Our Souls Within

19 years ago, my father, Aziz Siddiqui – a renowned journalist and human rights activist – passed away. Earlier that day, he had spoken to me on the phone and seemed okay. A half hour later, I got a call that he was no longer. A few days ago, my uncle/Mamu, Viqar Ahmad, a world-famous BBC broadcaster, left his earthly abode. My Mamu was a huge fan of Rumi. I was sent Rumi’s musing on his death. I have copied two stanzas below:

when you see
my corpse is being carried
don’t cry for my leaving
I’m not leaving
I’m arriving at eternal love

when you leave me
in the grave
don’t say goodbye
remember a grave is
only a curtain
for the paradise behind

Does it not make sense what the Maulana has written? Aren’t our bodies mere caskets for our souls? This outer shell grows and then withers away over time but the soul that resides within, that we were born with, stays in-tact; it is eternal and simply sheds the outer form at the point of death to disperse into the eternal formless.

Me, you, and everyone else that we meet, are a reflection of the unseen soul lying within ourselves. It is the soul that gives us the personality that we project to others in the world.

Think for a minute about your friend, your family member and even your spouse. What you love about them is what lies within. The outer form that we recognize them with changes over time, but does not their core being remain the same? It is this soul that is their being. Granted people change over time. They may become impatient or cynical as they grow old, but that is more a response to their environment. It is a veneer that collects over the inner core. If one was to blow-off this outer coating by placing that person in a peaceful environment, the inner soul would emerge unchanged from within.

We shed tears when those we love pass on because we can no longer interact with the beloved soul. The body that acted as a conduit is no more. And we lose that connection….for time being.

But death is a milestone all of us are going to ultimately achieve, whether we like it or not.

From the point of view of the departed soul, it becomes free from “a sea of troubles” and from “the heartache, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to,” as noted by Hamlet in his soliloquy. Still, no one wants to die, and no one wants their loved ones to die, no matter how old. But the soul needs its freedom from this physical world.

From the point of the view of those who are left behind, our attention is diverted from our daily grind. The closer we are from the departed soul, the longer our attention remains diverted from the day-to-day minutiae. We become closer to people we were away from, our collective souls are nourished from the renewed proximity and, by extension, the love we share for a short time from those left behind. Thus, passing of a person, brings others together.

Reflect on this phenomena for a minute. The departed soul finds it final abode and those remaining behind become close, albeit for a short time, and thus their own souls are elevated by this collective love.

Our world will become a better place when our collective souls learn to love one another while we are still breathing in this world. We must learn to shake-off the worldly veneer from our souls and share love without any particular reason with those around us.

My father and my Mamu were two such people who had not let any layer settle on their souls over the course of time they spent on this earth. Theirs were pure souls who must be sharing a piece of heaven today, Inshallah!