Spiritual Journey - Nature of the Soul

A Human being is the most superior menifestation of a Soul on this planet earth. It is in this manifestation that a Soul gets the required means to start its journey for truth, to cleanse itself from all impurities and finally realizes itself and get connected to the source of all creations in this universe. The power to discriminate (right or wrong, truth or lie, good or evil), to think, to question are the means which have been given to the soul through a human body. No other species on this planet have all these powers and so no other insect, plant or animal can aspire to find the truth or get on to the spiritual path to realize the Soul inside. All other species are just bound to spend their lives in completing their daily chores and eventually die and subsequently enter a new body to menifest the Soul again.

Though we humans are so much superior than other beings still we live in ignorance and never try to explore the spiritual path to find truth which is the actual purpose of existence of human beings on earth. We are not more than any other living species on this earth if we are not using the powers given to us. Yes, we used fraction of these powers in development of science, social structure which helped humans to get continuosuly evolved and get advanced but that did not answer any of the questions related to the ultimate truth. Questions like life after death, creation of the universe, purpose of life can not be answered or found by scientific theories.

The nature of the Soul is such that it always has craving to find its source i.e. to reach the ultimate goal, cleanse itself from all impurities i.e. to attain a stage of perfection. Since human is an intelligent being therefore he is capable to give actions to these two characteristics of a Soul. So, all the activities in our lives are guided by these two objectives. Any person doing any kind of work in this world is being guided by these two very objectives at the core. If we closely observe we always evaluate ourselves in life on these two parameters. We always ask ourselves where we are? where we stand? and we always ask how better we are? how much we have improved?. So these questions lead to comparisons we do in terms of where we have reached and how much good we are at our work. Goals which we set and achieve by doing karma in material world are ephemeral and temporary and so we are always resetting our goals after one is attained. It is because the nature of your soul is to always make efforts to achieve something or to reach somwhere.

By above discussion it should not be interpreted that material world is not required. What we saw is that soul has to perform two things. First it has to cleanse itself from all impurities to become a perfect soul and while doing that it has to explore and find its destination i.e. its has to find the truth, its source. The sould can cleanse itself by performing positive karma as guided by Lord Krishna by means of Bhagvadgita. Since, karma can be performed in a material world by means of this material body so material world is needed to move up on karma index and to cleanse ourselves. Also, one has to perform karma to carry out his duties towards his family, society and nation. The crux of the problem today is that we only set materialistic goals and all our karma are guided by cravings of the senses of our body. We should always perform our karma with a sense of perfection like a true karmayogi without worrying much about the results. Its imperative that if we perform our karma with a sense of perfection, dedication and honesty then results are bound to be amazing attaining the set goals(materialistic goals). We do have materialistic goals in life which are temporary but those should not be our ultimate goals. We should not set goals of our life like to hoard lot of money or to build a house in most posh location or to look most handsome or beautiful or to attain maximum power. Even these life objectives are temporary. Also, achievement of these goals are not going to give you peace, sense of satisfaction because achieving such goals are not going to stop the craving of your soul. It is because these were not the actual goals of your soul. So, our goal of life should always be to find truth, to reach god. To start this search one has to perform activities of spiritual world. One needs to medidate to realize the self, be free from greed, lust, proud, anger, sin and ego, attain purity of thoughts, to remember the creator and worship him. One would say that setting materialistic goals is good for the progress in life. That is correct but one should ask himself that what he would do with loads of money, big house, great power or fragile body in end days. One has to leave everything material here itself even their bodies. Every material you achieve over here is perishable so what are you running after all your life is temporary and so it is a lie.

Only human beings can differentiate between good karma or bad karma, only human beings can perform higherdeeds other than the daily chores what other living species do and it is only human beings who can use their intelligence to find truth or search the secrets of their creation and existence.  All those who have born as humans have covered many manifestation before and now its time for them to take the spiritual path and start their search of truth.

The Unknown Journey of our soul

Is my life only a story, starting from my birth and ending with my death? Won't there be any future of myself after I die? Is my life a spark, or a wave in ocean, or a breeze of air or a storm which originates and gets vanished forever? Being a person living in modern era of science I wish I could believe this. But, the moment I get a slightest feeling of this kind I start feeling all unimportant, start losing a sense of purpose, start feeling a meaninglessness, stop getting a feeling to reach somewhere and just get a horrible feeling of myself existing in an isolation. Myself just doesn’t allow itself to believe that it was not existing before it took birth and it won’t be there at all after it dies. A slight feeling of a kind of connection from past and a slight belief of being there forever actually makes me feel all alive. I don’t believe that I would die one day but, in fact, I know I would. Don’t know if I would ever exist after I die but don’t believe that I won’t.

So, I can’t prove my existence before birth and after death but when I contemplate deeply then I start feeling myself in a journey from my past into my present and from this life into my future. Bhagvadgeeta states that body perishes but soul is eternal and is never destroyed. We are always in an illusion to identify ourselves as a body. But, if I believe about my existence before birth and after my death, when my body could not exist, then there must be some form of myself which is not destroyed or created but, only takes shelter for this lifetime into my body. Try to feel that “I” or “My”. The feeling is as same today as it was when you had your first memories from childhood. It means there is something inside you which never changes with time. Whether you are a child, a young or an old person that feeling about yourself is always the same. So, the power , the spark, that unseen or unknown which, keeps us running is known as soul. For e.g. our body is like a machine which is dead unless a current is passed to start it. It is like an automobile engine where as long as spark exists inside the engine it produces power and keeps the engine running. In case of an automobile, engine is the source of power but it is actually the spark which keeps running the engine. Similarly, our heart is the source of power and it is the soul which keeps it running.

When this journey of the soul originated or why it originated is not known. Can’t say exactly where it is destined to but as it is said it is destined to meet its source which is the supersoul. Our soul is all powerful and works under a universal law of karma. It can decide or choose where it wants to go. The nature of this soul or the easy state is to live in an eternal bliss or happiness. It doesn’t want or doesn’t like to be in sorrow. Therefore, we are always making a constant effort to make ourselves happy and peaceful. We are living under a constant effect of illusion. In this world gripped by ‘Maya’ every pleasure or happiness is inevitable to be followed by sorrow. There is nothing which gives us eternal happiness. Why don’t we live in bliss always or why do we feel sorrow at all? What would we get after which we can say we would always be joyous, full of happiness. This is because of our mistake that we are trying to get that eternal peace and happiness in the material objects which are temporary and so our happiness which, is attached to those ephemeral objects.

In our life we are doing some act which results into reaction. This world is under constant effect of our deeds and in the same way we are under a constant effect of the deeds being done by this world. From each of our acts or acts done by others we draw few learning. So, we are always in that self correction mode where we are trying to get the learning and apply then in our lives to achieve a state of perfection. Few times we are lucky to get a chance to apply the learning to situations in a single lifetime. For e.g. If due to some of our mistake or wrong act we bear big loss in life or we get filled up with a sense of guilt then our soul gets burdened with this. It is under a constant effort to apply the learning again to get free from that burden as part of the effort to reach towards the state of perfection. If suppose one doesn’t get that chance to free up the burden and he dies along with those burdens then the soul chooses to be in the circumstances where it can apply those learning. Purpose is to free up the soul with any kind of burden and keep it in an as easy state as possible. All these unfinished learning get reflected as natural tendencies, interests during our next lives. All strong feelings of love, hatred, enmity, greed, guilt, undone deeds, regret etc leave karmic impressions which our soul needs to clear out in next birth. This is due to its tendency to be in eternal peace and happiness. So, in every life we are here for some purpose.

Analogy: Suppose I take a train from Mumbai and I need to reach Calcutta. Condition is that on each station I need to get down and again catch another train for Calcutta. I would be able to catch another train only if I know why I got down at that station and where I was headed to. Unless I know that I would be unaware about my purpose to be on that station. I would probably catch a train which would lead me to wrong destination and so I would get lost in a maze and would keep wandering always.

To map it to the journey of our lives each station is one lifetime during which we need to catch the right learning and identify our right purpose to continue our journey. Destination is to become a perfect soul in peace, and eternal bliss. So, our deeds should always be aimed at making ourselves a perfect soul and earn no negative karmic expressions. Under illusion we keep catching wrong trains and keep wandering always in our lives with no knowledge of our existence, purpose and our destination.