Soulless Body

Many years ago, I had memorised the famous poem by H.W.Longfellow, "The Psalm of Life", which has these lines, “Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.”.
Life is indeed a mystery, but to answer our "basic doubts", do we really need to take recourse to the ethereal spirit, in a "material" body? This spirit, we call the "soul" or "आत्मा atma" ,(described succinctly by Emily Dickinson, in her poem "The Spirit"). And is it true that the soul survives the body? Almost all religions say so! The Bhagwat Gita, has these famous lines in Chapter II
"The soul which resides in every being, is indestructible. Who then can destroy this indestructible soul?
Soul is never born-nor ever dies. It is unborn, permanent, eternal and never dies when the body is killed.
Who can kill the soul and how can one kill the soul when the soul is indestructible, unborn and forever un-destroyable.
Just as humans renounce old dresses and put on a new ones, a soul renounces the old body and takes a new one.
Weapons cannot cut it, fire cannot burn it, water cannot soak it, nor wind can dry it.
Un-cuttable, un-burnable and un-soakable, un-dryable; the eternal soul is omnipresent, permanent and unchanging."
It is indeed superfluous to believe in the soul. In fact disbelieving in a soul, solves many an existential issue. For one, death ends everything. On death we just get recycled into the very same material which formed us . "Dust thou art to dust returnest", indeed rings true. There is a lovely song in Marathi, "माती सांगे कुम्भाराला पायी मज तुडवीसी तुजाच आहे शेवट वेड्या माज्या पायाशी , translated it says "the clay warns the potter, 'you are now kneading me with your feet, but remember, your end is ultimately at my feet' ". What happens to the body after death makes no difference to the dead as the body is entirely sans feelings. Good and Evil are just two different perspectives, which are highly subjective, and time and space relevant. Neither can we have just a "Black" and a "White", there is a lot of "Grey" in between. Believing in a "Ledger" of good deeds (पुण्य) and bad deeds (पाप) , and in divine justice of the "Ledger Keeper", is naive, to say the least. If "Truth" implies "What is", it has to be subjective, as it depends on the perception spectrum of the observer. When neither space nor time can be absolute, the very frame work for defining reality is on shaky grounds.

To sum up, instead of living through life, with the belief of a greater happiness after life, let us try to be happy "now" and "here", and in doing so, try our level best not to make others (which includes everything living) unhappy.

Till Death Do Us Part!!

This morning on my usual walk, I came across the small "Mhasoba" shrine on the way. I was reminded of an incident which took place a year ago at this very place.

That morning I had set out a little earlier than usual. Though the visibility was low, I could easily discern objects. This stretch of road is uninhabited, with an occasional farmer or labourer crossing my path. I love the solitude as it gives me the opportunity to be with myself. As I came up to the shrine, I saw a moped parked just near the step. A couple of pair of sandals had also been left there. I distinctly remember wondering as to who should have come to the shrine at that early an hour, specially as no one was in sight. I thought maybe the couple had gone to have a dip in the reservoir nearby, and proceeded on my walk. On my way back, it was fairly bright, while at the same spot, I heard a sound of muted wails, my dogs accompanying me, started barking in frenzy. I could not help but walk in the direction of the sound, and Lo! just behind the shrine, a young couple was lying in the slush. The man was stiff and obviously dead, but the women was gasping. I turned her over to find that her pupils were dilated and she had froth around her mouth. There was a half empty can of insecticide near the place. I, immediately called the police from my cellphone. I also phoned up my driver to get the car, which arrived before the police. With the help of some passers by, we managed to put her in the car. We took her to Sangli Civil Hospital, as this was a medico-legal case which no private medical practitioner would touch. In spite of every effort to save her, the women did not regain her consciousness, and succumbed to the poison a few days later.

During the police investigations, a diary was recovered near the place, the man had written, that no one should be blamed for their suicide. Bit by bit the whole story came out.

The young man had settled in Mhaisal since the past six years. He was staying with his mother, wife and two children. He was a competent mechanic and was an expert of sorts, in the fabrication of "boats" required for the extraction of sand from the river bed. The young women, hailed from Pandharpur, and came from a decent family. Unfortunately she had a very troubled marriage, and had run away from her drunkard husband, who would incessantly torture her. She too had made Mhaisal her home. Initially she tried to sustain herself by working in the farms, but soon she fell prey to the nefarious designs of her employer. After some time she was again discarded. At this juncture she met our mechanic lad, and the couple fell madly in love. Soon both of them realised that society in general and his family in particular, would not accept their living together. They felt, they could find bliss in death, which they could not hope to attain in life. This had prompted them to take the extreme step.

I don't know what happens when people die, but at least they are relieved from the bondage that life is all about.