God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (soul), and man became a living person. (Genesis 2:7).
According to great thinkers, the body only houses the soul and the soul travels through our body and experiences the consequences of body’s actions in the form of pleasure and pain. The soul stumbles with the thoughts circling in our mind and gets familiar with the feelings of our emotions.
According to ancient theories, the soul does not interfere in any movement of the body. The soul only breathes life through our nose. It speaks with our tongue. It sees through our eyes different things in this world and hears with our ears the sound and music of musicians. In short, ‘the soul is a spiritual being having a human experience.’
The soul they say associates with its body with selfish desires, and worldly pursuits and thus gets dirty and loses its original state of purity, peace, love and truth. Therefore, we have to control the mind, body and our emotions. If we do not control, it will be dangerous like a car without brakes.
As no one can see our soul which is our life force, everyone sees us — at our body’s appearance; our gender; our religion as Catholics, Hindus, Muslims; and caste as Brahmin, Chardo, Sudras and our group as Goans, Kannadigas and so on. But the soul being a spiritual being cannot be identified with such things.
At the time of death the soul leaves the human body and the body goes back to the ground. But the soul never dies because it is an eternal breath. It goes to be with God. Jesus said to the thief on the cross: “I say to you, today you shall be with me in paradise.”
Some faiths believe that the soul ascends to heaven or descends into hell; and those who have not been cleansed — cannot immediately go to heaven. So they suffer in purgatory. Others believe that the soul remains in sleep in an unconscious state, until it is awakened at the time of the great resurrection. Still others believe in rebirth into another physical body.
In good old days, simple folks, believed that the souls of the departed visit the earth on All Souls’ Day. So, they would spread a table with water melon, tender coconuts and of course, a pint of coconut Feni, at the cross roads (ximer) of villages for all the “Almas do outro mundo” (souls of the other world), who they believed, would come and dine.
All Souls’ Day, is observed on November 2. It is a day of remembrance of the faithful departed from this planet called Earth; and are with God in heaven or soon will be. On this day parishioners are reminded to pray for the deceased especially family members and the souls in Purgatory, who at death have not been cleansed — and therefore, cannot immediately go to heaven. The Church prays for the souls of the faithful still suffering in Purgatory. The prayers from us in this world can lessen sufferings with our alms giving, fasting and sacrifices and praying for them in the Holy Eucharist and thus help the departed soul in agony to continue with their cleansing.
We on Earth have to make straight our life for our soul’s purpose to progress towards becoming one with the Source.
