The facticity of the soul is the real evidence of human's existence
Does soul exist or not? That's a question.
In my memory, the most horrible thing was death. And the biggest question that I had thought might be the question of life and death. The kids of today do not think about this kind of problems. They are innocent and very happy. But could see death often took place around me in my teenage. When I was in the second grade of elementary school, there were more than 30 classmates in my classroom. But only 13 classmates could attend class in the fifth grade. In those disappeared classmates, half of them were girls, whose family prohibited them to go to school. The other half died of hunger、malnutrition or illness.
In my childhood, I have tried to think about life and death, but it’s too hard for me to make clear. So, there was one question hovering around my brain: how can I avoid death? Later, when grown up a little, I stopped thinking about an eternal life. Finally one day, I believed that people have souls, because I would not afraid of death anymore after having a soul.
People's understanding to death is a part of their world view. Just like our views on ideals will affect our real life practices, different people's understandings to death formed his life style and world view when he is alive. Thus soul is one of our expatiations to an eternal life. If we do not believe that soul exist and there will be nothing left when our physical body died, then this kind of view will bring up a timely manner、regardless of future generations and being no sense of historical responsibility. I would rather believe that there is soul after death, so I will be not afraid of death and live more cautious.
What is soul? I will explain it with a story from Buddhist. 15 years ago, I was reciting Buddhist with my friend YiXiaoDi. When we recited to Surangama Sutra and I found something like this: Buddha's disciple Ananda was irritability in heart, and then he request the Buddha to ease his mood. The Buddha said: take out your heart, and then I'll give you peace. Ananda said: heart is in my body, I can't take it out. Buddha questioned: since your heart is in your body, why you can see the bamboo in the yard. Ananda answered immediately: my heart is in the yard. Buddha asked again, since your heart is in the yard, why you can see me in room? Ananda answered: my heart is in the room. Buddha had cross-questioned six times, and Ananda understood finally. But I didn't know what Ananda had understood in the end. So I asked YiXiaoDi, but he said he didn't understand yet. Neither of us knows what Ananda had understood in the end. Many years later, I suddenly realized the meaning in the Ananda and Buddhist's dialogue. That is, what we often say as soul. The soul belongs to the spiritual world, what can not be accurately described with the language of the physical world.
The existence of the soul has been questioned by a number of people. But also there isn’t enough credible evidence in the current science. If we blindly believe in current science, and think the results of current science as the only truth. Sourly, the soul will be thought as nothing. And the exploration of science has no end; the greater scientists are facing the bigger unknown sphere. Einstein, the greatest physicist, who believed the existence of God. So, to hold one's heart of reverence to the unknown sphere may be the best way to find the truth.
In fact, all the people have vague minds about whether there will be soul after death. Even those radical Marxists will say: he would see Marxism after death, which implied the existence of soul. These vague minds actually exist. There are some intuitions and instincts inside people, which beyond the knowledge and wealth. They may control our human soul in a very secretive place, and will come out at the Great Divide. Like XiangLinSao, the heroine of Lu Xun's novel who begging with a crutch and going to die the next day, waked up to a important problem at the moment when her fate hanging in the balance. Then she asked LuXun: " Since you have seen the various aspects of society, could you tell me: Is there a soul after death?" Seeing the abnormal facial expression of Xianglinsao, LuXun said it may not. But after a rethink, thought he still didn't make it clear, LuXun said: "Yes, there may be."
This question is not only asked by Xianglinsao. Since human beings have been exist, our always quest about it for millions of thousands of years. And we prefer to believe it. From the funeral of different cultures, most of us think that there is a soul. Some of the funeral rituals show people believe that soul is in the body. Even left body, the soul also has its memory. So people's dead body will be kept for a period of time, because the memory of soul will pay a return visit. Sometimes I think, since people often say that there should be reminiscence, even old furniture、ancient courtyard should be retained, dead body can be counted as antique, why it will be burned at once?
From another point of view, the reason why people have taken these problems to discuss shows soul has a value that can not be ignored at our spiritual world. The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein thinks that: For people, the language is the world. All that can be spoken out are exist. There are two types of reality, one is the reality of objective world, which is on the basis of scientific observation; the other is the reality of spiritual world, which is established on the power of faith and art. The reality of soul belongs to the latter, which is very important to mankind. And if without it, humans would be the same as animal.
I think that in any case, there is need for the soul. Because the soul can reduce people's fear to death and give people a steady excuse to live with the perfect moral and determine the historical mission.
The soul is the crystallization of human culture. We can not simply abandon it with a thesis of a certain scientific phase.
【本文翻译仅为外语学习及阅读目的，原文作者个人观点与译者及译言网无关】
