The Self Unchanging
While everything changes, the Self remains constant.
Bodies change from childhood to youth to old age, yet the Self remains unchanged. The Self witnesses change but is not touched by it.
Just as a person casts off worn-out garments and puts on new ones, so the Self casts off worn-out bodies and enters new ones.
The unchanging Self is the basis of all identity.
Various Upanishads
Written about in
- What the Upanishads say about grief
Bodies pass from childhood to age while the one watching them does not change; the image is of worn-out garments exchanged for new. Worth noting that this concept's quotation is from the Gita, not an Upanishad — the idea is Upanishadic, its most famous phrasing is not.