What is a soul? What is a body? What is the purpose of each?
The Qur'an says God breathed from His spirit into us. This means that we all have a little bit of God's spirit in us...and I believe this is our soul. So in other words, the soul is the individualized form of God's spirit in each of us.
The soul however is lucid, it does not have a form. It needs a body to express itself. The function of the body is only to express the qualities of our soul. Since the soul is breathed into us from God Himself, it must inherently be good. Can God breath something into us from Himself which is anything but good? Think about this...it's important.
Remember Adam was in heaven along with his mate, and the two of them were happy and content. They did not naturally commit sin or were evil. It was only Satan that tempted them...and they listened to his temptation. But without Satan, they were without sin. So this means our natural disposition without Satan is to be good. And what is good? It is to manifest the attributes of God, because God gave us some of His own spirit...so it is easy for us to do this, it is in fact our natural state, provided we can shed the yoke of Satan's temptations.
The body is presented with all kinds of opportunities for the soul to express the natural goodness of God. But the body itself cannot be good, nor can it be bad. Thus, our challenge as individuals is to recognize that we have daily opportunities, endless opportunities to express God's attributes through our daily actions. Our soul is given the opportunity to express God's attributes of love, compassion, forgiveness, selflessness, charity, creativity, honesty, integrity, mercy...through the transactions of our daily live as presented to our bodies.
When viewed from this perspective, the purpose of life is not to acquire...not to acquire wealth, not to acquire pleasure, not to acquire emotional and mental things. It is in fact, to go through whatever we face, as opportunities to manifest God's attributes as given to us by God Himself by way of our soul. After all, how could our souls be given this opportunity without the body?
The Qur'an speaks of wronging our own soul. What does this mean? It means we decide to manifest qualities that are opposite of God's...and this means we are putting our soul in a state which wrongs its very nature. We manifest selfishness, greed, lust, envy...we all know the seven deadly sins. We do this because we are tempted by Satan to lead us away from God's qualities. Fundamentally speaking, our test is really to avoid the temptations of Satan, and to manifest the natural state of God's spirit, which He has breathed into us. Our souls are inherently good, we just need to give ourselves a chance to let that out.
The Qur'an says God breathed from His spirit into us. This means that we all have a little bit of God's spirit in us...and I believe this is our soul. So in other words, the soul is the individualized form of God's spirit in each of us.
The soul however is lucid, it does not have a form. It needs a body to express itself. The function of the body is only to express the qualities of our soul. Since the soul is breathed into us from God Himself, it must inherently be good. Can God breath something into us from Himself which is anything but good? Think about this...it's important.
Remember Adam was in heaven along with his mate, and the two of them were happy and content. They did not naturally commit sin or were evil. It was only Satan that tempted them...and they listened to his temptation. But without Satan, they were without sin. So this means our natural disposition without Satan is to be good. And what is good? It is to manifest the attributes of God, because God gave us some of His own spirit...so it is easy for us to do this, it is in fact our natural state, provided we can shed the yoke of Satan's temptations.
The body is presented with all kinds of opportunities for the soul to express the natural goodness of God. But the body itself cannot be good, nor can it be bad. Thus, our challenge as individuals is to recognize that we have daily opportunities, endless opportunities to express God's attributes through our daily actions. Our soul is given the opportunity to express God's attributes of love, compassion, forgiveness, selflessness, charity, creativity, honesty, integrity, mercy...through the transactions of our daily live as presented to our bodies.
When viewed from this perspective, the purpose of life is not to acquire...not to acquire wealth, not to acquire pleasure, not to acquire emotional and mental things. It is in fact, to go through whatever we face, as opportunities to manifest God's attributes as given to us by God Himself by way of our soul. After all, how could our souls be given this opportunity without the body?
The Qur'an speaks of wronging our own soul. What does this mean? It means we decide to manifest qualities that are opposite of God's...and this means we are putting our soul in a state which wrongs its very nature. We manifest selfishness, greed, lust, envy...we all know the seven deadly sins. We do this because we are tempted by Satan to lead us away from God's qualities. Fundamentally speaking, our test is really to avoid the temptations of Satan, and to manifest the natural state of God's spirit, which He has breathed into us. Our souls are inherently good, we just need to give ourselves a chance to let that out.
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