The Spiritual Anatomy of YOU.
The Body. The Soul. The Spirit.
You are composed of three major components: The Body, The Soul and The Spirit. When combined; these three make the human being. You.
The Body:
This is the vehicle for the Soul. The Soul is YOU (we will cover this later). If this is the analogy we are using, then the Spirit would be the Satellite Navigation guiding you to truth.
The vehicle must be properly looked after, like a temple.
Qadir Jilani stated in his book, “the Secret of Secrets”, that Souls have become attached to the body, or the flesh; and this is how they lose their way. Some people become attached to the vehicle and then become slaves to its desires. Things like lust, food, materialism and the ego become the Soul’s main concern, rather than the pursuits of the Spirit within.
The Soul:
The Soul, also known as the Nafs in Arabic, is YOU, right now, deciding whether or not you should just skip through this, or read it properly.
The Soul is your MIND, WILL, and EMOTIONS. So basically, it is YOU. The war between right and wrong is what your soul is going through as it decides, every second, whether to follow THE BODY, or THE SPIRIT.
And we all know what the devil wants you to follow, but let’s leave that guy for another day.
The Spirit:
Also know as the Ruh in Arabic, is what God blew into your being. The battery that powers your body and soul into motion. It is connected directly to God, and is also the voice of reason that tells you to do right instead of wrong — you’ve heard the saying “listen to your heart", well this is the guy sitting in your heart telling you to chase your dreams and stop eating junk food.
Everyone has a pure spirit and this is just nature. But spirits can be soiled through that which gets consumed.
It goes like this:
The body likes looking at something because it FEELS good. The spirit says “NO! It is not good to look at that”.
The soul. which is YOU, is now at war between what it should CHOOSE. Remember, You are in control of the body, and the five senses are all channels that lead to the heart, where the spirit is located. If you lose the battle and choose to look at that foul thing, it gets consumed by the spirit via these five channels of touch, smell, hearing, tasting and seeing. From this perspective, we are either strengthening and purifying our spirits by consuming good things; or soiling our spirits by consuming bad things.
Some spirits are extremely damaged, which is why people can commit vile and unthinkable actions without feeling any remorse. The Qur’an describes this phenomena as hearts (containing spirits) that have turned to “stone”. Unable to assimilate the basics of love and morality, and so, are able to commit the atrocities I am sure you are familiar with.
Clean hearts, however — like yours — are described by God as being the same as stone, but the kind that splits apart due to the overpowering force of a river. The river, in this sense, being the hope and love inside you. This is the reason why you can’t even hurt a fly, and remain selfless even to those who don’t deserve it.
And this means you’re winning the war against yourself. You, the soul, are fuelling your spirit with goodness and purity, rather than succumbing to needs of the body, the Ego, and the lower desires of the flesh, as it’s known in Christianity.
So there you have it, the anatomy of You : The Body; the Soul; and the Spirit.
If we personify the anatomy of YOU into that of a Car:
The Body is the Vehicle; The Soul is YOU (The Driver); and the Satellite Navigation system is the Spirit telling you to follow the truth. You are not the car, so do NOT get attached to its needs and desires.
Instead, we need to be attached the Spirit, the source of that voice in the Satellite Navigation system is where you come from. Listen to its commands in the deepest parts of your heart. Let it take over the drive, and guide you to greatness. Once we learn how to detach and then reattach to the Spirit. We reach what is called our Higher Selves.
God Bless
