Pravachanasara presents the jiva as pure consciousness, whose very essence is knowledge and awareness. This conscious nature is eternal and unchanging at the level of its true being, characterized by jnana and darshana, and utterly free from pleasure, pain, attachment, and aversion in its own svarupa. The soul is self-luminous, capable of knowing itself without reliance on anything external, and it remains intrinsically pure even when obscured by karmic association. Thus, its essential nature does not truly undergo alteration, even though it appears modified through various states and conditions.

At the same time, Kundakunda carefully distinguishes the soul from all that is not-self: body, senses, mind, and karmic matter (pudgala). The jiva is a distinct substance with its own unique properties, never genuinely merging with matter, even though karmic particles adhere to it from beginningless time. From the empirical standpoint, this association gives rise to bondage, transmigration, and the experience of acting, enjoying, and suffering. Yet these are treated as adventitious and relative descriptions, not the ultimate truth of what the soul is.

A central feature of this teaching is the contrast between the pure soul and the empirical soul. The pure jiva is devoid of karma, passions, and all non-self associations, and this state is identical with liberation. The empirical jiva, by contrast, is conditioned by karmic bondage, emotional states, and embodiment, passing through diverse modes and levels of spiritual development. Spiritual progress consists in right vision of this pure, knower-seer nature and in the gradual dis-identification from the body, karma, and the notions of “I” and “mine” that cling to them.

Pravachanasara thus portrays the soul as both eternally perfect in its inner essence and yet enmeshed, from a practical standpoint, in the web of karmic conditioning. The path it outlines rests on recognizing this dual perspective: ultimately, the soul is only the knower and seer; conventionally, it appears as doer and enjoyer, bound to the cycle of birth and death. By realizing the distinction between these two standpoints and aligning with the pure, self-luminous consciousness that is the soul’s true nature, the possibility of complete freedom becomes manifest.