In my class 3 science subject, I learnt that everything that has life is called Living Thing and everything which does not possess life is called Non Living thing. And again my 3^rd month of Spiritual sessions, I again learnt that thing which separate Living and Non-living or in the other words Life and materialist world is Soul or what we call it as Aatma or Atman.

Now what is it that you call Atman or the Soul? The basis of this simple question has opened the doors to many theories and descriptions. This eventually had led to origin of various philosophy, theology and finally religions. In every religion you will find the description of Soul. Bhagavad Gita mentions the soul as imperishable and eternal and the one which can reincarnate. The indestructible property of Soul and to re-emerge on the Day of Judgement or Qayamat and to transmigrate to Paradise or Hell Fire is also mentioned in Islam or Mohammedanism or Sufism. The theory of liberation of Soul to Moksha is mentioned in Jainism. And the theory of Holy Spirit and Easter celebration is present in Christianity. And the list of relations between Soul and Religions goes on and on. Yet still the question remains the same – What is the Soul?

Is this soul consciousness itself or is it something individual? Really no matter what we call it, we will miss it. Any conceptualization is going to miss the real thing; so whatever has been known as the Self , the Soul, the Atman, is not the real thing , as it cannot be. This is because all those who have defined it have defined it with some condition; that they are trying to say something absurd. That which cannot be said they are saying, that which cannot be defined they are defining. That which cannot be known they are making theory about it.

Ideology:

In my past 12 years of journey I found people having two kind of attitude about soul. First, there have been few mystics, who say they are the knower’s, who have totally remained silent on the topic. They won’t define it as according to them any definition is a waste and is futile. After years of research they simply found that they cannot define the undefined. It is simply beyond all the dimensions to understand the concept of soul hence they choose to purely remain silence on the same.

Secondly, there was another group of mystics, which according to me was the largest group who was opposite of the first. They said “Even an effort to define which is futile can be helpful. Sometimes even the untrue stories can lead to the truth. Sometime even the wrong may end up becoming right and sometime even the wrong step can lead to the right end.” This group feels that by remaining silent you are still saying something, that nothing can be said. Hence Definitions belonged to the second group. All Definitions are devices and one can define soul in any way. Mahavira defines in a way and Krishna in another way, because all definitions are equally true and false. And these various definitions become so many religions, and so many philosophical systems.

But my ideas were never with the first category or with the second. I believed that by remaining silence and not having reason to explain you create confusion amongst the people and by defining it you create conflict amongst the mass. The first category talks about soul as eternity. But anything eternal has its own individuality and its own consciousness which is never explained by them. And the second talks of everything else like reincarnation, liberation, transmigration and various aspects of souls and same has created many wars amongst themselves. Hence my take is a bit different on this soul and would like to explain with the example which might be right or might be wrong but purely my way to understand.

Example:

For me this entire existence is like a fire flame. A reaction of three components which are heat, source or material that catch fire and oxygen what we call it creates Fire. When all these components are in right proportion there is a rise of flame. You don’t need any flame to create flame. It comes from somewhere which science cover under an absurd word of Chain reaction. This flame which originates suddenly doesn’t have a form. Even sciences haven’t been able to define it as solid liquid of gas. Smoke is gas but not flame. They have simply created a fourth category for flames. This flame exists till the components are available and as soon as any one is over the flame simply ceases. You can’t ask nor do you know where the flame is when it goes off, it simply ceases- it’s gone. The only truth known about the flame remains is that it existed. Same is for our soul, this eruption of flame is same as Existence of Soul and this cessation of  flame is Moksha or Liberation for me. Soul simply existed.

Many mysteries still persist and would like all of you to help me find the answer in your way of still an unanswered question –What is the Soul?

Akshay Kothari…Silence Spoken