SOUL IS DUE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF IMAGINATION OF PEOPLE

We would like to answer the first question in the article of “SEARCHING FOR THE REMAINS OF PATRIOTIC MARTYRS, A MYSTERIOUS JOURNEY”.

The question has specified that: “I have the foundation to believe that I have met souls of my younger sister, elder brother and sister, also the souls of the elderly who witnessed and buried my younger sister. The psychic has recognized the souls, even identified the souls from pictures, and heard the voice of the souls. As such, souls must exist in the form of a certain material, with shape, and can  create voice. If it is a form of material, then physics, chemistry, medicine, biology with sophisticated optics and electronic instruments will find out one day. What can the scientists of Vietnam contribute to this matter?”

This question is very difficult for the scientists to answer, because soul does not exist in the form of material of physics, chemistry, medicine, biology, optics and sophisticated electronics.

2545 years ago one person ascertained: “METAPHYSICAL WORLD DOES NOT EXIST”. The person who made that ascertainment is not an unknown one but is Sakyamuni Buddha. When He had accomplished his practice and attained full enlightenment, He confidently announced: “Thirty three heaven realms are the knowledge of imagination instead of the thorough/true knowledge” which means metaphysical world does not exist, it is solely created by imagination of human beings. Thereby there is no afterlife. And thus he said human body had five parts:

1. The first part is KHANDHA OF FORM.

2. The second part is KHANDHA OF FEELING.

3. The third part is KHANDHA OF IMAGINATION.

4. The fourth part is KHANDHA OF OPERATION.

5. The fifth part is KHANDHA OF CONSCIOUSNESS (ULTIMATE WISDOM).

When a person dies, all five khandhas disintegrate and perish, there is no KHANDHA remaining. If anyone does not believe in this teaching, it means the person does not believe in Sakyamuni Buddha. Through the teachings of the Buddha: “Metaphysical world does not exist” we immediately know “SOUL DOES NOT EXIST”.

Human beings keep relying on the operation of khandha of imagination and assume that human souls exist, this is truly IGNORANT. Don’t use science to prove the phenomena of spiritual world. Scientists were wrong, no matter how you search, you would only be around the corroboration that soul exists, you can never find out for what reason these phenomena exist, thereby you have no choice but to step on the path of people from ancient times bequeathing their following generations the thought that there was afterlife.

So what is called human soul?

From Buddhist perspective, a human being is the combination of the five khandhas. And further, everything in this world has existence, the existence of everything is due to the combination of many causing conditions. Hence for a world to come into existence, there must be many causing conditions combined to form it. A world cannot just have a single object. As such the Buddha called our world the WORLD OF COMBINATION OF CAUSING CONDITIONS.

Example 1: There is a Dầu tree standing at the wayside, without soil, water, wind, air, heat, humidity, sunlight and rain etc. can the tree grow?

Example 2: For a human being to be born to life, without vegetables, plants, food to feed, the person could not be born, even if born, the person could not survive. If vegetation, human beings and all other things do not exist on this planet, how can it be called a living planet, how can it be called the world of all living beings?

If it were true that mankind had afterlife, so what is such kind of life like? If there were afterlife, the world of the dead had to have a living environment with their own food for the world of the dead instead of requiring us worshipping the food that we use to feed our body. The food used to feed our body is the food for the body of four great elements only. Human body of four great elements is the body of combination of causing conditions i.e. SOIL, WATER, AIR, HEAT. As the body of four great elements, it has to be fed on food of four great elements. As such, food of four great elements are not the food for the metaphysical world to feed souls. Therefore, worshipping food or burning incense, joss paper of physical world for non- physical world means you do the wrong thing, you do it according to imagination, it is not practical, not concrete, and not scientific. You should consider if it is right or not?

You are doing a nonsensical, superstitious and backward thing.

If metaphysical world existed, these souls had to have a fixed form which should be different from the form of human beings and other animals, and particularly soul form must have been invariable. Thus metaphysical world must have been a permanent, non-disintegrative, and constant one.

 Due to these conditions, souls could not take the form of human beings as their form. As the form of human being is impermanent, variable, subject to change. You ponder to see if it is right?

Just in one human life, there are many changes of the body i.e. childhood with different appearance, youth with different appearance and old age with different appearance, let alone in different lives. This life has one particular body, the following life has another. From such perspective, we clearly see that souls could not have the form of human body and animal body, they must have a different form. Accordingly, seeing the form of soul similar to the form of human body is out of imagination. Do you know this? Therefore, seeing soul similar to the dead one is untrue, not real.

Our physical world is due to the combination of causing conditions, as due to the combination of causing conditions it is subject to the law of impermanence and constantly changes. Accordingly, a person from birth to 70 or 80 years later does not have the same appearance. Let us observe a person when he was in the appearance of a child and when he is now in the appearance of a septuagenarian, the two appearances are not the same, so this bears testimony to the reality of impermanence as we have above mentioned.

People often think and assume that soul is an unchanged object. As such soul is immortal, and thus reincarnates from one body to another. Body is subject to youth, old age and death. But soul is neither young nor old, it’s immortal.

So the fact that B.H had to look at the picture of Kh in order to recognize the soul of Kh, is that true? Why?

As the soul of Kh now should no longer have the form of Kh but the unchanged form of soul. When the soul had the form of the body of Kh, then it is the form of the body of Kh instead of the form of the soul of Kh, is it right?

When Kh died her form also did not exist, as a result the soul of Kh had to return to its original form, so how could the soul have the form similar to Kh? As soul should be an unchanged object as we have mentioned above.

As such, the psychic saw the picture of Kh before recognizing the dead, this was the KHANDHA OF IMAGINATION of the psychic creating the image of the dead, it was not truly the soul of the dead.

For example, pouring water into bottles, each bottle has different form, so water accordingly takes different forms, but if we do not pour water in any bottle, water has to return to its original form. So what is the original form of SOUL? It is the KNOWLEDGE OF IMAGINATION. Hence the Buddha taught: “THE KNOWLEDGE OF IMAGINATION instead of THE THOROUGH/TRUE KNOWLEDGE”.

From this perspective, the psychic evoking the soul of the dead is a power in the body of five khandhas of the psychic which creates the soul of the dead, instead of the real soul of the dead, that’s why the psychic had to see the picture of the dead to create the image of the dead.

Thus we deduce from the above that if there were soul world of the dead, those souls did not have the form similar to us. Why?

Because a soul would have to undergo many reincarnations, each time with different appearance of the body, with so many appearances like that, how the soul of the dead could be similar to the body of the dead.

We will step by step unveil the mysterious curtain of these happenings so that you will no longer find it mysterious.