What is the size of the soul?

The Shvetasvatara Upanishad (5.9) confirms:

balagra-shata-bhagasya

shatadha kalpitasya ca

bhago jivah sa vijneyah

sa chanantyaya kalpate

'When the upper point of a hair is divided into one hundred parts and again each such part is further divided into one hundred parts, that becomes the measurement of the dimension of the soul.'

The same is stated in Srimad Bhagavatam:

keshagra-shata-bhagasya

shatamsha-sadrishatmakaḥ

jivah sukshma-svarupo 'yam

sankhyatito hi chit-kanah

'If we divide the tip of a hair into a hundred parts and then take one of these parts and divide it again into a hundred parts, that very fine division is the size of but one of the numberless living entities. They are all chit-kana or spiritual particles, not matter."

Thus, the size of the soul is one ten-thousandth of the tip of a hair.

However, the Bhagavad Gita (2.18) defines the soul as aprameya' or immeasurable. How do we understand this?

This means that the soul is spiritual and thus immeasurable by material means. However, it does have dimensions and a form and thus the scriptures also talk about its size.

The spiritual dimension is different from the material and thus material measurements don't apply to the soul. Even if we examine the heart with a microscope that can measure one ten-thousandth of a tip of a hair, we will not be able to detect the soul because material conceptions do not apply to the soul. In that sense, the soul is immeasurable. But at the same time the soul has a form and the form has dimensions and that spiritual dimension has now become compressed in one seed-like form inside a body.

How can we perceive its influence? Certainly not with our blunt material and impure senses.

The Mundaka Upanishad (3.1.9) explains:

esho 'nur atma chetasa veditavyo

yasmin pranah panchadha savivesha

pranaish chittam sarvam otam prajanam yasmin vishuddhe vibhavaty esha atma

"The soul is atomic in size and can be perceived by perfect intelligence. This atomic soul is floating in the five kinds of air (prana, apana, vyāna, samāna and udana), is situated within the heart, and spreads its influence all over the body of the embodied living entities. When the soul is purified from the contamination of the five kinds of material air, its spiritual influence is exhibited.'

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