The first and foremost law of Sanatana Dharma insists on the recognition of the fact that man is eternal, the true man, the soul, that entity whose presence in the body makes it a living man and whose departure from it constitutes its death, – that this true man is independent of body, senses and the mind, that he has existed from time without beginning, and will exist through all time, that HE iseternal and immortal.
Unaffected by all changes in environment, witnessing every change in the internal as well as external world and becoming the wiser for it, using his gross and subtle bodies as instruments by which to gain experience of the world around him, the true man is himself never subject to the changes of birth and death, as he is the ever-present witness of those changes.
So, first step is, readiness to seek and find out the true self and an intense aspiration for the realization of that self.
Reference: Bhagwad Gita Chapter 2 Verse 11 to 30
