The Concept Of The Soul Poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar

The Concept Of The Soul

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The candle is shut and the flame is out.
The candle is left and the life has set.
Before shut, the candle must have been lit.
The unlit candle can never be shut.

The being is dead and the life is out.
The body remains lifeless and sparkles.
Does the death mean the exit of the soul?
The soul to exit, when did it enter?

Is it that the soul has entered at birth?
No, the embryo has life before the birth.
Is it that the soul has entered at zygote?
No, the sperm and the ovum have their life.

Hens lay eggs, which turn chicks; they all have life.
No stage is void for the souls to enter.
The souls are the extension of the chicks
And the chicks, the extension of the hens

The child is the offshoot of its parents,
Who in turn are of their parents and so on.
The body and the life have struck to form
A unit when the first life was born.

Death is no more than the death of a shoot.
The death of the shoot is not the death of the tree
Nor is the death of the tree the death of the seeds
Nowhere else is broken the chain of the life.

When one begets the other, the other
Is of matter and life put together.
There are no such things as soul and body
To fuse at birth and depart at death.

Germs multiply by fissions and budding
Plants diversify by seeds and cuttings.
Birds by eggs, mammals by kids, they all spread.
Germs to mankind, the life is an extension.

The soul is a single string that has run
Through all living bodies, alive or dead:
Through germs, reeds and plants, through flies, worms and prawns
Through fish, snakes and birds and through. Cows and man.

Candles and flame are not bodies and soul.
The candle is lit before it is shut.
The body is not lit with the soul
For it to be out at the time of death.

Then what is the aftermath of the death?
Isn’t that the life is soul that went out?
Yes, the life goes, the soul goes, not as a whole.
The extended part of the life/soul dies.

Should the life be the soul, then there must be
Only one soul to have come with the first life.
The whole living kingdom has evolved
From the origin of life by evolution.

The plants imbibe the inorganic salts
And grow and the animals eat the plants.
When plants and animals exhaust themselves
The worms and germs eat them and release salts.

That the soul enters the body is a myth.
That the soul exits the body is a myth.
That the liberated soul reenters
Or is redeemed of rebirth is a myth.

In every birth the soul will protrude
And on each death the protrusion is off..
It is not that there are as many souls
As there are living things born and dead.

The whole universal life is one soul
That travels through the different branches
Of the matter in growth and adoption,
And is off when the branches meet their death.

09.01.2008

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Sameera Sameer 19 August 2009

long! ! but wonderful posted 10++++++

0 0 Reply
Patrick McFarland 21 January 2009

'The whole universal life is one soul'. Very existential and very beautiful.

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Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar

Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar

Aravayal, karaikudi, Tamil Nadu, South India
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