Once the soul achieves liberation and reunites with God, does it lose its individuality or identity? If so, this seems like a form of annihilation where we die as a result of spiritual liberation. If this is the case, wouldn’t we be motivated not to achieve this state so that we can keep our self-awareness?
—Nick, United States
Dear Nick,
Paramhansa Yogananda taught that in God nothing is lost.
The ego is the soul identified with the body and the personality. As the ego grows into awareness of the soul it releases its attachment and identification with the body and the personality.
When the soul merges into God, the memory of the ego’s attachment and self-identity to the body remains forever and in infinite consciousness even if that attachment is forever dissolved.
In God, nothing is lost. The memory of countless past lives remains ever in the Akashic record.
Thus we can say that we expand into infinite consciousness.
To achieve final liberation, each soul must help liberate and free other souls.
Therefore if in the future, after your soul’s liberation, those who are your disciples pray to you in your previous form, they can materialize you in that form in vision or bodily form, but you are still free.
This is the eternal promise: that in God all that we seek can be found.
Blessings and joy to you,
Nayaswami Hriman
Seattle WA
www.hrimananda.org
