Today in this world of science, where materialism mostly prevails, there are fewer every day who believe in such a thing as the soul. They say, "The only thing we know about is the body; if there is a soul, we have never seen it."

It is true that nothing comes out of nothing, but their idea is that as the human being is the flower of this tree of manifestation, intelligence must have developed gradually through the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms until it manifested more fully in man. But how can matter develop into intelligence? It is intelligence which is the source of all, but it is the captivity of intelligence in matter which we see; that is why it seems to us that manifestation begins from matter, and as it manifests in man we think man is a development of matter.

In reality man identifies himself wrongly with the material part of his being, for the body is only a cover over the real man. Real man is soul itself. And when one says, "I do not see the soul, I see my body," my answer is that the eyes can never see themselves, though they can see all other things; and as the soul is intelligence it can see all other things but it cannot see itself.

The very fact that it cannot see itself makes it the real self. Besides, all things that we can point out, which are intelligible to ourselves, we call "mine"; and so we call our body "my" body. Naturally the body is not the self, but as man does not know himself he thinks it is. If an actor were to play on the stage with a mask on, those who saw him would recognize the mask, but they would not know what was behind it. So it is with the soul.

The manifestation of the soul is only seen through the body; therefore one identifies oneself with the body, and this keeps one ignorant of the soul.