WHAT WILL WE DO WHEN WE KNOW SOUL DOES NOT EXIST?

When we know that SOUL does not exist, the mores of worship up to now will be performed in such a way that would befit the tradition of worshipping ancestors, grandparents, parents etc. without turning into superstition and backwardness.

The practice of worshipping ancestors is the morality of Vietnamese people. It’s a deep and appreciative moral value that constantly expresses the gratitude of “Gratitude is the sign of noble souls”. However, for such a long time, due to the wrongly conceived belief in the existence of afterlife of our ancestors in ancient time, there have been worshipping, wishing for peace, requiem, preparing vegetarian food to worship relatives in seven weeks since their deaths, performing ceremony after three days of the death, burning joss paper, stock and clothes made of paper for the dead. And as such, close to the lunar New Year festival there are such events as send-off of kitchen god, welcoming ancestors etc.

Accordingly, the practice of worshipping ancestors to express gratitude has become a practice of superstitious worshipping. With such superstitious worshipping, in the mind of people a world of SOULS of the dead has been founded. Therefore, on the occasions of the death anniversary or Spring Festival, people prepare big feast to worship SOULS of the dead whom they believe would come home to enjoy the food they offer.

This is an activity that people in the past carried out without consideration. They only “followed what the older generations had taught” without hesitation or reconsideration, no matter right or wrong. So they blindly became superstitious and backward, and continued to hand down such superstition to the following generations. It is now an era of modernization and science, people still cannot get rid of such superstitious custom. It is really ignorant and not perspicacious, it is the craziness of imagination, craziness of sentiment etc. Such craziness makes people lag behind the present era of science.

Not everything that the ancestors did is right. SOUL DOES NOT EXIST but they thought it did, thus carried out consecration, requiem, wishing for peace etc. If SOULS truly ate and drank, they must have starved long ago, as offsprings only offer them food once or twice per year, what would they eat in all other days? Is it right?

If SOULS truly ate and drank, could we afford to nourish these souls when they do not work and even invite other SOULS to come.

There are superstitious and backward custom and practice but people do not accept to get rid of them and thus have to waste huge money on funeral, preparing food to worship relatives in seven weeks since their deaths, requiem, wishing for peace, burning joss paper in a wasteful and nonsensical manner. If we keep following the habits of the forebears without consideration which practice is right and which one is wrong, it is such a big mistake, but people do not pay attention to eliminating the wrong custom and practice.

As you all know, human beings are one species of animal similar to other species of animals, but human beings are a high-grade species and thus their evolving intelligence has gradually separated them from animals. Thanks to such separation, human beings no longer live in the wild like other animals. Today we clearly see the physical and mental evolvement of human beings. Mankind has been making progress in every aspect. We just take examples to compare people in the past and people at present regarding their eating manner, dressing manner and finally languages which human beings have progressively used and no species of animals on this planet can compare with.

In ignorance we mistakenly conceived that human beings had SOULS, now we understand that SOUL does not exist. As such, worship is to symbolize our profound gratitude towards people who have passed away, it is not to offer food for SOULS to come and eat. Worship is to express our gratitude, to commemorate the day when we experience huge loss in our human life. Therefore, we choose that day of loss as the day of commemoration for descendants to gather and also to remind them of the merit of the ancestors, grandparents, parents who have made great efforts to give offsprings a meaningful life.

In front of the superstitious and backward custom and practice, we have to be strong to get rid of them, don’t be afraid of the opinions of people who follow the backward path of ancestors and criticize in all different ways. Those are too conservative people who protect the custom and culture which are fogyish, superstitious and backward.

Our purpose is to eliminate the custom and practice which are blind, superstitious, and backward, because such superstitious and backward culture wastes money, property and efforts of people without any practical benefit. We eliminate the superstitious and backward custom and culture in order to re-establish a cultural foundation with the moral meaning to help people to become true human beings. As to be true human beings, we always have to maintain our complete appreciation of the moral foundation of Vietnamese people i.e. “Gratitude is the sign of noble souls” without being influenced by the superstition, backwardness etc. of other country.

In a human body there are five khandhas, but each khandha has to work in accordance with its duty. For a normal person, the three khandhas that work are as follow:

1. Khandha of form

2. Khandha of operation

3. Khandha of feeling

When these three khandhas work, there is no magic in a person, but when the KHANDHA OF IMAGINATION works together with these three khandhas, human beings will have many miracles that intelligence of human beings cannot explain, even modern science also cannot ascertain. When people cannot explain the strange phenomena of human body and mind, they call such phenomena sacred or spiritual.

When the KHANDHA OF IMAGINATION works at the two hands, we call it THE MIRACLE OF THE HANDS. The KHANDHA OF IMAGINATION often works at six senses of human, sometimes it works at two organs of sense, and sometimes it only works at one organ of sense. When it works at the two hands, it will help to cure sickness for sick people completely or partly as the hands touch their sick bodies. Let us read the story below.