One of our geckos may have gotten stepped on accidentally during the night. Sometimes they crawl across the floor. I found it's lifeless body next to the shoe rack by the front door.
It got me thinking about the difference between a live body and a dead body.When someone is sick, how can we tell? The person may look tired. His nose may be running. He may be sneezing and coughing or have a fever. These things are all symptoms that indicate the presence of sickness in the body.
Similarly, since the tiny jiva soul is full of knowledge or consciousness, even if one cannot see the soul within the body, one can understand he is there because the current or energy of the spirit soul is felt all over the entire body as consciousness. Prabhupada commented in the Gita: "Even if one does not find the soul within the heart, where he is situated, one can still understand the presence of the soul simply by the presence of consciousness. Sometimes we do not find the sun in the sky owing to clouds, or for some other reason, but the light of the sun is always there, and we are convinced that it is therefore daytime. As soon as there is a little light in the sky early in the morning, we can understand that the sun is in the sky. Similarly, since there is some consciousness in all bodies--whether man or animal--we can understand the presence of the soul." (Bhagavad gita 2.20p)
Looking at the dead gecko, this difference between life and death is clearly seen. When it was alive it was quick and alert and kinda cute. It was gentle and soft to touch and had shiny black eyes. The kids sometimes like to play with them.
But now the gecko is not alive anymore. I mean, would you want to play with it? Is it still as cute and fun to look at? Would you want to pet it? Normally the answer is, "No". But why not? Because it is now a dead body. The spirit soul that brought energy and awareness to the gecko and made it alive is no longer present.
When a machine doesn’t work anymore, machine parts can be replaced with new machine parts so that the machine will work again. But if you disconnect the electricity or power that makes the machine run, it will no longer work no matter how many new parts are added. Well, the body is also like a machine. Lord Krishna confirms this in Bhagavad gita:
"The Supreme Lord is situated in everyone's heart, O Arjuna, and is directing the wanderings of all living entities, who are seated as on a machine, made of the material energy."(18.61)
Today many parts of the body can be fixed or replaced if something doesn’t work anymore. A person can get an artificial arm or leg or false teeth. They can get a heart transplant. But when the body dies, there is no way to fix it. That’s because the living spark that powers the body with energy to make it work is no longer there. It’s like a machine that got unplugged. No matter how many new parts are added, it just won’t work. The energy that made the body work has been disconnected. That energy is the soul.
One more example is that one could pick up a pillow and start beating it really hard with his fists. A lump of matter such as a pillow will never say, "Stop it!" It doesn’t cry. It doesn’t protest at all. But if someone comes to hit me or you, we feel it. That’s because the soul within is conscious. The pillow is not.
Srila Prabhupada says this the first lesson. Human life is special because now is the chance to learn to discriminate between matter and spirit, and first of all, as one can learn from Lord Krishna in Bhagavad gita, "I am not this body, I am a spirit soul".
When we know this very well we can begin to make great progress in spiritual life.
