Answer: With
belief in the soul, an article of faith common to all religions, with
the exception of Buddhism, we enter into the heart of religion. The
soul has, of course, both secular and sacred meanings. Kia motors is
now manufacturing a car called Soul. I suppose it means that the
vehicles touches your soul or represents some sort of materialization
of soul, or like the soul, it travels. We speak of “soul music,” which
combines gospel music—the soul connection—and rhythm and blues. When we
are joyful or grieve, it is the soul that is affected.
But in
spiritual or metaphysical terms, the soul represents our original
divine identity, an entity created by God, a divine endowment, for
whose care we are directly responsible. The soul is that immortal
reality that survives the death of the physical body. So belief in the
soul is absolutely essential to spiritual life, for much hangs on it.
It is the ne plus ultra of the human’s divine life.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá
(1844-1921), the son of the Prophet-Founder Bahá’u’lláh (1817-1892),
and the authorized interpreter of his teachings, wrote in an extended
letter to the distinguished Swiss psychiatrist and entomologist
(ant-scientist), co-founder of the neuron theory, Dr. Auguste Forel
(1848-1931):
“It is through the power of the soul that the mind
comprehendeth, imagineth and exerteth its influence, whilst the soul is
a power that is free. The mind comprehendeth the abstract by the aid of
the concrete, but the soul hath limitless manifestations of its own.
The mind is circumscribed, the soul limitless. It is by the aid of such
senses as those of sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch, that the
mind comprehendeth, whereas the soul is free from all agencies. The
soul as thou observest, whether it be in sleep or waking, is in motion
and ever active. Possibly it may, whilst in a dream, unravel an
intricate problem, incapable of solution in the waking state” (Tablet
to August Forel, p. 7).
Bahá’u’lláh writes: “The soul of man is
the sun by which his body is illumined, and from which it draweth its
sustenance, and should be so regarded” (Gleanings, p. 153). -
Jack
McLean
