The Spirit

What evidence can you give to prove that man has a spirit, that he will be resurrected after death, and that he is not just that body that ends in the dust? What does religion say, for example, about spirit summoning in séance?

My well-educated friend had the air of someone who knew that he was posing a problem challenging to discuss. He started to ask me the above question.

After a few moments of thinking, I began to take the challenge: Your question today is undoubtedly very difficult.

Discussing the spirit is like wandering in a labyrinth; there are very few facts about this subject, yet the little there is supports our position, not yours.

I fell silent for a minute of deep thinking and then resumed my answer to him:

Please, follow my line of thinking. The first indication which aids us in finding evidence for the existence of the spirit is that man has a dual nature.

Man has two natures. There is firstly an external, apparent, visible nature which is his body. This has all the attributes of matter. It can be weighed and measured; it occupies a portion of space and time; it is continually changing, moving, and 'becoming' from one condition to the other and from one moment to the next. The body is subject to all health conditions, sickness, fatness, leanness, ruddiness, paleness, vitality, satiety, etc. Appended to the physical nature, we find a continuous 'tape' of sensations, emotions, instincts, and fears which never, even for one instant, stops unwinding in the brain.

In so far as this primary nature and the sensations appended to it have the characteristics of matter, we can say that man's body and his 'animal spirit' belong to matter.

There is, however, another nature inside man which is different from the first in quality. It is characterized by persistence and permanence; it is above time and space. This nature is what we call 'reason' with its unchanging standards, axioms, and deductions. It is also the conscience with its judgments and the aesthetic sense. It is summed up in the ego, which consists of all the previous faculties: mind, conscience, aesthetic and ethical sense. The ego is utterly other than the body and the 'animal spirit' or instincts which can be inflamed with hunger and desire.

The ego is the absolute, fundamental identity through which man experiences that profound sense of presence, being, presentation to, and attendance in the world. He feels that he is and has always been here. This is a fixed, unchanging, and continuous sense which does not wax or wane or grow ill or age with time. It knows no past, present, or future, but an enduring present or 'now' does not elapse as sensations fade into the past. Its essence is that awareness of duration and permanence.

Here, we encounter another kind of existence that transcends the attributes of matter: it does not change, it does not occupy a position in space-time, and it cannot be weighed and measured. On the contrary, this form of existence is the constant by which variables are measured; It is absolute by which we come to know all that is relative in the dimension of matter.

The most accurate description of this type of existence is that it is spiritual in nature.

We may go on to ask: which of the two natures constitute man in reality? Is 'true' man the body or the spirit? To know the answer, we have to establish which of the two natures governs the other.

The materialists claim that man is just his body which is the controlling nature. All the elements I have been enumerating reason, aesthetic and ethical sense, conscience, and that 'superstition' we call identity or the ego — they deem mere secondary effects of the body, manipulated by it and serving and satisfying its lusts and passions.

This materialistic concept is erroneous. The truth is that the body is a servant, not master, compliant, and not imperious.

Doesn't the body feel hunger, but we refuse to oblige it with food because we have previously decided to fast that particular day in worship of God? Isn't it aroused with lust, but we restrain it?

Doesn't our body begin spontaneously from the moment we wake up in the morning to carry out a plan of action' formulated to the smallest detail by the mind? Who is the leader here, and who is led?

Where is the body's dominance at the moment of self-immolation when a commando, for example, ties an explosive belt around his waist and marches forward to blow up a tank with the enemy soldiers inside it? What bodily interest does he serve by his death? Which nature controls the other here? The spirit resolves to destroy the body in a purely idealistic moment which no materialistic doctrine can explain away by reference to any tangible gains. The body cannot resist such resolve; it has no power to counter it and has no option but to fade away completely. Here, we know which of the two existences is the more ascendant, which constitutes the essence of man.

We possess nowadays more than one proof that the body is the secondary form of existence: all operations of amputation, substitution, or transplanting of body parts; reports of electronic heart, artificial kidneys, blood and cornea banks; and those 'stores of human accessories' where legs, arms, and hearts can be replaced or fitted on.

It would not be an unbelievable joke to hear that a bridegroom may surprise his bride in the year 2050 to find her taking off her whig, dentures, foam-rubber breasts, artificial eye, and wooden leg leaving nothing behind but a 'chassis' like that of a car where the seats, doors, and upholstery have been removed.

The body undergoes extensive replacements without the character being correspondingly affected because the substituted arm or leg or eye or breast does not contribute to making up man. Thus, they are removed and replaced, even the batteries, metal rods, or pieces of aluminum. Nothing happens to 'man' because he is not merely the sum of these members but the spirit that presides at 'the driving wheel' and controls that machine we call the body.

The spirit is not the brain but the managing agent of the body, and it is represented by a 'board of directors' working out of the brain's cells. Just as the body's cells, the brain complies with the orders issued to it and reveals them in its actions; in the end, however, it is only a 'glove' worn by that invisible hand, the spirit, to act with it in the material world.

All this evidence leads us to grasp that man has two natures: an essential, ruling nature which is his spirit, and a secondary, transient one, namely, his body. What occurs in death is that the second nature passes away while the immortal spirit joins eternity. The body goes to dust, but the spirit ascends to its immortal world.

To those who prefer philosophical arguments, we can produce yet another proof of the spirit's existence. This proof is drawn from the peculiarities of motion. For motion can only be observed from a point outside it; you cannot perceive the motion you are a part of, but you must have an external point from which you can observe it. This explains why you may not at certain moments be able to know whether the elevator you are in has stopped moving or not because you have become an integral part of its movement.

You can only perceive the elevator's movements if you look through its door to the fixed platforms outside. The same applies to a train speeding on its rails. You can perceive its speed while inside it, only when it stops or if you look out of the window at some fixed landmarks. Similarly, the sun's movement cannot be observed by a person standing on its surface, if possible, but it can be observed from the earth or the moon. In like manner, the earth's movement can be observed from the moon and not from its surface.

The principle is that you cannot fully perceive a thing or state unless you are outside it. Thus, we could not possibly have been able to perceive the passage of time if the perceiving part in us has not been implanted in a separate 'threshold' external to that continual passage; that is, in a 'threshold of eternity. If our perception of time moved with every jump of the second hand of our clocks, we would not have ever perceived the passage of those seconds, and our perception of them would have just faded away as they elapsed without leaving a trace.

This is a stunning conclusion to draw, and it means that part of our being is external to the framework of the temporal continuum. It is immortal, and it can observe time from the point of stillness and perceive it without being implicated in it. It, therefore, neither ages nor elapses. When the body crumbles into dust, that part will remain as it is to live its own, non-temporal life — that part is the spirit.

Each of us can sense that spiritual existence deep down as a state of presence, permanence, attendance, and being, which is totally unlike that material existence with its changes, fluctuations, and pulses that occur over time outside it. I call this internal state 'presence,' of which we are conscious at moments of inner awareness, is the key to our spiritual existence and that puzzle — the spirit.

Another evidence of our spiritual nature is our intuitive sense of freedom. If we were mere material bodies governed within the framework of material existence by inevitable material laws, this intuitive sense of freedom would be inconceivable.

We have, then, a spirit that transcends time, death, and material inevitabilities. But what about the resurrection? No one so far returned from the kingdom of death to tell us what experiences he underwent. The Day of Resurrection has not yet arrived for us to point to a tangible, incontrovertible proof. All that can be said about the resurrection is that it is a religious fact which both reason and science find probable. But why should these two latter find it possible?

All the phenomena and aspects of the universe indicate that everything passes through a complete circle where the end is followed by a new beginning: the night comes after day, and then the day dawns again; the sun rises and sets to rise once more. The four seasons follow each other in a repeated cycle. Such observations make the waking involved in resurrection probable after the sleep of death, for everything returns to where it began or is renewed. God refers to himself in the Quran as the Originator and Restorer:

“You shall return to Him as He created you.” The Heights, 29

“He gives being to all His creatures, and in the end, He will bring them back to life;” Jonah, 4

Isn't it observed that everything moves in orbits from atoms to galaxies? Even civilizations and history have cycles. This eternal renewal favors the possibility of resurrection.

Another proof we may cite in favor of the truth of the resurrection is the order, accurate to precision, which governs the universe from the giant galaxy down to the smallest atom without the slightest sign of aberration. Even the invisible sub-atomic electron is governed by that order and law. This infinitesimal part cannot move from one orbit to another within the same atom unless it discharges or absorbs an amount of energy equalling that taken by its jump. It is more like a train traveler who cannot go anywhere without a ticket.

Given this very tightly woven order, how can we imagine that a murderer or an unjust person can escape retribution simply because he has managed to elude the police. The mind finds it justifiable to conceive that this person will necessarily be punished and that there must be another life in which scores are settled — this is what justice decrees.

We are born to love, to seek, and to strive for the achievement of justice. Nevertheless, justice is absent from our world. Suppose some thinkers consider that thirst for water proves the existence of water. In that case, we can, similarly, contend that longing for justice is evidence that justice exists if not in our world then, by necessity, at a future time and hour when its scales will be erected.

All the previous hints are indications that point to and favor the reality of the resurrection, reckoning, and the next life. However, a person who believes in the Quran has no need for such proof because his heart has reached certainty, thus relieving him from arguing.

It remains for us to ask what the spirit is?

The Quran says:

“And they ask you, [O Muhammad], about the spirit. Say, “The prit is of the affair of my Lord. And mankind have not been given of knowledge except a little.”. The Night Journey, 85

The Spirit is a puzzle about which no one knows anything. It is striking that whenever the spirit is mentioned in the Quran, the words of my Lord's knowledge' or 'command' or others of similar meaning accompany it:

“He lets the Spirit (by His command) descend on those of His servants whom He chooses.” The Forgiver, 15

“By His will he sends down the angels with the Spirit to those of his servants whom He chooses,” The Bee, 2

“On that night the angels and the Spirit by their Lord’s leave come down with His decrees.” Qadr, 4

“Thus we have inspired you with a Spirit of Our will.” Counsel, 52

We always encounter the same words whenever 'spirit' is mentioned: 'Our will,' 'of my Lord's knowledge', 'by his leave.' Can God's Will be a spirit? Or can His Word be a Spirit? Didn't He speak about Jesus, peace on him, in the following words :

“A word from Him. His name is Messiah, Jesus the son of Mary.” The Imrans, 45

God also said that Jesus is ‘His word which He cast to Mary; a Spirit from Him’. Woman, 171

I come finally to my friend's query about 'the summoning of spirits'. This phenomenon is suspect in the eyes of believers. They doubt that what occurs in the darkened rooms of seances is caused by the presence of this or that spirit. A prominent thinker like Henri Soder, for instance, says that such phenomena originate in the medium's subconscious and through their psychic powers; according to him, nothing, is summoned.

Some Indian thinkers believe that what enters the medium's body during the seance are some nether world spirits that know specific facts about the dead and use them to ridicule those present and have fun at their expense.

Muslim Sufis, for their part, say that it is not the spirit which attends the seances but its Qareen or Double; that is the jinni who accompanied the dead person during his life. The jinni knows all the dead man's secrets by virtue of such 'company.' As the jinn live much longer than man, the Double survives his human mate, and it is he who attends seances divulging the secrets of his mate and imitating his voice and manners to poke fun at those present in accordance with the jinn's hostility towards human beings.

Those Sufis resort to a vivid illustration of their view. They say that if we ring the bell in an office, the servant will show up to enquire about our requests, but the master or director of the office will not leave his domain so easily to attend on us. The same, they add, applies to the world of spirits. It is nether spirits, the jinn and such like who are summoned in seances and who impose on their audiences.

The human spirits abide in another world, namely, the Barzakh or Barrier. They cannot be recalled, but they may communicate with whomever they wish either in dreams or, indeed, in wakefulness provided the appropriate conditions exist.

On the evidence of the many seances I attended and the particular experiences I had of that sphere, I can say that there is no proof that the phenomena of the seance room are due to the presence of the intended spirits.

The view of the Muslim Sufis may be the nearest explanation to the truth of such occurrences. The matter is still open for study. It is regrettable, however, that superstitions are far over the facts in this area. The last word has not been uttered yet.

You, my friend, will undoubtedly laugh at hearing such words as the jinn, the nether spirits, or the Double. You will be quite right there. If you do not believe that you have a soul, how can you be expected to believe in a jinni; if you do not believe in God, how can it be possible for you to believe in the existence of the devils?

Yet, if you have been born a hundred years ago and someone came to you with a talk about an invisible ray that goes through iron, or about pictures that travel the air across the oceans in less than a second, or about a man who walks over the dusty surface of the moon wouldn't you have laughed and chuckled at what he says many times more than your laughter in ridicule of what I now say to you? You would have accused him of being a fugitive from a mental asylum. His predictions, however, are now facts that are all too apparent before our eyes and ears.