What is the connection between mind and life, and mind and Soul?

The mind of today, means beliefs of the past

Questioner: Can you say something about the mind (mun), living beings (jiva) and the Soul (Atma)?

Dadashri: The mind is the believed atma of the past life. The mind is the connection of the past life and this living entity of today is the believed atma of today. And third is the Soul, the actual Soul (Self) is unmoving (achal– motionless, still). And this believed atma (self), which is known as jiva, is moving (sachar- moving, not still). Sachhar means mechanical atma (self); it is your believed atma, it is a wrong belief and in the right belief, you are achal– unmoving. This achal (the Self state) is attained through the Gnani Purush. Therefore your stillness will never break; non-stillness will not arise again.

Whatever belief-knowledge you had in your past; that is what this (current life’s) mind is. And the belief-knowledge of this life will be the mind for the next life. There is freedom when the mind dissolves.

Mind is the best and the greatest of all things. Your mind of today is a display of your past life. Whatever you were doing and whatever you were involved in, in your past life, today that is all there within, in the form of basic points. If I were to tell you all this in details, it would take so long!

If you had done the bhaav (made inner intent) in your past life that ‘it is good to eat meat’, then although you were a vegetarian in your past life, you will have no choice but to eat meat in this life. A seed was sown because of the bhaav (intent) you had made.

Based on the thoughts which the mind presents before you now, you can know what it must have been like in the past life. One can tell whether one was a mendicant, a noble man, a philanthropist or a pauper. One can know all this. It is indeed a photograph of his past life. But this is the basic foundation, fundamental; otherwise it is all very vast if one were to describe it to you. And from that one can deduce how developed he is.

“The gross mind (sthool mun) is the past atma (purvatma)”. Everyone’s gross mind is their past atma. People ask what is mind? It is their belief atma of the past. Read that and find out where you were before, and that is your mind. You can know what your past life was like. You will see what you did in your past life by reading your mind.

The mind means whatever thoughts you had in your past life creates the mind; it sows ‘seeds of thought’ which today remains in the form of seeds. However, if you were to become engrossed (tanmayakar) with those thoughts, it will grow into a tree. If you do not become engrossed with them, then the ‘seed’ gets ‘roasted (cooked)’. Even if one does not have Self Realization (Gnan), if he does not become engrossed with his thoughts and he looks away, then the seed will get roasted.