Secrets Of Undiscovered Self

As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. A sober person is not bewildered by such a change.

For the soul there is neither birth nor death at any time. He has not come into being, does not come into being, and will not come into being. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain. As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, the soul similarly accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones.

Some look upon the soul as amazing, some describe him as amazing, and some hear of him as amazing; while others, even after hearing about him, cannot understand him at all.

Transcendental personalities have no birth or death, neither do they have any worldly family or caste. They descend from the ever-enchanting supramundane realm and appear by the desire of God. Thus, by such desire, and out of his own intense compassion for all souls, Srila Narayana Mahãräja appeared in 1921 in Bihar, India, in a village named Tewaripur near the bank of the sacred Ganges River.

Srila Maharaja is a self-realized spiritual master in the eternal disciplic succession beginning from Lord Krpa Himself. He is the foremost disciple of his initiating guru Srila Bhakti Prajnäna Keáava Gosvämi Maharja, as well as his instructing guru Srila Bhaktivedanta Svãmi Prabhupada, the world renowned preacher of Krsna consciousness.

An erudite scholar of the classic books of transcendental wisdom called the Vedas, Srila Maharaja has translated and published over thirty volumes in Hindi with his own commentaries. His works have been translated into English and other languages, and are providing hundreds of thousands of people with new life and spiritual inspiration.

The purpose of this booklet is to introduce the reader to the beauty and wonder of his or her own natural being. Sages say that our souls are each more brilliant and powerful than thousands of suns, and that we come to experience this by hearing from those who are self-realized. Secrets of the Undiscovered Self was kindly presented in the form of a discourse by such a self- realized personality, Srila Bhaktivedãnta Nãrãyana Maharaja, a pre-eminent saint and one of the foremost teachers of divine wisdom in the present day. This discourse was given in March 2002, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The preface of this booklet contains the words of another transcendental personality, Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Svami Prabhupada, who is intimately related with the author as an instructing guru and a dear friend, Srila Narayana Maharaja, regards Srila Prabhupada as a main inspiration for his regularly traveling the surface of the globe and teaching the secrets of the undiscovered self.

Herein, Srila Prabhupada gives an analogy of a bird in a cage, comparing the bird to the soul and the cage to the body that covers it. He writes, “We are neglecting our real comfort and identifying the material cage with ourselves. We have concentrated all our energies for the meaningless upkeep of the material cage for its own sake, completely neglecting the captive soul within. The cage is meant for the undoing of the bird; the bird is not meant for the welfare of the cage. Let us, therefore, deeply ponder this. All our activities are now turned toward the upkeep of the cage, and the most we do is try to give some food to the mind by art and literature. But we do not know that this mind is also material in a more subtle form.”

“The self is beyond the gross body and subtle mind. He is the potent active principle of the body and mind. Without knowing the need of the dormant soul, one cannot be happy simply with emolument of the body and mind. The body and the mind are but superfluous outer coverings of the spirit soul. The spirit soul’s needs must be fulfilled. Simply by cleaning the cage of the bird, one does not satisfy the bird. One must actually know the needs of the bird himself.

“The need of the spirit soul is that he wants to get out of the limited sphere of material bondage and fulfill his desire for complete freedom. He wants to get out of the covered walls of the greater universe. He wants to see the free light and the spirit. That complete freedom is achieved when he meets the complete spirit, the Personality of Godhead.”

Speaking in a simple yet profound manner, Srila Prabhupada elaborates on the difference between the body and the soul: “If we meditate upon this body and study whether or not the body is our true identity, we will come to the conclusion that we are the knower of the body — not the body. The body is simply the field of our activities. We are no more the body than the cultivator of a field is the field.

“This good intelligence applies even in a child. You may show a child his finger and inquire, ‘What is this?’ The child will reply, ‘It is my finger.’ The child will never say, ‘I finger.’ Every part of his body is ‘mine’ — my body, my head, my leg. But where is the ‘1’? That should be the inquiry.” The histories in this booklet actually took place. They have been taken by Srila Narayana Maharaja from the parts of the Vedas called the Puranas and Upanisads. The names of all the personalities herein are in the 2ncient Sanskrit language. Following the tradition of our spiritual preceptors, we use standard diacritical markings to indicate the pronunciation of Sanskrit words. Pronounce a like a in father, like ea in neat, u like oo in root, r like ri in rip, m and ñ like ng in hung, s and like s in shy, and c like ch in chap.