The finger of the atheists' own divinity, Reason, wrote on the wall the appalling judgments that there is no God; that the universe is only matter in spontaneous motion; and, most grievous word of all, that what men call their souls die with the death of the body, as music dies when the strings are broken.
If death, said my father, reasoning with himself, is nothing but the separation of the soul from the body;--and if it is true that people can walk about and do their business without brains,--then certes the soul does not inhabit there.
We know no fear. It was cut from our souls at birth. We can feel it only as an absence, as an empty shadow cast by the light of annihilation. In the face of a future of atrocity I stand mute, numb to the only feeling that would make me human. But I remember what fear was: its cold pulse in my veins; its echo in my ears. I remember fear, and remember that I was once human. I look towards what must come to pass and I wish that I could meet it as my ancestors did, with fear. The future deserves that, it deserves fear.
I do not know why I have such a fancy for this little café. It's dirty and sad, sad. It's not as if it had anything to distinguish it from a hundred others–it hasn't; or as if the same strange types came here every day, whom one could watch from one's corner and recognize and more or less (with a strong accent on the less) get the hang of.But pray don't imagine that those brackets are a confession of my humility before the mystery of the human soul. Not at all; I don't believe in the human soul. I never have. I believe that people are like portmanteaux–packed with certain things, started going, thrown about, tossed away, dumped down, lost and found, half emptied suddenly, or squeezed fatter than ever, until finally the Ultimate Porter swings them on to the Ultimate Train and away they rattle. . . .
Dharma (function or properties) of the mind, dharma of the intellect, dharma of the chit, dharma of the ego – when all these dharma and the dharma of the Self (Soul) come into their own dharma (functions); that is known as Gnan (Knowledge of Self). And if we (self) insist upon any one’s dharma; it becomes ignorance (agnan).
Chit’s tendencies can become pure [transparent] in front of God, but people don’t have this knowhow. The easiest solution to purify chit’s tendencies is to associate with a person who has the least amount of desires and the ultimate solution to make them pure is the inner visual contemplation (niddidhyasan) of the Vitarag (the enlightened ones who are free of all attachments).
Little is the imagination of the person who believes that the future of another may be determined by his/her past. We are so much more than our minds and our memories! We are in fact transcendent souls. If you determine what is ahead by what you can see when you look back, then you will in fact never behold what actually stands in front of you.
Christ taught that in the sight of God one soul is worth the entire materialistic world! In God’s sight the individual is all-important. When Christ calls a man to follow Him, He calls him “out” from the “group.” Christ can fill the vacuums. He can restore your personal identity. He can become the truth to your generation.
I have not known of too many people who found Christ on their deathbeds. When we come to Christ in our youth, a life is saved. When we come in old age, a soul is salvaged and life eternal is assured; but the opportunity to live a life for Christ has been lost.
We spend enormous amounts of time and money on fad diets, expensive exercise machines, and health clubs. For many people, these things only demonstrate their preoccupation with the physical side of life . . . but even more important is taking care of our souls.
The Bible teaches that you are an immortal soul. Your soul is eternal and will live forever . . . the real you—the part of you that thinks, feels, dreams, aspires; the ego, the personality—will never die . . . your soul will live forever in one of two places—heaven or hell.
Beneath the armor of skin/and/bone/and/mindmost of our colors are amazingly the same.
There is this certain rawness of soul that puts the polished ones on edge. Some of us just step out and the sunlight illuminates our bones, nerves, veins, cells! And that's just it, we're just like that! Then the others are tinted, polished, honed and well-contemplated; when they see you walk in and they can see all of your bones, even the tiniest ones, illuminated and outlined by the sunlight, it makes them feel shaded-in, it makes them feel hidden, it makes them turn their faces away. The way you bleed yourself all over the lines just makes it too uncomfortable for them, I guess.
ShanTu said that we must set the soul free from the body and its lusts. Having thus got rid of the foolishness of the flesh, we shall be pure. While an admirable goal, the sisterhood has not found this practical. For whatever purpose, body and soul are joined. Denying one's bodily lusts is about as effective as prohibition, which is to say not effective at all.