After acquiring an understanding of the mysteries associated with the Soul, and then demystifying the myth considering intelligent interpretations by religions, philosophers and authors, let us move on to do some 'Soul- searching'.
It seems to be quite clear that the Soul exists. It is an energy that is Divine and seems to have some connection with the Creator. While it probably arrives at birth and departs at death, during our existence as a human being on earth, we need to ratify this in our search for the Soul. Let's start.
Do you think you have a Soul? Most of humanity thinks that the Soul exists, but what is the guarantee of it? We human beings are essentially a body-mind complex. Have you seen a human being without a body? Ridiculous! Everybody has a body. It is the body that defines our existence. We are born as a baby and then we grow into an adult and finally, we die. This is in short, the journey of the body.
What else are we? Are we just skin, flesh, muscle, blood and bones or is there something else inside us? If we break the bones, there will be bone marrow. We can virtually take apart every cell of the human being and keep all its constituents on a table. We can define each organ – the heart, the brain, and several other organs that make our body function. Science has gone forward to understand how the body functions. The heart pumps blood to the millions of blood vessels as it supplies fresh oxygen needed by the body to live. We breathe in air through our lungs that provides oxygen to the heart. We eat food that is digested within us and gives our body energy to act. There is also a digestive system that not only breaks down food to provide energy but also ejects all waste matter. The human body itself is a marvel, but are we connected to some kind of a machine that makes all this happen? Our eyes see, our nose smells, the ears hear, the tongue can taste the most delicious food and the skin can touch, feel and even love. What makes all this happen?
We often think that the physical body is driven by the mind. What is the mind? Have you ever seen your mind? Sure, you may have seen an X-ray of the brain or a picture of it, but the mind? The mind is an invisible part of our existence. While we have a gross physical body, we seem to have a subtle body, one that can't be touched but we can experience it.
The subtle body seems to have 4 aspects of existence – the mind, the memory, the intellect, and the ego. The mind is a thought factory, it produces thoughts. Every human being thinks, unless one is like a vegetable in a state of coma, in which case we are not sure about the presence of thoughts. Some philosophers believe that thinking is the cause of our existence. René Descartes said – I think, therefore I am. But is it only thinking? No! We have the power of the intellect. While it is not identifiable in our gross body, we all know that we are blessed with the power to choose. We can discriminate right from wrong, black from white and the truth from the myth.
Some people confuse the brain to be the receptacle of the mind and intellect. But scientists have not been able to discover this. Our thoughts, in fact, appear from all parts of the body as our senses trigger thoughts in the mind. While the brain is a central processing unit, scientists have agreed that it is different from the mind. That is why we are unable to connect our brain through wires and transfer its memory on to a hard drive. This is because the third aspect of our subtle body, the memory is not physical.
Along with these three, there is the ego – one which appears to say, “I am Smith. This is my house, this is my wife and that car is mine.” It is the ego that defines our existence, our relationship with people and claims possession of things. But where is the ego in the body? It doesn't have a physical existence. The world has accepted the presence of the subtle body-mind, memory, intellect, and ego to be part of the body-mind complex that creates a human being.
It seems like we are like a computer that needs both hardware and software to function. If your laptop had no software, it wouldn't work and without the hardware, the software has no meaning. Both hardware and software are needed for the gadget to function. But what about the power supply? If there was no battery or electrical power, would your laptop work? While we have discovered the body's hardware and software, we have not paid attention to its power supply. What is the power supply that creates life in the human body? Some would do away with this question by saying it is food that gives energy to the body. But then, one day why does the body stop working suddenly? It dies. They would argue that it is just like a machine, but their argument fails because a machine can be restarted. But a dead body can't!
There is a power inside us human beings that seems to depart at death. It is the same power that is said to arrive at birth. What is this power? This power is the Soul. Therefore, we are not just a body and mind that moves around from birth to death. We are body, mind, and Soul!
While we can differentiate the gross body from the subtle body, the body from the mind, why is it so difficult to define the Soul? Some things in life are known by proof, but others are known by inference. You know that you have a nose on your face. You can touch it and feel it! You breathe through it, just as you smell with it. You can see it in the mirror. But can you see gravity? How do you know that the Law of Gravity exists? When we throw an apple up in the sky, why does it not fly away into the clouds? It is drawn back to the earth and we infer that this is due to the Law of Gravity. We can't prove gravity exists, unlike our nose, but we believe in its existence through inference.
So also, the Soul exists. It is that life that makes us live from birth to death. When the Soul departs, there is no breath. That is death! It is very different from sleeping. We sleep every night, but we wake up. However, when our Soul leaves us, we never wake up.
The world, by and large, understands this and talks of the 'departed Soul'. We say, “May his Soul rest in peace.” We believe that the Soul has 'moved on' leaving the body to be cremated or buried. Without the life inside us that we refer to as the Soul, we are nothing. The Soul thus seems to be the essence of our existence. If the Soul was still within a person, would we cremate or bury that person?
How true is this belief that we are body, mind, and Soul?
There will be those who argue that there is no mind and Soul, we are just the body. They even question the existence of the mind as they say, “Where is the mind, I cannot find!” We know we have a mind, don't we? It worries and it wanders. So also, while some may deny the existence of the Soul, how can we argue about the very life that is inside us, the life that makes our eyes blink and makes our mind think? It is that power, that life, that we call the Soul.
When does the Soul come and when does it go? We seem to know the answer to the latter, and even science endorses that at death, in a flash the life leaves our 30 trillion cells that make up the human body. However, when does this life enter our body? We celebrate our birthday when we are delivered on earth. But were we not alive one day before when we were in our mother's womb? Were we not kicking, and did we not have the energy months before we were actually born? When were we actually born? We were conceived about 9 months before when two cells from our parents were destined in a fusion and went on to become a zygote. Later, came the embryo and finally, the magic of a human being. But when did the Soul actually come into the picture? Did the energy appear in us the moment we were out of the womb or did the energy appear when the two cells fused to become one? One theory states that when research was carried out by doctors on the subject of the Soul, a foetus was scanned somewhere around the fourth month of conception and a spark in the brain was observed. It was presumed that this indicated the presence of the Soul. But this is just a theory. Though there is no doubt that the energy or the Soul did come into our being, either at conception or somewhere in between, scientists are unable to find concrete answers. Mother Teresa, for instance, was against abortion as she believed that life enters at the time of conception. We don't know for sure, but probably, when two cells of human beings merge and life is created, the Soul has already entered. The real answer is known only by the Divine. However, scientists do not deny the existence of a power that they call 'life' which