Body and Soul

When we analyze life, we see that every man or woman wants to live a happy life. But the materialistic approach towards life causes hindrance and dismay at every step of their life as every moment of our life is perishable, mortal and variable. Moreover, we also do not know, indeed materialistically, what real happiness is and how it can be achieved. It is necessary that we should search for our Real Base in order to know this Real Happiness.

When we were "nothing", we must have been something, because not to be anything negates our being. Our material life commences from the womb of the mother. When after inception and passing through a certain process, this matter reaches its climax a living picture comes into being from nothingness. Circumstances and surrounding of this ‘picture’ provides it with such a training that it remains ignorant of the meanings of Real Happiness, what to say of the method of its acquisition.

To embrace the Real Happiness, first of all one should have the knowledge that life is not based upon the body only but it is based upon that Reality which has adopted this material body as a robe for itself. After birth, the second phase encountered by us is that in which every moment of our life dies after giving birth to another one. The moment, which is our childhood at one time and boyhood at another, changes into old age from the youth-fullness.

The Living Picture

Our access to this Reality is possible only when we know that this Living Picture is not a ‘body’ but a Conscious. We are not at liberty to call it conscious only because the conscious is that medium of our identification, which is holding the whole edifice of our life together. It is in our knowledge that the extinction of body puts an end to the material density and pollution and we are also aware of the fact that the extinction of body does not cause annihilation of the consciousness, but on the contrary it is transferred to some other world.

One thing mentioned in all the sacred books unanimously and reiteratively is that man is not merely a material body but a consciousness. When we discuss the life span --- birth to death period, we come to know that the consciousness, the foundation of which was laid in the mother's womb, decreases on one hand and increases on the other. The more the decrease in the conscious the more is man carried towards the past; the advancement of the consciousness results in moving towards the future. The age factor is determined because of the increase and decrease in the consciousness.

One state of the consciousness is called the childhood, the other is termed as the Youth and the third one is given the name of old age. In short, the consciousness which is maintaining this material life and upon which this body takes the evolutionary steps, itself remains intact and constant.

Study of the Self

When we study ourselves, we conclude that we have a perishable and a limited body, which is our identification. The tangible body, which we see, is composed of density, dirt, putrefaction and effluvia. Basis of this putrefaction is that every man in this world has been given to understand that he is matter; an offspring of the material world. This limited thought confine everybody in one place and every one finds himself incarcerated in the cobweb of restricted ideas. And thus results a confined and limited thinking. Everybody living on this planet has categorized himself as a Muslim, a Hindu, a Parsi (Zoroastrian) or a Christian though the soul cannot be denominated by any name. Because a light is only light, irrespective of its belonging to any part of the world whether it is in Arab, Europe or Asia.

The system of God is established in such a way that all His Messages which have ever come to this world are incorporated and prevalent in their own typical words. The words of Bible are the religion of the Christians, Quran is the foundation stone of the Muslim religion, Hindus worship using the words of the Bhagavad-Gita. All these books are the voices of the holy servants of God, which have spread all over the world, just like light.

When we contemplate about the creation of the universe, we eventually come to the conclusion that our universe itself is the Voice of God. When God said, in His Voice ‘Be!’ the whole universe came into being. God introduces Himself as a Friend of the creatures. Just as a father does not forget his son, similarly God, too, is never forgetful of His creatures. Allah or God, who is our lord Cherisher and who provides us with every kind of resources and make us undergo novel experiences at various stages of our life is, indeed, our Friend.

Study of the sacred books reveals that God never leaves His creatures alone, in solitude no matter how different they are in physical features from others. When we think in terms of genetics, we find that creation is taking place under a definite program. When a seed is sown it is nurtured by the ‘mother earth’ to finally become a tree. When the seed is put in the soil, it absorbs water from the soil and water after entering through the micro Pyle nourishes the dormant seed. Cellular division takes place in the plumule, hypocotyls and the radical of the embryo situated between the cotyledons. The hypocotyls grows to be the trunk and the radical grows into the root of the tree.

The epigeous growth of root causes it to enter the soil to absorb water and minerals for the germination and growth of the plant and its fixation in the earth.

Contrary to it is, the epigeous and photo tropical growth of the hypocotyls which gives rise to the trunk. The food stored in the cotyledons is consumed during the embryonic stage of the plant till it begins preparing food for itself by the photosynthesis then these cotyledons dry up and plant grows into a mature tree. In the same way, when a man puts his seed in to a woman's body, a seed like germination process is established and a notochord is formed which finally grows into fetus and then finally a baby is born - just like the sprouting of a plant from the earth.

The Moulds of Creation

It would be true to say, in terms of genetics, that the birth process in man, dog and cat is alike and similar in its nature. Sperms infuse in the ova and according to a certain process it begins to grow. On the first night, it is almost of the size of a pea and then gradually it enlarges and grows till if becomes a living picture which is furnished with all the faculties of hearing, sight, speech and feeling. There are ten holes in this picture; upon which depends the whole life. Human abilities are also correlated with and dependent on these ten holes. These ten holes are responsible for the power of speech, hearing, smelling as well as protection and hygiene of the body through excretion of poisonous and waste materials. If even a single hole is not performing its task properly or is functioning defectively, then human life is handicapped accordingly and the man becomes an invalid, useless or comparatively less capable.

Classification of Holes

Two holes of the human ears are for the hearing faculty. Two holes of eyes are for the sight i.e. reflections of the outside objects are displayed upon the mental screen of man through these holes to provide him the knowledge of existence of something and this knowledge after passing through various stages becomes the faculty of Touch. Two holes of the nose are responsible for the smelling power. Two holes of mouth and throat are for our food intake requirements and enable us to speak. Ninth hole is not only for the excretion of the waste material but it is also a reproductive channel. After absorption of the required energy from the food, the remaining waste is expelled through the tenth hole of the body. This is a system, which is permanent and regular and will remain so till the last Day of this world.

Germination of a seed leads to the formation of two things; a trunk and a pair of leaves. This creative process indicates that every thing and every being is ‘Dihedral’ and then each of the two sides is further sub-divided to form many sides.

Man is also a compounded picture of dihedrals. There are two brains in man, one on the right side and the other on the left side of his skull. There are two eyes, and two nostrils. Throat is apparently one but that also is sub-divided into two parts because of uvula, and has two openings; one for lungs and other of the gullet.

Hands are also two, then two legs, two feet, two kidneys, two portions of liver, even heart is basically divided into two pans by means of septum and two lungs and so on and so forth. When the material body of man is analyzed in the like manner, we are constrained to admit that the human creation is dihedral. More thinking leads us to the fact that mankind and all other species are also dihedral; male and female, man and woman, father and mother.

The Law of Sex Appeal

Man (male), according to the law of Creation, is also dihedral and the woman (female), too, is dihedral. There is a man hidden in every woman and a woman is hiding in every man. Had Eve not been present in Adam, her birth would not have possibly taken place. Second example is the birth of Christ from Mary. Thus every individual is two-folded duplex. One fold is manifested and predominant and the other immanent hidden and suppressed. Man or woman both are dihedrals in this respect each with one side manifested and the other immanent. The manifested side of a woman is exhibited before us in the form of a woman but her inner side remains invisible. Similarly the man's manifested side remains hidden It is therefore the manifested side of man which appears as a man and the woman appear as woman is the manifested side of the woman. The opposite inner feminine side is enfolded in the manifested side of man and the opposite inner masculine side of a woman is enwrapped in her manifested feminine side. The law of Sex Appeal and reproduction is based upon these very two sides. Since the inner man of the woman is dominated therefore he longs to adopt the predominant side of a man before him and wishes desperately to absorb in it for completion and perfection of his self. Similarly the hidden woman in a man is incomplete and dominated therefore ‘she’ also longs to embrace the manifested woman for her completion. This means that the sex appeal is not present in the man or woman longing for completion of the before us but exists because of the longing for completion of the hidden woman or man in them.

This is what is generally called Sex Appeal. Cases of change in sex are commonly observed by us. This happens because the stimuli of the immanent side become so intense and predominant that the stimuli of the manifested side becomes paralyzed and suspended.

It happens when the inner woman of a man becomes predominant over the manifested masculine side and the manifested side of the man becomes dominated and suppressed and consequently the man is transformed into a woman And when, the stimuli of the manifested side of the woman are over powered by the inner man in her, she changes into a man.

The Inner and the Manifested

It is this endless chain of creation that invites our deliberation that there is one inner side and one manifested side in us. The manifested side is called the Matter and the Inner is called the Soul. Soul, too, is dihedral. One of the manifestations of the soul is ‘the robe’ adopted by the soul and the second manifestation is the Soul itself. Holy Qalander ba'ba Auliya (May Blessings of God be upon him) in his book Loh-o-Qalam; (The pen and the Scripturum), has exemplified these two sides as ‘robe’ and ‘body’.

He States:

"A figure of flesh and bones is there before us. Physiologically, construction of muscles etc. over the skeleton of bones has given the shape to a body. This structure, the body, is considered to be real. For its protection a thing called dress has been invented which could be of Cotton, Wool, or leather etc. The attire is, basically, to protect the body of flesh and bones. The dress, in fact, has no life or any movement of its own. When it is on the body it moves along with the body; it means, the movement of the dress is that movement which is transferred to it from the body, but actually the movement pertains to the functional limbs of the body. When we lift our hand, the sleeve also moves along with the moving arm. This sleeve is the arm of the dress, which has been taken on for the protection of the body.

Thus the definition of the dress would be that when it is on the body the movement of the body transform in it and when it is taken off and placed on a hanger it becomes static and devoid of any movement. Now we take into consideration the comparison of the dress with the body. Many examples can be put forth but to explain the true meanings only one should suffice. That is, when one is dead, the body of the deceased may be cut into pieces, dragged along, anything may be done to it but it will not offer any resistance nor will any movement be initiated on its parts. It will remain resting as and where it is laid, no trace of life - at any time, is possible in it. It means that after death, the body becomes just like a discarded dress. The actual person in it abandons it. He leaves it and goes somewhere else. When it is established through observations and experiences that the said body of flesh and bones is merely a ‘dress’ and not the actual person, then it becomes necessary to find out the reality of man and his whereabouts after leaving it.

Had this body been the actual person, there should have been, somehow or the other, some traces or signs of life after death. But the whole history of mankind cannot produce even an instance of movement by a dead body. In this situation, we are constrained to be curious about the person who quits the ‘dress’ of the body and leaves for somewhere else.

The name of the very person, as called by the prophets, is the Soul (Rooh). is the real body of man, and this very body possesses all those potentialities which are collectively termed as LIFE. This fascinating example of the robe and the body decisively proves that the real proves that the real life is not the ‘robe’. A robe is a robe as long as it is upon the body, when it is taken off or discarded, it bears no significance, and it dissipates and perishes.