I am 62 this year. That means I have occupied this body that is my house for the last 62 years. This house has seen many renovations take place. From fetus to baby to toddler to kid to teen and adult. Leaving my prime I have to settle into old age now. The house is rundowned now. But I am saddened that I do not yet know neither the tenant nor the owner of this home. Who am I that occupies this body that is visible to all except me? I need something to reflect my image and show me this body, my face, and my back. I am continuously seeing this world around me except when I doze off. The sight of the world around me is then gone. Eventually, when I doze off I hear nothing too. What is that then that keeps me alive throughout my sleep? What is that that wakes me up again like an alarm clock?
What is this that holds on to opinions, has thoughts, plans, and executes them into action? What is that that seeks the pleasures of the flesh and senses that bring joy and happiness, and occasionally yearns for the bliss that touches the soul? Where and when was the start of the breath? As it is a continuous loop where did the breath start? When was this soul first born, emerged, created, or originated? If it resides within us where is it placed? Where does it go after our death? If the body houses it what happens to the soul and spirit after our demise? Where does the thought arise from? I always ask my grandchildren what goes on in their minds. When we carry so many things half of which might be junk what do they carry? Emptiness? Or are they filled to the brim?
I am trying to comprehend others and the world around me but least understand something that is so close to me and within me. When we show interest in learning so many external things we never actually pondered about or wanted to know the self.
How do we then understand the body, soul, and spirit? What is the Self and the Self-realization that is spoken about? I too am confused about these terms and their relationship. Most of the time the word soul or Atma is used interchangeably with Uyir or spirit or Life. I put this question to those in my circle. Some answered. Based on their replies I realized many had no idea. Others only began to ponder when the question was placed before them. Some tried and attempted to give an answer. But these were vague. Some asked for some time to answer. While many only had a vague idea some replied based on what they read. No one could express it with confidence. I guess these questions never arose in the minds of many. I can't blame them. To a housewife, she retires tired and exhausted having woken up early to attend to her children and husband caring for their needs, cooking, washing cleaning, bathing them, dressing them up and feeding them, seeing them off to school, and putting them to bed. She would be the last one to go to bed drained off her energy and exhausted. To the breadwinner in the family, he has thoughts about the day's work and comes home exhausted too. The teen has his studies to focus on and is mentally exhausted. Only those who have retired from all activities like me have the time to think reflect and ponder over many things including these.
I searched the net for answers. The Christian faith carried literature on this. From https://www.biblword.net/ it is mentioned that generally "The soul is the part of us that connects with our fellow human beings. The spirit is the part that connects to God.... The word spirit addresses our relationship to God, not to fellow men.... It does not become exactly clear what the distinction implies. The most important thing we need to remember is that the part of us which is referred to as soul or spirit, needs regeneration by God’s Spirit. Without the Spirit’s work in us, we are dead and unable to know God and unable to understand his word."
From https://iskconeducationalservices.org/ we understand that the soul brings awareness to the body. "This life-giving soul is considered spirit (brahman), differentiating it from inert matter."
We understand spirit to be brahman here. Nothing else turned up in my search.
Though I would very much like to visit my aged mother, because of travel restrictions during these times of the pandemic, I have to be satisfied by just talking to her over the phone. Each time I call I am amazed by her spirit. She tells me that she is fine and blesses us. I am proud of my wife and children too who stood strong in the face of having to go through much distress and pain when the unexpected took place. I wish others too could be as highly spirited as them. Agathiyar always reminds us to have our spirits high. Only then can the remedies, medication, treatment, etc work. Only then can he do something on his part too. The moment we give up even the gods cannot save us he says. Agathiyar told the relatives of a dead man that his Atma had given up the fight and asks that he take him back. Hence all the remedies and parikaram and effort did not work. Agathiyar told someone to ask her Atma what it wanted and connected her with her soul momentarily when she wanted her ailment to go away. Sri Raghavendra tells those who tried to defame him that the boy engaged to play dead by them could not be revived as his Uyir had left. When devotees of Shridi Sai asks why he refused to save a dead child he replied that the Atma had already taken birth elsewhere.
What does science have to say? Something is considered dead if there are no signs of life in it. According to https://www.reference.com,
The seven signs of life are moving, respiration, sensitivity, growth, reproduction, excretion and nutrition. All of these activities are present in living organisms. A non-living object sometimes manifests one or more of these activities but not all of them.
We look out for the breath and warmth in the body initially in the body to immediately ascertain if someone is alive when he or she collapses or becomes unresponsive. The doctors verify it. The postmortem reveals the rest. There are tales of people brought to the burning yard to be cremated who have arisen. There are tales of people who have been certified dead have arisen too.
When Agathiyar asked to have his replica at Agasthiyampalli made in bronze and brought over to Malaysia he said I should give him the form and the Uyir or life to it. He had us chant 100,000 times his mantra but we could only manage 45,000 that day. Coming later in the Nadi he told us that he had accepted the puja. By this, I gather that he implies that we can give life to the object of our worship be it brick, stone, granite, bronze, or any other metal just as we give form and life to the numerous deities too. I believe all the deities take on the form that we give them be it the village deities or kaval deivam, ancestral deities or kula deivam, the pantheon of gods and goddesses, etc. The deities known to instill fear and terror, stand before Agathiyar in obedience and we are shown the gentle and compassionate side of them. When someone was fated to switch his faith for another religion, the deity announced in advance that he would not come within him henceforth. Another deity was told that since he took up the path of the Siddha they would refrain from coming within him too. When Agathiyar's statue is ceremoniously bath and garlanded during his vizha or celebration, and he is ushered, invoked, called upon, or arrives of his own accord, he appears jovial and speaks with us casually. When I placed him in an environment conducive for tavam or the state of meditation he speaks with long pauses as if coming out of his meditative state and returning to it only to come out of it again.
P.Karthigayen says the soul is the bridge between the body and spirit. In Nagarajan's interpretation of this subject on his YouTube channel, he sees the body as akin to the body of the cell phone. The soul is the SIM. The spirit is the charge needed. Just as the cell phone needs all three to operate, just as for an AC current to run the modern household and industrial equipment, needs to pass through three wires or what is called the three-wire system, so do we walk this earth in body, soul and spirit.
Would I be wrong in equating them as follows? The physical body is an instrument and the test results or our daily experiences are conveyed and stored in the soul that already carries the imprints of the past, present, and future, all desires and past karma. As one travels the journey of life, seeing things, hearing things, tasting and touching and inhaling the scents and aroma, these are registered in the archives of the already overloaded soul. The soul is bombarded with the assault of the senses. Then we have emotions to deal with. These experiences either enrich it or degrades it.
The spirit in us is a portion of the larger Prapanjam and stays aloft as a watcher. The spirit that is a flame within us drives us, watching everything happen without intercepting, passing its energy to keep us alive.
I believe in the numerous encounters with the divine I had that I shared in the last two posts I had connected with the soul. The soul connected with god briefly arising in a state of bliss. Joy and happiness are superficial while bliss is deep and reaches the soul. Does that mean the soul resides deep within our recesses?
In summary, am I right if I deduce that Udal is the body. Porul is the soul. Aavi is the spirit. Udal was given by the parents. Soul registers everything. Spirit enlightens us.
Man is a complex entity. He is made of 96 tattvas we are told. Through concerted devotion, prayer, and puja, and its grace, the higher spirit/larger Prapanjam channels its energy into the vessel transforming its very nature. When this happens the body goes through various transformations and finally disintegrates into its very basic elements. We are told about the transformation that takes place: that of the Asudha deham becoming Sudha deham and later Pranava deham and finally Gnana deham and Oli deham. If these changes are towards the physical body what happens to the soul and spirit then?