What Matters Most………………………….Commentary by Jim High
Your Soul
What is your soul as opposed to your body, your brain or your heart? Notice that I did not include your mind in that list. Your mind is very close to what your soul is, but those other things they are just the physical or mechanical parts of who you are. Your body is just the physical shell you live in, much like the body of an automobile. Your brain is the physical thing in your head that tells your body what to do, much like a computer works. Your heart is just a mechanical pump that circulates your blood, which beings oxygen and other things to all parts of your body. These are all physical things. All humans have them, but they are not you.
You are the Life Force that animates your body. You are the thoughts of your mind. You are your personality. Your soul is the very essence of who you are. Your soul is not physical; it is mental and intangible. So where does this Life Force, these thoughts and personality, your soul come from, and where do they go at death?
I think this Life Force, the essence of who you are, or your soul, is what is eternal and is what goes on beyond death. And I don’t think it began the day you were born, but that it has always existed. The big hill to climb is to understand that we won’t live on after we die as we live today. But, will we know or feel the presence of others after we die? Probably, but in the same way we feel that presence now in this life.
I knew both of my Grandmothers well, and I can sit on my couch early in the morning thinking about them and feel their presence in the room with me. Oh, I don’t think their ghost is drifting around, but I feel a connection that feels just like it felt to be with them in real life years ago. Truth is the only people we really would like to see in any heaven after we die are people we know. If we didn’t know a person in this life and have feelings for them while we were alive, I don’t think we will have feelings for them after we’re dead. For example, I didn’t know either of my Great Grandfathers, or any of my others previous ancestors, so if I were to go to some heaven, I wouldn’t miss them if they were not there.
Every night that you have a good sound sleep you don’t know anything while you are asleep. So if you never woke up you wouldn’t mind sleeping forever because you wouldn’t know that was what you were doing. It is knowing stuff that make us worry, and makes us think. Dying may be like a good sound sleep where you never wake up.
If your soul, who you really are, has always existed, maybe the Life Force of the Universe is like a huge ocean. You are like a tea cup of water dipped out of it. That tea cup contains all the qualities of the water that is the ocean, but you are not now the whole ocean. That tea cup of water can do and become a lot of things while it is out of the ocean. It can be frozen, vaporized, used to dissolve things, or have things dissolved in it. The salt can be taken out, or other things can be put in. But it is still part of what the ocean is because it came from the ocean.
When you are finished with that tea cup of water you can pour it back into the ocean (death) and it just becomes a part of the whole of the ocean again, and is again no different from the rest of the water in the ocean. Humans (cups of water) are coming (birth) and going back into the ocean (death) all the time. This, of course, is just an analogy for our lives on planet earth.
What Matters Most………..is the life you are living right now. You have a soul, it is the Life Force of the Universe that animates us, that connects us to all other life, and that allows us to feel love, sorrow, regret, joy and all the other emotions of life. Look for the soul in others and you will find your own soul. Look for a reward for your soul in a heaven after death and you will miss most of this life, which just might be the only one you will ever know about.
© 2010 #21 Jim High can be reached at P. O. Box 467, Tupelo, MS 38802-0467
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