A Human Soul


           "The atoms are the irreducible building blocks of reality and cannot be further divide," (Stewart, 96). Our lives are fragile—as well as our souls. As human, there is something that we can't beat no matter whether we have multi doctorate degrees, a multinational company, great career, powerful allies, abundance of wealth, or tremendous fame—we can't avoid our final destination—death. Sooner or later the uncuttable atoms that build our bodies will soon stop functioning perfectly; the brains which contain wisdom and knowledge soon stop working. No religion, philosophy, medicine, or science can stop death from approaching us.
           "The angels prostrate, not before the human body, but before the human soul. Why? Because the soul, the human soul, embodies a piece of the divine breath, a piece of the divine soul" (Rauf, "Lose your ego, find your compassion"). Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, a founder of American Society for Muslim Advancement and an imam in a mosque in New York City, told us from his faith tradition of Islam on how God planted His piece of the divine soul in human soul. Even human body will face its death, but human soul will spiritually stay in existence. Does this mean strictly to heaven and hell? No, I don't want to limit God's definition of metaphysical aspect of human soul to heaven and hell—Pali Tipitaka or the Four Noble Truths teaching of Gautama Buddha tells us that suffering (Samsāra) ends when craving ends—an individual can achieve a liberated state of Enlightenment when one realizes that clinging to a certain sense of existence / selfhood is misleading.
           Connecting compassion (Rahmah) which was breathed to human by God in Islam with a denial of selfhood of Anattā (Not-Self) taught by Buddha gives us a minor scope of a common ground among religions—benevolence and a denial of an "I". Many of us so scared of death, why? Because we are clinging to our lives too strongly—you care about your life and your survival—to certain extend, to your loved ones' lives as well; most of the times no more than that stage. Paul in his book of 1 Corinthians tells us that love does not seek its own interests (New International Version, 1 Corinthians 13:4). Why do we have to fear death then? We do not know certainly what is behind the other side of the door, what actually will happen after death—even to believers of Heaven, they can't describe what heaven looks like to the very details of it. Death is a mystery.
           Life is a suffering and death is a mystery—death is an ending to our sufferings in life perhaps? Or a beginning of worse sufferings? Whichever it is or even neither one, we as the livings still have a chance to drop down our crowns of pride and start to embrace the reality of life—sufferings and inevitable death. A realization of original human soul is an enlightenment; our soul is not an "I" but a collection of souls of our species, the universe, our ecosystem, and God, The Creator, Élan vital, or Universal Mind harmoniously. Our existence is depending on each other. I believe the soul of the dead still positively influence us today, they never die in our hearts and soul. It is our time to impact the next generation to the better. It is the time to realize that death isn't matter to us if we realize there is no "I" but only all of us do exist harmoniously. "I" is a deceitful word and hinder us from being one with others and the Universal Soul—God.
           To take care other people, to take care our ecosystems, to take care our planet, to take care our peace, to take care our future generation prosperity, and to take care God's most precious gift to us—our human soul—are our common goals as a community. Faisal Abdul Rauf teaches to leave our self ego and start embracing compassion for each other, as God has commanded all of us to do so. Buddha teaches us to realize that the idea of self is a false belief which produce harmful thoughts of "me" (Stewart, 115). Jesus teaches us to love others as loving ourselves; he wants us to leave our selfishness behind and compassionate about collective happiness instead our own only—leaving the unholy trinity of "I", "Me", and "My". "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them," (New International Version, Genesis 1:27). God created us in His image, a compassionate nature of us is naturally unseparateable like atoms. Our compassions for others that make us bolder than death; our compassions for others that makes us—superheroes.




                                                    Work Cited

Rauf, Faisal A. "Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf: Lose your ego, find your compassion
" October 2009. Online video clip. Charter for Compassion. TED. Accessed on 05 December 2009. < http://charterforcompassion.org/learn/talks/imam-faisal-abdul-rauf>


Stewart, David. Exploring the Philosophy of Religion. 7th ed. 2010. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Print.


The NIV Study Bible. 10th Edition. Ed. Kenneth Barker. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1995. Print.





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