What is Soul

What is Soul

Xue mo

There have been many people asking me what soul is. I told them that soul is the reason to live. People must ask themselves for why they live when they are alive. Only when you hold this questioning, you’ll not live just like an animal, but a person with soul. When the soul, the reason of living, is capable of bringing the truth, virtue, and beauty to this world, the questioning of soul will rise and become faith. Actually, many great philosophers have faith. People with true beliefs must have soul in themselves. Therefore, if a life doesn’t pursue the reason of living, and doesn’t have the reason sublimated to faith, it will be just an existence like animal.

In Chinese western culture, humanity is composed of two parts- bestiality which is the animality of human being and divinity. When the animality is sublimated, human being will transcend himself to an upper grade  which is close to a metaphysical lay of spirit,  that is, the divinity.

The pursuit and belief of soul is a process of eliminating animality, approaching humanity and elevating personality. When a person understands the process and is able to eliminate ego, to eliminate greed, hatred, ignorance, and is getting close to the broadness, kindness and mercy, he would be deemed as a man with soul and faith. A life like this is worthy of respect and longing.

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灵魂是什么？

雪漠

曾经有很多人问我什么是灵魂？我说灵魂就是活着的理由。一个人活着的时候必须追问自己为什么活着？当你有这个追问的时候，你就不仅仅是动物性质的人，而是上升为有灵魂的人。如果这个灵魂——活着的理由，达到足可以为世界带来真善美的时候，灵魂的追问就上升到信仰。其实这个时代许许多多伟大的哲人都有信仰，有信仰的人肯定是有灵魂的。所以一个生命如果没有追问活着的理由，没有把这种理由上升到信仰的时候，仅仅是一种动物性的存在。

西部文化中认为人性分为两部分。第一部分是兽性，人的动物性。第二个部分就是神性。当人的动物性被升华之后，人超越了自己，并上升到一种比较高的、接近于形而上的精神层面的时候，就接近了神性。

灵魂的追求和信仰就是渐渐地消去人的兽性，渐渐地接近于人性，升华自己人格的过程。生命中最重要的过程就是这个过程。当一个人明白了这种过程，并且消去小我，消去小我的贪婪、仇恨、愚昧，渐渐地接近于神性的博大、慈爱、悲悯的时候，我们就认为他是有灵魂、有信仰的人。这样的生命就值得我们敬畏，值得我们向往。

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