The journey of soul after death-4

In spite of soul being resplendent and remover of obstacles, powerful intellectual controller of the sense organs, excel¬lent, immortal, it is partially omniscient and is not aware of the entire Reality. It has adequate knowledge for your wel¬fare as well as the society and mankind but not enough about the subtle world and Vaikuntha - the abode of God. However, its degree of knowledge varies with the accumulation of kind of gunas. Its knowledge goes on increasing with the sattavic activities and when a person moves beyond gunas it has the maximum knowledge and even its shine can be observed.

Thus mani¬fested soul has its limitations owing to your actions, desires and thoughts. To remove these hurdles and limitations the soul needs the eternal speech of God contained in Vedic knowledge. With this knowledge soul can enjoy the essence of the vital world. It is for this reason that Swami Dayananda had advised to all noble human beings that study Vedas and if not possible listen to Vedic knowledge whenever you get an opportunity. This will benefit you as well as the society and the entire mankind. Holy Koran says,” life is a gift of Nature but beautiful life is a gift of wisdom”- knowledge provided through the soul”. Holy Koran like the Vedas greatly emphasise a-priori knowledge contained in the soul, which can help you leading noble, virtuous, beauti¬ful and purposeful life.

Vedas give great importance to both soul and spirit in the human beings for acquiring divine qualities for ideal human conduct in socie¬ty. This is Vedic Dharma. Many learned people consider Hindu Dharma and Vedic Dharma as synonymous. The source of soul and spirit is God. The soul is provided to human beings directly from God and in the case of spirit it comes through Prakrti. Thus following the laws of God and Nature is more like obeying your Divine Father and Supreme Mother Prakrti and it leads to noble and virtuous life. It is a common observation that the parents take special precautions so that their small children do not go alone near a lake or swimming pool lest they fall and get drowned. They take similar precautions against electricity, fire, use of knife etc. The supreme Father and supreme Mother Prakrti take similar precautions for their children i.e., entire mankind through the Rta - the cosmic laws of social and moral order known to the soul as a priori principles.

Bhaga¬vad Gita in the verses says “sarva bhutanam tato bhavati” - of all embodied things God is seed giving Father and Nature is the con¬ceiving Mother. Unfortunately under the influence of extreme material¬ism based on inert matter, the importance of Prakrti has considerably declined amongst the followers of Hindu organised and hierarchical religion and personal God with form and attributes is now Father, Mother, brother, friend and provider of all luxuries and other mundane things. This diminishing respect of Prakrti has made the role of Nature almost redundant. She is hardly worshipped or respected as supreme mother Aditi, Devaki or Daivi and her 33 Prakrti devas are no longer the main deities. Mythological gods and goddesses have become more real than formless devas of Nature and even ineffable and formless Brahma of Vedic metaphysics.

The path finders and the ancient seers and sages clearly bring out that where reverence and love for Nature diminishes, in such societies women tend to get lower status, less respect and their exploitation is not considered by non-divine class as sinful. At present in certain sub sections of Indian society women folk are not only given lower status by men folk, but their exploitation is at the peak in the cinema, T V serials, all kind of advertisements etc.

• Many women get lower wages in agriculture, civil works etc., for doing similar work.

• Many women touch feet of their husbands and in-laws every day for being accepted in that family as wife and daughter-in-law.

• Many women ob¬serve certain ritualistic fasts for the long life of their husbands where as no such social obligations are prescribed for the husbands.

• The obnoxious Sati ritual, dowry deaths, girl infanticide and dev-dasi system to some extent still prevail.

The fact remains the Indian society largely remains indifferent to these aspects. A stage has now reached when having seen and faced exploitation in their own lives, many women do not like the birth of a girl child. At present millions of girl children are missing owing to infanticide, abortion, etc. Some districts in India have less than 600 females against 1000 males.

Apart from this, there is continuous decline in the importance of supreme Mother Prakrti and benign mother Prithvi. This decline has become the cause of over exploitation of earth (Prithvi) and the Nature leading to all kinds of pollution, environmental hazards with the sole aim of denuding the earth of its material resources. Many human beings have forgotten that apart from over 6 billions people of the world, even animals, birds and others have their share in the material resources of their mother earth. Holy Koran clearly tells us that all animals, birds etc., also form nations and communities like human be¬ings, are mustered and not left.

In this “modern progress” the share of not only poor people is being misappropriated but also the helpless animals, birds, fishes and others are being de¬prived of clean and pure drinking water, air and shelter in the forests and other places. The earth which is an important globe of Nature is now beings used as quarry by economic exploiters, non divine vritras and avarnas to become rich quickly. Such non divine persons compete with others in leading ego based artificial life away from Nature in the stuffy air conditioned highly infected rooms in the thick jungles of concrete. The most sacred rivers of Indians particularly Ganges, Yamuna, Godavari and others are highly pol¬luted. Deforestation is going on large scale leading to number of species of animals, birds. fishes etc., getting either extinct or nearing extinction. Cities after cities are becoming gas chambers, diseases are fast spreading amongst infants and small children. It now appears many individuals in the world have de facto fundamental rights to create pollution in water, air and atmosphere, resort to corrupt prac¬tices, distort spiritual knowledge with impunity and other negativity. Perhaps the revival of Vedic knowledge in the entire world can arrest these self- destructive prac¬tices of denuding the mother earth and polluting the Nature. The knowl¬edge of soul and spirit as contained in holy Bible, Koran, Zend Avesta, Grantha sahib and other scriptures can also stop this obnox¬ious trend where nations after nations of birds, animals, fishes are on the brink of total or partial extinction

Atharva Veda explains that treatment of all kinds of social, political and physical diseases is possible through Vedic knowledge and speech. Material reasoning and arguments cannot help in finding solution to various problems and diseases of the state and society. Various political and social philosophies, isms may provide temporary solutions but permanent and everlasting uniform treatment based on truth and a-priori knowledge is known to human soul. In the ancient India the rulers used to seek the advice of Rishis and Munnies for the welfare of state and society.

The soul guards the mind where Vrittie (waves and ripples on the sea of matter) move continuously. The real self or the soul of the individual is at the bottom of this sea of matter. You can only realize when all waves and ripples (vrittie) become calm and the muddy thoughts of matter become clean and transparent. So the calm mind and pure thoughts are the first stage of becoming “your¬self”. Vedas advise, “Avoid thirst of objects of matter, attachment to children, wife and relations.” All these desires and attachments create turbulent waves and ripples (Vrittie).

According to Sankracharya, there is a unity of soul and God. This unity in the Vedantic system is known as Mahavakya like “tat tvam asi” (Thou art That) and many others. Because of this unity during the end of cosmic illusion described in the Vedas as Pralaya (dissolu¬tion), the human souls go into latency in their substratum and on Creation (Sristi) again all these souls take human bodies. Rig Veda describes this grand cycle of Pralaya and Sristi as Mahakalpa of 4,320,000 years. The liberated souls do not get rebirth immediately on Creation or Sristi but after a very long period to bring peace to the harassed humanity.

However, he prefers to use the word projection or manifestation of Brahma Itself to enjoy itself and describes it as Brahma's cosmic Play or Lila. He hardly uses the words Creation or Sristi. Being a pure idealist and monist, one gets the impression that words like creation or dissolution relate to some thing real where as the world and the entire universe are only cosmic illusion and shadow of God. According to Mundaka Upanishad the entire Brahamand, - both visible gross and invisible subtle worlds including Vaikuntha - the abode of God is Brahma Himself. This truth is only known to human soul. Human senses cannot visualize the extent and form of Brahman (Mundaka Upanishad).

This unity of God and soul was also earlier observed by Greek philosopher cum scientist Pythagoras. He referred to the perishable world as sublunary world (Cosmos) and imperishable superlunary world as Quarnas. Soul being imperishable remains a particle of God and its consciousness remains even after the death of the gross body. Like the formless God, manifested soul also remains the unmoved mover in the body and being dynamic it provides all noble virtues and a priori knowledge to intellect. ego, mind, senses and sense organs provided these instruments in the body are prepared to take this knowledge. However, the spirit being a bursting reservoir of energy and right emotions provides the noble courage.