From India Corespondent Divyaa Kummar…

Soul Mate is a term or concept that makes most hearts thud a little faster…most expressions turn a little wistful… and most books on it disappear off the bookshelves! However a ‘soul mate’ does not only imply that ‘one’ special (preferably tall dark and handsome) stranger; nor that perfect woman who will sweep you off your feet and with whom you will live happily ever after! After all the term is not sole mate and indeed there can be many, and not merely one significant other.

Soul mates are literally what the term portrays: mates at soul level! Who, come aboard the ships of our lives for many reasons, as mates tend to do, and not merely for a romantic cruise coming true! More often than not it is they who provide us the milieu and opportunities towards our most valuable life experiences and learning and aid us in overcoming our deepest limitations. Thus soul mates can paradoxically be those very people we find the most difficult and challenging-whom we would in normal parlance even call ‘problems’. So yes, your soul mate can be your difficult mother-in-law, or that impossible relationship! It is an interaction you both choose in your higher wisdom -at soul levels – much like you would appoint a personal trainer to come and help you with those protruding abdomen muscles! You may not be glad every time your doorbell rings- but you do know he is good for you in the longer ‘stretch’! So next time you berate that difficult other- do pause- they may well be a soul mate. And look for the gift in the situation instead – does the uncaring spouse provoke you to find your self? Do the overpowering in law’s facilitate you towards your own empowerment? Does that supercilious boss give you a glimpse of what you could grow into and thereby offer you a mirror of what aspect of self to move away from?

But, do I hear you go sizzle…crackle …and a-wondering as to what is that chemistry that you feel with that one special other then? And no you are not imagining it- sure there is the tug of romantic soul mates! And this chemistry is the ‘enticement’ so to say – to ensure that we has humans, who do not operate from memory of soul plans, somehow seek the other out! For you have both chosen to come together towards each others deeper growth and processes of self-discovery and this tug makes sure you team up for this vital experience in someway or the other! That’s why the tongue in cheek phrase “The honey moon is over” comes into play: because once you get together, the stage is set, for the underlying reasons- development of each self –to be explored. Thus the more we can view the challenges in relationships in these terms, and switch from blame to responsibility, we can in exploring our potentials and fulfilling the fundamental purpose of joining forces- enhance and enrich the relationship in meaningful ways!

Of course there are soul mates that come in simple support…usually these are our ‘friends’ rather than lovers or immediate family members. This is not our peculiar sense of humor as souls, but our understanding of the human game! We know that if vital learning is to be done- it will be done through essential relationships that cannot be easily distanced- and thus make those our most fundamental learning props! Yet we keep supportive soul mates around as soul food to enliven the cruise!! We give ourselves everything we need to enable self growth- tutors, tests, and adequate break times!

At the deepest level our soul mate is Self! And this yearning that we all feel for that ‘other half’ only finds rest in finding this Self. Indeed we will never find another to complete us, but even as we integrate within, it reflects outside in loving relationships and we experience a world full of wondrous soul mates.

Introspection for today: I invite you to observe your most challenging relationships and review: What strengths did it help you get in touch with? What limitations did it propel you to move away from? With this clearly in mind, view the two of you giving each other a backstage ‘high-five’ in congratulations for a mission well done! Feel the thankfulness! This will help you, over time, to move away from anger and it’s stagnation into more positive states of interaction.

As the first week of Ramadan unfolds, more than a billion Muslims around the world are reminded of the greatness of God and a higher power than humankind. Like Easter for Christians and Hanukkah for Jews, Ramadan is the holiest time of the year within the borders of Islam; a time for worship, respect and family. An individual known only as “Harbortenor” chose this time to submit an article arguing that there is no such thing as God.

Sin is different for different people and different gods at different times. In some countries people love their neighbours, in other countries people eat them. In Mexico, one man may marry one wife. In Yemen, one man may marry many women. In Tibet, one woman may marry many men. In Holland, a man may marry another man and a woman may marry another woman. We learn, therefore, that sin is geographical and that morality changes from time to time and from place to place.

But what is morality? Put very simply, it is about how we treat others. In order to live with a semblance of harmony in a social setting, we need to show consideration for others. We know humans do this. But we also know that various animals do it as well: dolphins, chimps, wolves…the list is endless. Many species of mammals have rules governing how to fight and how to reconcile. Even gestures of dominance and subordinance can be seen in a moral light.

How then do humans know what is right and wrong. To paraphrase Euthyphro’s dilemma: Is something good because some God commands it? Or does this God command something because it is good? If it is the former, then right and wrong are the product of God’s arbitrary and capricious will, and to heed his will and surrender to his morality would simply be blind obedience to authority—beyond the scope of discussion or appeal. However, if it is the latter, then good and bad, right and wrong are independent of God’s will, and knowledge of God’s will is redundant and unnecessary. We can discover morality for ourselves.

Where then do we get our morality if not from God? Morality has nothing to do with theology or philosophy. Morality is a product of biology. Scientists now talk of a moral grammar that is programmed into our brains and hardwired into our genes. There are certain schemas of behaviour that we are born with. We have an instinct for morality in the same way we have an instinct for language.

To say that people had no way to distinguish right from wrong until that precise moment Moses came down from the mountain with his ten commandments is to do a great disservice to humanity.

Some people may be prompted to ask why then, if we all have a moral compass, are there so many criminals?

There is a difference between deciding what is right and wrong and associating such an evaluation with the relevant emotion. Most criminals know instinctively that murder is wrong or cheating is wrong. But they do it anyway. So what is hampered in their case is not their moral compass, but their ability to make the appropriate emotional response. Knowing what is right and doing the right thing are two separate functions of the brain.

A crucial role in morality may also be played by memes: those non-genetic, cultural units—represented by an idea, value, or pattern of behaviour—that are passed from one person to another by imitation or instruction. To put it simply, memes are the cultural counterpart of genes.

Assisting a wounded member of the tribe, caring for an elderly relative, or showing reverence for one’s parents are examples of memes. Memes are just as useful in promoting this or that morality. The finer details may vary between communities, but in general, it has been found that the communities that survive are the ones that promote cooperation, negotiation, respect for authority, and so on. It is not in the tribe or community’s interest to waste valuable time, resources, and energy in in-fighting.

Our opinions on issues of morality are based on emotions, rational thought, or instinct. Consider the following newspaper headline: Mother kills her own four-year-old child.

Such an act would evoke disgust in most people regardless of time, place, or milieu. There would be calls for her to be severely punished.

But if we were to read the article further, we would discover that the mother was Akeda, a woman from Congo, where mercenaries from a rival faction had raped her repeatedly and killed three of her children. She was told that the only way she could protect her two-year-old infant was to pull the noose around her four-year-old child. It is a grotesque and unimaginably difficult thing to do. If she hadn’t done it, both her children would die. If she killed one, the other would survive. Akeda made the choice and did the deed. In doing so, she ensured the survival of her infant.

Most people, on being confronted with these facts, would feel an instinctive sense of pity for the mother’s plight. Even those who feel she acted wrongly would not call for a harsh punishment against her. Again, this reaction will be true regardless of time, place, or milieu. This is a classic moral case of emotion being overruled by instinct.

Another often-quoted example is of a train hurtling down, with a young man asleep on the tracks. The only way the driver can prevent a tragedy is to change tracks. But he notices there is a group of five children standing on the other track, and they will undoubtedly be killed if he changes tracks. What is the driver to do?

Most people from diverse cultures agree almost immediately that, in such a scenario, the driver will have no choice but to sacrifice the one man and save the five children.

However, consider the following scenario often quoted as a companion story to the previous one:

There is a doctor in a hospital. On one particular day he receives a patient who has had heart failure and needs a new heart. A short while later another patient is admitted who has had kidney failure and needs new kidneys. Shortly later, another patient is wheeled in who has liver cancer and needs a new liver. As the doctor contemplates how to go about treating these diverse patients, he notices a young man in the waiting room reading a newspaper and minding his own business. He looks in good enough condition. The doctor then wonders if he should sedate the young man, wheel him into the operation room, and harvest his kidneys, heart, and liver. In doing so he would save three people at the expense of one.

Most people from diverse cultures agree that to do so would be unethical. When pressed to explain how it is different from the previous case where one man is sacrificed for five, they were unable to justify their response. This is a classic moral case in which logic is overruled by instinct.

Things become more complicated in the example of the train if we assume the single person lying on the track happens to be the driver’s wife or mother or brother. What then should the driver do? What if there was a bridge above the tracks with a huge, heavy man sitting on the side of the bridge? If this heavy man were pushed upon the tracks he would die but the weight of his body would stop the train in its tracks. Should we push the fat man and save the five people?

Most people—in fact, almost all people—agree that it would be morally wrong to push the fat man off the bridge in order to save the five people. However, many are unable to articulate why they think so.

Marc Hauser, the Harvard biologist who came up with these thought experiments, backed up with statistical surveys, tells us that the responses to these case studies did not change if the person was religious or atheist. This is clinching evidence that one doesn’t need either God or religion to be moral. Morality is built into our minds and our genes. And because the moral faculty depends upon specialised brain systems, the failure of which can lead to moral deficiency, we would be compelled to treat criminals more humanely.

If we are moral, we are fortunate enough to have a brain that functions more or less “normally.” In many ways, this might be obvious, for it takes a seriously disturbed brain to direct a person to repeatedly kill, have sex with the dead victims, dismember the bodies, and eat them—as some serial killers have been known to do. It’s obvious that their brains are functioning very differently.

Seen in this light, it would seem that some of the religious strictures handed down to us are simply not powerful enough to stop us from disobeying if it goes against our instincts. A simple example is fornication. Centuries of flaccid priests and frustrated prophets have told us that sex before marriage is abominable in the eyes of the Lord—whether he be Allah, Jehovah, or Yahweh. They have been woefully inadequate in stopping people from fornicating. Fornicators instinctively see no harm in two unmarried consenting adults sleeping together. The only use religion has in such a situation is to make people feel guilty about what they’ve done, but it’s nowhere nearly persuasive enough to stop them.

For centuries we’ve had prophets, mullahs, and priests functioning as our morality bank, minting tokens of scruples and righteousness for us, crediting and debiting our piety account and keeping tabs on our collective conscience. It is my opinion that we don’t need religion to help us distinguish good from bad. We are born with this capacity. Morality is not divine, it is biological.

From Harbortenor…