SOUL SEARCHING?
Khurshidalam44@hotmail.com London: 18th Dec. 2011
It is a routinely used expression but I wonder if any one of us has ever thought over it? Some refers to it “inner man”. I feel it must be one of the hardest missions to comprehend. It has been a quandary for Socrates. He failed even to make his students understand about this, if we read his discussions with his pupils the night prior to when he was given poison to drink.
The most intricate relationship between the soul and the body in its self is a very thorny and tetchy issue. So for the medical scientist have also been on lurch to define life. Decades ago when heart ceased beating that were termed, Death. When scientists learnt the art of resuscitation they linked death with the Brain death. But we have seen the bodies of those who have been taken out of the graves after few days and found the nails and hair have grown. That leads us to speculate that the total death of the body is not followed even after Brain Death.
It seems a difficult task.
Unless one can define or elaborate a thing objectively or subjectively it is difficult to understand it. Philosophically speaking the soul is eternal while its shell, the body is mortal.
It is in the prison of the body-cage during life and leaves the body on its death when it is irrelevant to mankind. That is to say that when soul cannot use body any more, it makes an easy escape. Body is a tool for the soul to get things done. It indicates the strongest bond of the soul with humanity.
Body in its self has no important relevance to the evolution humanity. This might be the reason that Socrates and concurring people emphasised on the grooming and nurturing of the soul rather than body because of its eternity and immortal contributions to human values. The standard of values are probably set by the soul.
They were at pains to make their pupils understand about the purification and nurturing of the soul. It was agonising for them that how much do we care to look after the mortal shell or the body and the extent we go, to provide not only the needs of it but comfort also, be it cost us razing of human values. Contrary to what we do for our souls that is either very little or insignificant. Oblivious to the fact that once the soul leaves the body every one is in a hurry to dispose it off.
The more I read about it the more is the increase in my ignorance. It may be a simplistic approach or my idiocy but in my opinion the eternity or immortality are the most valuable factors that it stands taller. It gives an edge over on others factors.
The continued evolution of mankind owes itself to the soul search. The healthy and purified soul will utilise the body in a manner to deliver “good” to the mankind and to establish a chain of values that helps in the evolution of human society. The food of the soul is not expensive. All it requires to restrain your ambitions and to experiment with truth. These factors may have no value materially but is definitely difficult to practice.
Those who have succeeded in it to certain extent they have become immortal. For a moment if we cease to associate life with physical wellbeing and presume that the real life is lying in remembrance then we can reach to a conclusion?
Any thing that does not have geographical boundaries cannot be given a shape nor it can be defined. None of us have seen the funeral of the soul. To give shape or boundaries to it will be distortion of the reality. The stroke of a pen can dent it and the brush of an artist can blur it.
If a writer or artist tries to do so, will make it meaningless. It is not a matter to be palpated or visualised. Without these sensory input none can give it a shape or form. It is beyond human conscious thinking.
A non-matter gives birth only to non-matter. Now we can with some authenticity that feelings, imaginations, pain, love, anger and hatred are all the off springs of our souls. None has a material shape. None of them can be quantified or qualified. Pain is as old as mankind but it seems that soul is older than humanity. I must confess that later portion of my this assumption could be the influence of religion.
If it has to be expressed it should have no constraints or inhibitions in the form of non-material and immortal way like music. Its waves never die but exist in the atmosphere. Though with present technology it cannot be re-heard but it does exist, we do hope that science will capture their existence in times to come.
Soul purification though extremely difficult but makes Mahatmas from human beings. The two Mahatmas Buddha and Gandhi went through this ordeal to be remembered for their contribution to mankind.
Soul search must be a very agonising phenomenon. It seems like an auto-mirror of one’s interior and exterior. It seems difficult to look at interior, see yourself and let the others have a glimpse of it. It needs boundless courage and enormous strength of character to accept it.
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