What is our Actual Identity? Are we body or soul?

The person ,whom I had known nicely, died few months ago . He was very much self-centric and in a way selfish too. I am saying this because he always used to say “This is mine,That is mine “ . I m not criticizing him but analyzing the actual truth. He always told ‘my face my legs, my body colour, my this , my that and my body’. Till the time of his death he always thought so. I think that he never thought that one day he will die but what can be done for death. He died very early.

Expressing sympathy towards his family I were fulfilling my responsibility but one thought never left my mind since his death. I was always thinking why he died. I actually was thinking what it means to die. Some were saying this and some that but I was not convinced. I was diving deep into my mind. I was questioning myself and saying inside that Is he really finished? Was he a person to be finished with death? He always said my body but who actually was he. Who was he who always said my . I was wondering myself. I was again wondering that it is not his case only but the universal fact. Everyone is facing the same question. Everyone is thinking my this my that, my body but who actually is that I? May be I were confused who that I is but I was pretty sure that I is speaking from inside. I am also sure that that I is same in me now as was in my childhood and experience shows that that I feeling is always the same. This means that I is not the subject to any change but remains unchanged but my body is always changing . The body to whom I thought I am in my childhood is not with me now and this present body is sure to be finished one day. Thinking in this way I was sure that I am not the one that is changing . That one which finishes with time is not me because that 'I 'seen through experience always remains the same. If it remains same since childhood body to youth body and youth body to old age body then it must be unchanged with our bodily death. Thus that is actually my identity. Thinking in this way I was quite sure that I m not this body but the soul.


I am now sure that that person although is dead now it is actually his bodily death but his soul still exists. Thus he is still alive and will remain forever.