything but what it ought to imagine. It does not take birth, grow, change or die. It may be in the body, and we may think we are the body due to false ego, but we have the freedom to think whatever we like.

There is a saying that anything that is temporary or changes is not the eternal truth. We have to go beyond what is temporary to get a glimpse of what is real and true. And the soul exists in that field of eternity that is completely beyond the mind, body and senses.

Only with genuine spiritual vision can we see our real identity, beyond the body, beyond all of material nature. The soul is never entangled in the material energy or actions, nor does it engage in such. It is only the body and our bodily desires which keep us bound up in material nature. It is only by thinking we are these bodies which keeps us in the bodily existence. This is why it is so important to pursue spiritual life and rise above the mental and bodily dictates that limit our perception of our spiritual identity. That is where we can reach our full potential, beyond the limitations that are forced on us by our absorption in material existence. The more spiritual we become, the more we can perceive the spiritual dimension.