BG 2.17: That which pervades the entire body you should know to be indestructible. No one is able to destroy that imperishable soul.

God/Godess the Astrologer Chapter 9, by Jeffrey Armstong

The Self That Can't Be Killed
For many years now I have thought of Vedic astrology as the foothills of a great range of mountains. A discussion of how the Divine Intelligence behind life interacts with us leads inevitably to the greatest spiritual questions—questions that tower above us like peaks of an inaccessible mountain range. The power of Vedic astrology is its ability to measure otherwise invisible movements of energy as they pertain to each individual. That perspective of acknowledging the invisible Divine Intelligence causes an important shift in our behaviour. We become accountable.
Accountability is the real issue on our planet. It is not technology per se that is causing the destruction of our world but rather the selfish and irresponsible use of the new powers of technology. You might well argue, as many do, that since we are all individual selves, why not take whatever we want and be totally selfish. The Vedic answer to that question is a vision of self which serves our selfish needs and also serves the higher purpose of life.
Vedic astrology is a discussion of the current condition of the eternal self as it uses free will in the context of matter. In the Vedas, astrology is intimately connected to theology, the nature of God, which in turn is connected to the true nature and purpose of the self. In Sanskrit, the term for our true self is atma. In English, the word soul comes close. The word atom is derived from atma. Atma is the inner you who is the source of the consciousness that animates your mind and body. Think of your body and the bodies of all living things as light bulbs, each with a different capacity and all sustained by an atma that generates the electricity of consciousness.

How You See “Self” Has A Critical Impact On How You Act
The Vedas say that according to our past actions, we have developed a particular body, which is both our advantage and our limitation. At the core of that body is an eternal, indestructible spark of the Divine—of God. That core self is your eternal being. Once that spark enters into matter, it forgets if original nature and identifies self as the body and mind. In that consciousness, souls covered by matter act and, if they are humans, reap the fruits of their actions. Animals, plants and insects and all the rest are not generating karma through their actions, even though they too are eternal souls.
Humans, on the other hand, are able to act from free will and can generate considerable reaction to what they do. Therefore, how humans view their self has a critical impact on how they act. An animal acts according to its nature, no meditation is necessary. But according to the Vedas, humans have to learn of the atma, their true self which has been forgotten, or they will act unconsciously like an animal, simply in the habits of the body. One difference is that animals are not greedy. They eat, sleep, protect and mate according to their immediate need, under the compulsion of their particular bodily nature. Humans can create huge problems by getting out of balance in the mind, body and soul relationship. Look out our culture and ask yourself how much time we devote to the body each day, how much to the mind and how much to the atma. Clearly, the atma has been left out. Could that be related to the imbalance we have created in the world?
Realizing that you are the atma is not just a religious subject based on faith and pertaining to the future. It is not that the soul is a future topic important only when the body is dead. The atma is the true center and correct definition of who we are that sets up the correct context of our present action.
This is where science without a sacred viewpoint simply creates sophisticated animals capable of causing more damage. In fact, learning to see the invisible is the real art of living. Helen Keller is said to have observed: “I believe in the immortality of the soul because I have within me immortal longings.” Vedic astrology recognises (1) the invisible atma, (2) the invisible Divine helpers in Nature, and last of all: (3) the Invisible Paramatma, the Supreme Soul—God. In the Vedas, the relationship between these three is the basis of true enlightenment. Vedic astrology serves to explain the link of cause and effect that unite all these components into a complete and provable science. Astrological guidance is meant to make clear the relation between the atma, the force of Nature and the Supreme Being.
Vedic knowledge is unique in many ways. One of its most valuable contributions is an extensive vocabulary of technical spiritual terms. Just as the computer age has added thousands of new words to our technical vocabulary, so the golden age of spiritual research thousands of years ago created a special vocabulary of spiritual terms in the precise and highly specialised Sanskrit language. Initiation into Vedic knowledge requires acquiring a vocabulary of these technical terms, since there are no equivalent words in English or other European languages. Indeed, most of these concepts are so subtle that there are no words for them even in Latin of Greek. Words like guru, karma and pundit are examples of our culture adopting such Sanskrit technical terms. I am purposely keeping them to a minimum in this book to keep it generally accessible.

The Eternal Qualities Of The Atma
In order to understand the atma better, it is necessary to introduce four more Sanskrit terms that refine our understanding beyond the vague English word soul. According to the Vedas, atma is composed of four qualities. The first is sat, or eternality. The soul was never created and never dies. Once the atma is covered with matter and has a material body, it experiences the illusion of death as bodies are born, age and die. The atma is unborn and undying.
The next is chit, which means made of consciousness or knowledge. We are used to thinking of knowledge as something that comes from outside to inside our awareness. It is true that knowledge of matter and its laws is alien to our original nature. Since we are not made of matter, we must learn of it from an outside source. Material knowledge is also lost for the most part, from life to life. However, in our original condition as the soul, we are fully conscious with no need for sleep and no interruption in our knowing. The atma has its own special sense for knowing which are inconceivable from the dualistic view of material understanding.
The third quality of the atma is ananda, or bliss. You could translate ananda as ecstasy. If matter is static and unconscious, then atma is ecstatic. The point here is that soul is by nature joyful, or in a state of constant pleasure. In the realm of matter we are conditioned to think of pleasure and pain as two sides of a coin. We cannot easily imagine a state of pure bliss that is not defined and limited by pain and suffering, yet that is the Vedic definition of our true nature when it is unaffected by the dullness of matter.
The last definition of self is vigraha, which means distinctive individuality. The reason we have appeared as materialised individuals with free will is that our true self has an eternal form of individuality that is not dependent upon matter for its distinctiveness. This kind of precise spiritual understanding is characteristic of Vedic knowledge. It is the substructure that supports the higher capabilities and insights of Vedic astrology.

Paramatma, The Supreme Soul
Paramatma, the Supreme Soul, is the founder of the whole system of karma. The planets serve the Supreme Intelligence by controlling the dispersal of action and reaction upon the Earth. The numerous atmas act, creating the need for an appropriate response which they finally experience as happiness or distress. As you can see, souls are poised between two great realities: Paramatma and Material Nature, God and the unconscious material shadow of God. Nature is made of the inert and unconscious substances of matter as we have observed. Souls are conscious by nature, which explains their frustration with matter. No one wants birth, death, old age and disease. Given a choice, the atma would prefer not to be limited by those forces.
Eventually, after enough experience in matter, the atma explores the possibility of returning to the spiritual realm that is its original home. The potential for that leaving begins by a change in the definition of self. If you see yourself as an eternal soul temporarily in the realm of matter, you will act very differently than someone who believes they are merely a human animal with only one birth. At that point, the awareness dawns that really winning the game is not being forced to play the game under the limitations of matter. That state of eternal freedom which begins with a redefinition of the material self as the eternal self, or atma, is called liberation, or in the Sanskrit: Mukti.
Mukti means returning to our original consciousness which is non-material. If you die in that consciousness, you do not take another material body. Souls who have gotten free return to the realms of spiritual life from which they originally came. The effect of this redefinition of self on material living is that it becomes less driven and greedy. In the words of the American transcendentalist David Thoreau: “Simple living and high thinking.” In Bharata (India), Vedic astrology is also called Jyotisha, or the Science of Light. Light originates in the same eternal place where we originated. Yoga is the process of returning to and reconnecting with our source. Vedic astrology is the art and science of understanding how the world of matter is regulated and directed by Divine beings working within the light. The whole cycle of action and result over time in the context of Divine Intelligence is called karma, the core subject of Vedic astrology.