IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL

“Our soul is the sacred essence within us; our deepest purpose, our unique meaning, the guiding force behind our individual lives.”

         These beautiful and meaningful words were spoken by the well known Australian author and spiritual teacher Mateo Sol, during a discussion on the soul. He was describing in simple but accurate terms what so many people believe, constitutes the true meaning of our soul to each one of us.

         A great deal of discussion and research from as far back as records are available, has been done on the existence of a soul and its meaning, by theologians, psychologists, behaviorists and physiologists. They have produced voluminous numbers of possible theories, beliefs and interpretations but like so many of man’s fundamental beliefs relating to his spiritual life and his relationship to God, they failed to reach definitive conclusions. In this case, in the absence of clear and demonstrable proof, there are two clear options available for anyone to choose; Either to deny any existence of a soul as the Atheists and Secularists do, or to join the rest of the world in accepting it as an integral part of life. In the end, we each have to make the choice of either accepting its existence or of rejecting it and then living by our decision.

The true secularists and atheists argue very strongly that everything that makes us who we are can be explained by examining brain activity. They insist that our minds, our spirit and our souls are all physical manifestations of nature, created by complex biochemical interactions that are continuously happening within us. They argue that the fact that all of us undergo measurable changes in attitude and behavior in the event of brain alteration by disease, degeneration or drugs, confirm that our true self is our biochemical self, and that they see no reason to include any God or supernatural ‘excuses’. They stress that everything in humans is organic and nothing ever lives on after death. They insist categorically, that we inevitably and totally die when the body dies. To them, the concepts of souls as being spiritual and indestructible are merely figments of one or more of the following: tradition, suspicion, imagination, culture and religion, made up by the people to explain the unexplained. To them, death is final and nothing else follows. Matt Groening, the gifted artist and creator of the very successful carton series The Simpsons, drew attention to this fact in a satirical but very accurate comment in one of his cartoon presentations when one of his main characters Bart, observed:

“There is no such thing as a soul. It’s just something they made up to scare us, like the bogeyman.”

         But to the majority of the world’s inhabitants as far back as information is available, the idea that there is indeed a soul, separate  from the physical make up of the individual, is well established. Beginning in the early centuries, there has been almost unanimous agreement that: ‘the human soul is the most innermost part of the being, and although it is present in living, it does not die with the body’. The ancient Chinese, Greek, Roman and Arabic philosophers, all reasoned that man was endowed with something spiritual that was extra-ordinary and not part of the physical body. They each offered differing approaches but arrived at similar conclusions:

The Ancient Chinese Masters including Lao Tzu and Confucius, believed that each person has two souls, Ying and Yang, which upon the death of the individual, pass on by reincarnation into other beings.

 To the Greek and Roman Philosophers such as Aristotle, Cato, Plato and Socrates, the soul was a divine faculty that gave life, the exercise of which led to logical actions. They all believed that the soul of each person lives on after death.

 To the great Persian Philosophers the concept of the soul was generally copied from the Greco/Roman influence. They accepted the idea that the soul was the part of the living that does not die, but moves on to other lives.

 And In the Ancient African Cultures, the soul was considered to be immortal and subject to reincarnation, although the actual details may vary  depending on the animistic cult of the ancestors of each tribe. 

         With the rise of Christianity following the birth of Jesus Christ, the fundamental concept of the soul as being the most dominant and everlasting part of human life became well established among all the major religions, but they each vary somewhat in relation to their differing beliefs and teachings:

Christians, see the soul as being central to human identity, directly related to God and living on eternally in an afterlife.

Muslims, like the Christians, view the soul as the spiritual component breathed into the individual by Allah and lasting after death into eternal afterlife.

And Jews, in similar belief, see the soul as being a pure blessing from the Almighty at birth.

They all have a common agreement on the soul’s existence and its importance to the life of the individual, despite the wide variations in belief structures, and all believe that the soul is the ultimate element that imparts perfection to the person and is everlasting even after all life fails. The impact of this concept was simply but very effectively explained in the following quotation by an Unknown Author:

“The soul of man alone, that divine particle, escapes the wreck of the world, when all things fail.”

The concept of the immortality of the soul is however not as well established among the major non Judeo/Christian/Islam belief systems. Although questioning the suggestion that a soul as such exists, they nevertheless do not hold the same adamant view of its ultimate dissolution as the Agnostics:

 To the Buddhist, there is no reason to believe there is a soul that is eternal, but yet they believe that consciousness of the mind which carries the karmic imprint of past lives continues on forever.

While in Hinduism, although they do not accept the soul as being immortal, yet they believe it has ‘always existed in the consciousness of life. It is the master of all, the lord of all’.

In both these instances, this seeming contradiction is more based on beliefs in reincarnation, than on denial of existence.

But in the minds of the average believer, the soul has always meant a great deal more than a spiritual vehicle that lives on after the physical body dies. All the sacred writings of the major religions are in agreement with the fact that the soul was introduced into the individual by God at the very onset of life:

The Holy Bible for example, in Genesis 2:7 states:

“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.”

The Quran, (38:71-72) in similar language states:

“Surely I am going to create a mortal from dust. So when I have made him and breathed into his nostrils the breath of My Spirit, then fall down making obeisance to him.“

The Talmud, the ancient Hebrew holy book recorded:

“Just as the soul fills the body, so God fills the world.”

The exact role of the soul however has always been subject to a great deal of varying interpretations, depending on strict cultural belief and interpretation:

 -Plato, the great Greek philosopher in the 4^th century BC, described its status in a truly meaningful manner, in a way that is as relevant today as it has been throughout the centuries:

“When a beautiful soul harmonizes with a beautiful form and the two are cast in one mould that will be the fairest of sights to him who has eyes to contemplate the vision.”

He was in fact describing the true relationship of the soul, the intangible part of humanity, with the body, the functional part.

-To other believers, although the soul strictly has no function as such, it represents our entire element of existence on earth, and is in fact our collective consciousness that determines who we are. We each have one because we each are alive and although it does nothing in our day to day living, it is as important to our identity as our own self image.

-And yet there are others who believe the soul is a divine composite of Body, which is concerned with all the worldly activities, and the Spirit which together are directly linked to God’s own spirit. Perhaps this is what C. S. Lewis, the very well respected British theologian, author and poet alluded to when he recorded:

“You don’t have a soul, you are a soul.

 You have a body.”

-Carl Jung, the great German born, Swiss psychologist and founder of the school of Psychoanalysis, in his masterpiece publication in 1955, Man in Search of a Soul, described his own experiences in midlife which ultimately led him to his belief of the existence of a soul. To him the soul was a functional complex in the individual’s psyche and was responsible for producing the person and the behavior.

-Many scientists have gone further, and insist that the soul, and its manifestation of consciousness and awareness, can be considered as a fundamental element of the world such as time, matter and energy, and as such, have no beginning or end.

Whatever the interpretations offered, or for that matter, whatever the confusion that may appear to exist as a result, there is no denying that the soul plays a very integral role in the overall life of an individual. The soul is the seat of man’s personality, intellect and emotion which is controlled and exercised through his will. It is this free will, the center of the soul, granted by the Creator separates man from the rest of the animal kingdom and determines his behavior on earth as well as in the life beyond. It is this free will that allows a  person to exercise choice and to take action, to be the person with his own identity and beliefs and live his own life accordingly. It is also this free will, the very soul of the individual that must face the resulting consequences of the choice he exercises. Also how he makes use of his free will that ultimately determines how he lives on earth, and even more important, what happens to his eternal life. For in the end, for those who truly care about the promise of eternal life in the hereafter, it matters a great deal. As God himself in the Holy Bible, in Matthew 8:36 so clearly and unequivocally asked:

“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his soul?”

And even for those people who are as yet not fully committed to the validity of the Holy Bible and the impact of its teachings, I am reminded of a quotation by an Unknown Author, that so very simply but effectively demonstrates the deep truth about the soul:

“At the end of the day, you will not remember the person with the beautiful face. You will remember the person with the beautiful heart and soul.”

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