God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils (Gen. 2:7). God’s breath is our soul — a spark of the Divine. The soul is the human being (you and I). Our soul is formless life force.
Our soul lives in our body like a guest staying in a house. But the body is not you. As our soul is connected with the mind, it gets controlled by the thoughts there in.
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We have to control our mind with positive and creative ideas; and monitor our feelings — opinions, beliefs with compassion towards self and others. If we allow our mind to control us; then the movement of the body and our feelings of desires will be influenced with thoughts and nonsensical ideas thrown into our head by many people with whom we associate. Then our soul, which was originally a picture of purity, peace, love and truth, gets stained with vices, such as lust, anger, greed and ego. Just like the pure water in the clouds when it falls on the ground as rain, it mixes with mud and gathers impurities. Therefore, we have to control our mind and not allow the mind to control us. It is left to us to make our life miserable or happy by controlling the thoughts in our mind.
Our soul is formless life force – our energy. The book of life between birth and death contains pages of success and failure, triumph and tragedy, pleasure and pain, health and sickness and so on. Within these different shades of experiences, we have to find and hold the threads of hope, faith and courage, to survive the low chapters of our lives.
God created humans to live on earth forever. But the first human couple rebelled against God and their first sin of disobedience brought death to all of us, their descendants. Human life-energy has two appearances: Physical and the invisible. The indestructible energy within us is eternal; just as the air inside a pot continues to exist even when the pot is broken; the indestructible soul wants to go home, to the Divine Energy. But we must live a virtuous life to live with God in Heaven.
According to the Catholic belief, the soul of a person who dies can goes to one of three places: First is Heaven, where a person who dies in a state of perfect grace, enters in at the narrow gate; which is the hard way, which leadeth unto life, and few there are that find it (Mt, 7: 13). Second is Hell, where those who die in a state of mortal sin are naturally condemned and go to hell. God created man without touching his free will. Those who stray from the straight and narrow gate and enter through the wide gate, broad road, go to hell (Mt, 7: 13; Lk. 13:24). The midway between Heaven and Hell is Purgatory, where people, free of mortal sin, but still in a state of lesser sin go there.
On November 2, on All Souls’ Day, the Church prays for the souls of the faithful who are still suffering in purgatory; who, it is understood, cannot immediately attain Heaven but can be helped by people on earth, to do their purification with prayer, alms, fasting, sacrifices and Requiem Masses so that they may soon go to Heaven.
