Souls in Indian mythology
One of my Polish friends asked me about whether we Indians believe in Souls, and what happen to them after death.
I didn’t know what to tell her. I myself got interested in this topic and decided to do my research.
First of all let me tell You what what my idea about souls were, and what i was informed about them in my childhood. When we were young, our grandmothers and elders would often say things so that we wont do mischievous stuff. So whenever i would feed the stray kittens fish, or eat the sweets from kitchen, my grandmother would say that if You do bad things, You would probably be reincarnated as an ant, butterfly or just another pet. I would die just a horrible death, and wont have any emotions or memories from my birth up until death. So she told me to do good deeds to be born as a human being in my next life. I believed that story up until my adulthood So my idea of souls and reincarnation was just about limited. When my friend asked this question, i gave her the usual reply which my grandma taught me..
In order to answer my friend correctly, i decided to ask my uncle who is very well educated in this sphere, about what happens to our souls (if it really exists). He told me the following…
Our life mission is determined by our soul. Consciously(or unconsciously) in consultation with our spirit guide we live our daily life. Now You might wonder what is a 'spiritual guide’….
Spirit guides includes relatives who used to live in this earth before us. They might also include relatives who are alive in the present. Both the alive and dead give us advice. We are constantly in the presence of these divine beings, and they guide us and show us our way. Through these divine guides, 1000’s of combinations will be shown to us in our present life. I (the present soul) shall select the one which i want. Not only this soul will select the pattern, but also the souls of the ones which were once alive have a say on the matter. The soul(present one) will leave the Earth once it finds out that there is nothing else to experience.
Sometimes i used to wonder why are there negative emotions like jealousy, hatred etc in our minds and in the world? Apparently Jealousy, death, craving for power, wealth and things are all important. These are all experiences, which the soul has to undergo so as it can move on to the next stage of its life.
Humans when they die, will be reborn as human beings in their next life. There is no instance where a soul which was in a human body will find place in the next life in an animals body. Reincarnation of a human is always as another Human being.
Now there is another question. What about the first soul? Where does it come from? That is a difficult question to answer. It creates the same dilemma when answering the question ‘did the chicken or the egg come first’?