Soul: Difference between revisions

The Bahá'í Faith affirms that "the soul is a sign of God, a heavenly gem whose reality the most learned of men hath failed to grasp, and whose mystery no mind, however acute, can ever hope to unravel".<ref>{{Cite book|author=Bahá'u'lláh |authorlink=Bahá'u'lláh |year=1976 |title=Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh |publisher=Bahá'í Publishing Trust |location=Wilmette, Illinois, USA |isbn=0-87743-187-6 |pages=158–163 |url=http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/b/GWB/gwb-82.html#gr1}}</ref> Bahá'u'lláh stated that the soul not only continues to live after the physical death of the human body, but is, in fact, immortal.<ref>{{Cite book|author=Bahá'u'lláh |year=1976 |title=Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh |publisher=Bahá'í Publishing Trust |location=Wilmette, Illinois, USA |isbn=0-87743-187-6 |pages=155–158 |url=http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/b/GWB/gwb-81.html#gr1}}</ref> Heaven can be seen partly as the soul's state of nearness to God; and hell as a state of remoteness from God. Each state follows as a natural consequence of individual efforts, or the lack thereof, to develop spiritually.<ref name="rob1">{{Cite book|author= Taherzadeh, Adib |year= 1976 |title= The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, Volume 1 |publisher= George Ronald |location=Oxford, UK |isbn= 0-85398-270-8 | url = http://www.peyman.info/cl/Baha%27i/Others/ROB/V1/Contents.html}}</ref> Bahá'u'lláh taught that individuals have no existence prior to their life here on earth and the soul's evolution is always towards God and away from the material world.<ref name="rob1" />

According to Chinese traditions, every person has two types of soul called hun and po (魂 and 魄), which are respectively [[yin and yang|yang and yin]]. Taoism believes in ten souls, ''sanhunqipo'' (三魂七魄) "three ''hun'' and seven ''po''".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.deathreference.com/Ce-Da/Chinese-Beliefs.html |title=Encyclopedia of Death and Dying (2008) |publisher=Deathreference.com}}</ref> The pò is linked to the dead body and the grave, whereas the hún is linked to the ancestral tablet. A living being that loses any of them is said to have mental illness or unconsciousness, while a dead soul may reincarnate to a disability, lower desire realms or may even be unable to reincarnate.