The Heart and Soul of it all!

Jaynat · May 15, 2009

Dear Cheeniya Sir,

A very thought provoking post on the Heart and Soul!
I feel the soul is the consciousness or the life force that exists in the universe. A soul’s journey does not begin in the mother’s womb, neither does it end in the tomb once the physical body is rendered lifeless. The soul or the consciousness just exists until it finds another womb it could personify. I have had my doubts as to why we always say, it is a message for the soul, cleansing of the soul etc. How can be cleanse our soul when the soul is already pure and exists only as a lifeforce. Can we have corrupted lifeforce within us? We may exist with a corrupted/ confused mind. We may exist with a heart that is susceptible to all emotions.

The powerful lifeforce stands majestic in all, its splendor not affected by the confusions, the emotional cravings that the heart is prone to. How we utilize this powerful lifeforce to achieve various things in life varies from individual to individual. Some of the great saints were more aware of this powerful lifeforce that exists within us, and hence, were able to tread into lands, which no men have dared to access.

With warm regards
Jay.

Sriniketan · May 15, 2009

Cheeniya Sir,
When all the participants in the tagging game mentions your name regardingthe humour they like in your posts..you come up with this serious thought...maybe your soul wanted to put an end to this unanswered question..heart and soul.but you had put your heart into this thread and made us understand how confused you are after so many quotes..as we are now...
Ok..from now on...no complaining about the work we do at home..but have a heart Sir...our work is visible to all...where as the heart works invisbily..yet powerful..
Think about this too Sir..even if we take a hour off let alone the day off...nothing moves in the house...ultimately..we are the one who should move everything to its place..
The quotes from China, Martin Luther King and Korean American poet are simply superb!
Me too, still having the doubt is 'uyir' and soul are the same..:confused2:

sriniketan

Cheeniya · May 16, 2009

Dear Jay
Nice to see you after a long, long time!
I totally agree with you on the soul being the life force of the universe. That's the precise reason why I am confused when people say 'May his soul rest in peace' when a person kicks the bucket as if he owned it when he was alive and that the soul will be in a highly agitated state on account of its losing its temporary parking slot! Why should anyone think that the soul was dependent on the body? Is it not the other way round?

The powerful lifeforce stands majestic in all, its splendor not affected by the confusions, the emotional cravings that the heart is prone to. How we utilize this powerful lifeforce to achieve various things in life varies from individual to individual. Some of the great saints were more aware of this powerful lifeforce that exists within us, and hence, were able to tread into lands, which no men have dared to access.

A profound view indeed! The Sufis believe in the duality of our existence. We may live a life totally in tune with the demands of this perishable time bound body or we may lead a life in tune with the Eternal life force that neither has a beginning nor an end. When we train our psyche to identify itself totally with the everlasting life force, we are supposed to be in a state of Eternal Now, a state of timelessness which makes us immortal. A very lofty ideal for the human psyche to aim for but that's what the Sufis strongly recommend.
Sri

Cheeniya · May 16, 2009

Dear Sri
Let me tell you a story about a man who perceived his wife's role as something close to lying on a bed of roses while he had to toil hard to keep the family happy. He prayed God for switching of the role with his wife at least for a day so that his wife could understand how hard he worked while he could take a day off as the wife watching all the damn serials on the TV. God granted his wish and next morning when he woke up he saw himself as the wife while she started getting ready for office in his body!

The day started disastrously for the transformed wife with the servant maid phoning up to say that she would not be coming as a distant uncle of hers died. The kids were reluctant to go to school and she had great difficulty in coaxing them up to get ready. After they left for school, she found that there were heaps of clothes lying everywhere waiting for wash. She gathered them up, put them in the washing machine and switched on but the machine wouldn't start. She tried every known trick but it did not budge.

The whole day was spent in the same vein and when the day ended, she (he) was half dead. She had to just wait for another twelve hours to get back into the husband's role and how he(she) looked forward to it. She woke up next morning but was amazed to see that she continued to be the wife. She ran anxiously to the Pooja room to ask God if He had forgotten to switch back the roles. God said with a smile that she had just become pregnant and would need to wait for another ten months to get back into the husband's body! She came out ashen to see her husband having a shave whistling some bawdy song!
Sri

sln · May 17, 2009

Dear Cheeniya,
Thanks for starting an interesting and intellectual debate.The following are the common expressions which differentiate the heart and the soul.
Why do we say” in my heart of heart?”
We say heart of the matter and not soul of the matter.
He put his heart and soul on the job which conveys that soul is a little more serious than the heart.When some one dies we say” may his soul rest in peace or I pray for his soul” .We say he is a heartless fellow.He has to do soul searching is another common expression which lends a little more respectability to the soul..
Heart is some thing we see and soul is something we feel.I venture to compare heart to uthsavar and soul to moolavar because the latter is housed in sanctum sanctoramin a temple.In tamil I would consider soul as Athma.I hope to do a little research on the subject on my return from holidays.
Regards
LAKSHIMINARAYANAN

Mindian · May 17, 2009

Dear cheeniya sir,

I agree with sreeni..just as you get the maximum number of votes for your sense of humour, you come up with such a serious topic….i guess that shows your versatility as a writer. .BTW, just a little curious. Is there any topic that you have not written about?

Anyway like viji has said I too am a very ORDINARY person but I found the topic very interesting……from your post and the fbs I have some doubts… ....
Heart is physical (the organ) and the metaphysical (the feelings) whereas soul is only metaphysical.
Heart keeps changing with every birth. both the “physical organ” and my “feelings”….what I feel is correct this birth, I may not feel the next birth, right? but I have the “same” soul every birth? the soul is not destroyable? where does the soul go in the intermittent period between my death this birth and my next birth?

Sorry, I hope it is okay to ask these but you have yourself to blame as you triggered off these thoughts on a mind that otherwise is occupied with only very mundane ones.

Cheeniya · May 17, 2009

Dear LN
As a matter of fact, these common expressions are the ones that cause all the confusion. Some of them are used mindlessly.

Your comparison of the 'Soul' to Moolavar and 'Heart' to Utsavar is very illuminating. Moolavar is static and all-pervading. People have to seek and reach out to the Moolavar but the Utsavar goes round reaching out to everyone. Even if you don't want to go looking for the Moolavar (soul), the Utsavar reaches out to all reminding everyone that He represents only the Moolavar. The more I think of it, the more I like your comparison. Your comparison brings out the most significant aspect of all that the Soul and the Heart, like the Moolavar and the Utsavar, are the two sides of the same coin. We can't be debating which is superior and which is more important given the fact that both represent the same.
Thank you for a very illuminating comparison, dear LN
Sri

Cheeniya · May 17, 2009

My dear Mindi
Thank you for the nice compliment but don't we all know that what we know is just a handful but what we are yet to learn and experience is as big as the universe?

Your question about 'feelings' is a very intriguing one. Many people believe that strong feelings never die even after a person's death. You may have heard of the expression 'If my desire doesn't get fulfilled, my heart will never get consumed by the funeral fire'(Nenju vegaathu). That gives us an idea that unfulfilled desires, get transmitted to the soul for getting lodged in the subsequent body. Among the great religious leaders, there is a widespread belief that all the cumulative learning of the predecessors gets transmitted to the subsequent leader. This is a very strong belief among the Tibetans about their Dalai Lama.

I have observed Kanchi Paramacharya's learning and vision at close quarters and felt that all the knowledge that he possessed could not have come in just one birth. So amazing was the depth of his knowledge in every matter. When I see the child prodigies in various fields like music and mathematics, I tend to believe about the indestructibility of strong passions.

The soul is all pervading and limitless. When we are alive, it is within us and when we die, it just merges with the universal soul. Adi Sankara gave a nice example of a potter. When he makes a new pot, the pot captures a bit of the all pervading air and as long as that air is inside the pot, it assumes the shape of the pot. When the pot breaks, the air gets released to merge with the all pervading air until a new pot is made. To symbolise this, there is a practice of breaking a pot just before the dead body is consigned to the fire.
Sri

iyerviji · May 17, 2009

Dear Cheeniya Sir

I am just writing this to thank you for the knowledge we get from your posts not only from your thread but also from the replies you give to each and everyone. I must thank Jey and Malathi for giving such a wonderful site and your mother for such a wonderful child, who does not keep the knowledge within himself but imparts to others also. My namaskarams to your mother. Hope I have not written anything wrong. Whatever is in my heart which I cant keep there long have let it out.

Thanks Cheeniya Sir

Regards
viji

Padmini · May 17, 2009

dear cheeniya sir,
after reading your post my heart stopped beating for one minute. what a thoughtful post !searching for all topics to give proper reply to this post. after my three days search, i was able to write this only. kindly excuse me if it does not match your brilliance.
the heart is a muscular organ in all vertebrates responsible for pumping blood through the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions.This purely physical i believe.
the feelings or unarchchigal, our good and bad deeds are driven by the metaphysical heart . this play an important role in deciding our karmic fate. If somebody is sooo good we praise them as people with "golden heart"
now comes thesoul: the soul is the immaterial part of a person. It is usually thought to consist of one's thoughts and personality, and can be synonymous with the spirit, mind or self.<sup id="cite_ref-0" class="reference">[1]</sup> In theology, the soul is often believed to live on after the person’s death
The Bhagavad Gita, one of the most significant puranic scriptures, refers to the spiritual body or soul as Purusha (see also Samkhya philosophy). The Purusha is part and parcel of God, is unchanging (is never born and never dies), is indestructible, and, though essentially indivisible. It is made up of three components:
(i) Sat (truth or existence) (ii) Chit (consciousness or knowledge) (iii) Ananda (bliss) It has form "Vigrha".
The presence of a soul is perceived by its consciousness. According to the Bhagavad Gita, all living entities are soul proper. When the soul leaves the body, then it is called death. That means, death is transmigration of soul from one body to another body. Soul transmigrates from one body to another body based on their karmic [performed deeds] reactions.But before taking another birth, all souls wait for the judgment day.But now after reading this, i do have a doubt then how in some English serial a man sells his soul to save his brother.sir in my enthusiasm to give a feedback i collected all these and wrote a feed back on my own, now you have to judge.For the past twodays i was going throgh all the books to give a properfeedback. still so many doubhts in my mind. thank you very much sir.Sorry , if i have blabbered something.
with love
pad