Where they come from where they go?
"The only difference between life and death is a soul. The body otherwise is still made up of the same cells either side of death."
While Science is all about what can be seen, tested and recreated, faith is all about the unseen, un-proven and unique. Science will never accept the existence of a soul and faith will never have it any other way. But what is the truth? Or should I ask, what do you believe is the truth?
Human body, a complex amalgam of various kinds of tissues, organs and structures, all made up of cells, one moment alive and the next moment beyond the realms of existence. But what is it about the human body that changes in a moment turning a bundle of thoughts, energy and actively interacting physical entity into a motionless, emotionless and permanently inactive mass? The body is still made up of the same cells that are still capable of carrying on the same life driving actions that they were performing a few seconds ago, then why did they suddenly stop? What is it that has been taken away from them?
And we can look at the same problem in reverse as well. A mass of cells develops inside a mothers womb. What is it that makes the same mass to start functioning as a single entity with a unique purpose, to survive and interact with the environment, to live?
Science cannot answer these questions and perhaps won't be for a long long time to come, but faith gave the answer centuries ago.
A soul is what differentiates a body that is alive from the dead. But then the question arrises, "Where was this soul before it entered the body to give it life and where does it go when death finally catches up with the individual?"
Each and every religion in this world has provided the same answer again and again but either we didn't read or hear it properly, or didn't comprehend the crux or zest of it. But now it's time to re-open this subject and try to grasp the truth behind our being.
Souls are what GOD created to reside in heaven along with him. Souls are extensions of GOD himself. Souls just like HIM are indestructible, never ageing entities. Souls are energy forms that emanate from HIM, derive their strength from HIM and exist for HIM. Souls is what we all were before we were punished to earth by GOD himself and souls is what we all will be once we have served our sentences, a life sentence for us all. Our bodies are not luxuries, rather they are the prisons meant for souls. Let me explain this in detail before I touch various religions in this context.
GOD created souls to either give HIM company or perhaps to fill the empty heavens. The souls are the angels we talk about or read about, and souls are indestructible just like him. And this is where all the trouble started.
The souls or angels as you may like to refer realized their indestructibility and started playing truant. They began disobeying GOD's commands and started indulging in acts GOD didn't approve off. This finally enraged GOD and HE decided enough is enough. HE has to punish the souls to put his heaven in order. But the indestructibility of souls made it impossible for HIM. That is when the idea of imprisoning the souls into something that could be hurt and made to suffer stuck GOD. That is when HE created all kinds of life forms. The various organisms we see around us, including ourselves, our bodies are the prisons of the souls who are serving sentences for their sins. The length of our lives is determined by how long before our souls have served the punishment that has been given to them before they can be let back into heaven again.
So the question arises, "Do all souls get a chance to get back to heaven once their bodily lives are over?"
The answer to this question is not simple.
Ever since the first souls were sentenced to earth in whatever bodily forms it was, there has been a continuous interaction between organisms leading to further acts that can be classified into sins or good deeds. Now as far as other animals are concerned, they are only living the lives and doing things which they are supposed to do according to the restraints of their physical forms. For example, a lion is supposed to feed by killing other organisms and feeding on their flesh. So every time a lion hunts say a deer, it is not committing any new sin, simply because that is the way he has been made. It is his job to kill the deer and the reason is simple, "The soul that was serving its' punishment in the garbs of a deer has served its' punishment and needs to be re-united with GOD in heaven." By killing it lion is working for GOD and hence beyond the discussion of sin or good for its' actions. The souls that are born in animal, insect, bird or plant forms are lucky. They serve their sentences during their life and none of their actions constitute any new sin. So once their lives are over, they march straight back to the heavens. But that is not the case for us humans.
Human beings intelligence is their boon as well as bane. Thanks to our intelligence we interact with our surroundings and modify them to make our lives comfortable. But at the same time our intelligence makes us do things that may not be morally, ethically or socially right or just. Driven by greed or passion, we make our mistakes, we sin. And it is these sins that make the human form as the worst form of punishment for a soul.
Every religion on this earth has pointed out some common things for all of us humans, namely, there is only one GOD, always remember and pray to him, love other human beings, treat them as equals and do not indulge in immoral or hurtful deeds, curb your greed, control your anger, give up worldly passions and adopt simple lives.
Every religion has repeated these things over and over again. Why, one is tempted to ask.
A soul that arrives on earth for the first time in the prison of human body is supposed to live and suffer for the mistakes it committed in heaven. However, during the course of human life many things attract as well as distract the soul and make it indulge itself into sinful acts for pleasure or comfort. More sins accumulate on the soul. Tragedy strikes.
The soul that should have fulfilled its' punishment and returned to heaven after death is forced to be reborn and suffer for the mistakes it committed in its' life on earth. If the soul is lucky it will be born as anything but a human, and will get a chance to return to heavens straight away after that life. But if the soul is born as a human again, the vicious cycle starts all over again.
We may not remember if we were souls before our current birth, or if we were humans then what we were, what religion we had, what was our skin tone, and offcourse we would have no clue as to what we will be in our next birth. But we can control our destinies and change our future in a way to return to heavens straight after our current births.
The people who are suffering badly in their current lives are still serving the punishment for their sins committed either in heaven or in previous life, while those who are happy and content, they are not that way because they haven't committed any sin. If they are born as human beings, it means they are here to serve a sentence for some sin or the other, however, their sins were mild and didn't call for harsher punishments. But, if they'll commit bigger sins in this life, their next life is going to be correspondingly tough. Their souls will not return to heavens unless until they have served their sentences.
Now if all this makes sense then let us talk a bit about various religions.
Indian subcontinent has been a seat of spiritual and scientific learning ever since the ancient times. The worlds first University was established in ancient India at Taxila around Sixth Century BC. No wonder most of the religions that originated in the Indian subcontinent like Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism, Buddhism, etc, all of them talk about this cycle of life and birth and suffering of punishment. However, it is not as detailed as I have explained it over here, or perhaps, it is not the way the spiritual leaders are preaching them. In all these religions a lot of stress is on peaceful co-existence and renouncement of worldly pleasures, uncontrolled sex drives, substance abuse, anger, greed, ego and other sinful deeds. But so is in Christianity, if we think about it carefully. However, their is a slight difference.
Christianity's message is still of peace and abhorring sins and ills as stated above, but Christianity also details the first instance of punishment meted out to the erring souls. Adam and Eve along with the serpent represented the first souls to be punished and expelled from heaven. However what we humans have failed to appreciate is the fact that Adam and Eve's story has travelled through the generations initially through the word of mouth and subsequently as print but the point to notice is, it was still told by humans, humans who don't even remember what they were in their previous birth.
So the fact that Adam, Eve and Snake were not the real entities but the worldly prisons of the three souls that were expelled from heavens for the first time probably missed everyone. It was an experiment GOD was conducting to test his creation, the new and only way of punishing the sinful souls. The only way pain and suffering could have been inflicted on immortal souls when they erred beyond limits was to trap or jail them into a physical body. GOD's experiment worked and since that time, soul after soul has been punished and is still being punished.
Jesus Christ, the son of GOD was sent amongst us to renew our lost knowledge about GOD and HIS punishment and word, because unlike other animals who only live and do what their bodies are physically meant to by GOD, we humans are the only one's who interact and alter our environments and influence fellow beings for the sake of pleasure or greed. We were the only one's of all the creation who had to be reminded of GOD and what HE wants us to do. And that is why GOD sent his only son "Jesus Christ" to guide us.
When Christ said "Come to me and I'll forgive you your sins," he didn't mean he will forgive anything that we do. What he meant was he will forgive us all the sins our souls committed before this birth and up to the last sin committed before we gave ourselves to him for the first time. He then promised to purify our lives to make us all eligible for heaven after this birth. The sins that we commit in this life after our first submission to Christ are not eligible for Christ's forgiveness. The only way then left is penance for what we have done, that is self inflicted punishment which has to be equal and similar to the sins we have committed.
If we want to go to heaven, we need to go to Christ and offer ourselves unconditionally to him. He will forgive us of our past sins and make our lives clean slates but only for the first time, as before that none of us knew why we had been sent to earth in the first place and how bad we had been before and since then. But once we have been to Christ and he has made our lives clean slates, if we sin even once again we instantly become eligible for the next punishment, which if we are lucky enough we would get in this life before we die, or we will have to be born again and suffer for it. And the worst case would be, if we were to be born again as a human beings, cause not only will we suffer but we will sin again and we don't even know what religion, race or colour we will be born as. Remember, Christ's offer to forgive is for one time only and not again and again.
Now that brings me to one last major religion, "Islam." Again, the message that I know from Islam is from what I've learnt from watching my friends who are Muslims or my former students who are Muslims. All I know is even "Islam" asks us to remember and pray to GOD who is one, love all human beings and spread the word of GOD. Other than that I don't know much simply because no one is spreading the message of "Qur'an". All that is being spread is terror and hatred. Consequently none like me knows what "Qur'an" actually says and what really is the message of Prophet Mohammed. So I'll restrict my discussion to this point only.
What I have presented to you today is neither a religious message from the religion I was born in, nor any new religious belief that I am trying to preach or propagate. Sorry, but I ain't interested in being either a "Prophet" or a "Messiah". I ain't that great a human being.
What I am saying is what I believe to be the truth. You may or may not agree with it. The question is, "What do you believe is the truth?"
Take care,
Amanpreet Singh Rai
(Fatal Urge Carefree Kiss)
