I asked a question, an interesting answer

I emailed to Dr KK Tan, a highly respected expert in meditation;.

Question:

Dear Dr. Tan
May I ask you :
1 whether rocks have souls?
2 whether trees have souls?
3 If yes, than if a tree is cut down and made into 10 chairs, will the tree-soul be 'split up' into 10 chair-souls?
4 Does insects like ants, mosquitoes and wasps have souls?
5 If yes, than since there are trillions of insects, there would be trillions and trillions of souls in the world ?
6 What DOES NOT have a soul then?
Thank you for your time and teaching.

Answer:

Dear Pat,
Almost everything that is natural occurring has a soul. Minerals includung rocks have souls. All
vegetation including all plants have souls. Then come animals and lastly humans. However if a human is killed, his soul leaves him. Similarly this appies to animals and trees. If you chopped a tree down, you kill it. Thence the piesces of wood do not contain any soul. Trillions of insects also possess souls. All natural occurring
things have souls, but when a man is killed or a tree is felled or an animal is killed, all these three will be deprived of souls. I assume when a large rock is pulverised into tiny pieces, it would have lost its soul as well. That means almost everything on earth does possess a soul until it is destroyed or killed.
K.K.Tan

Conclusion:

Haha. It's up to you whether or not to believe in the answer. But I just find it amusing.

Thanks to Dr KK Tan.

Alzheimer's Disease - When a Person's Soul Hibernates

The Straits Times carried a report on Alz Disease Last Saturday, 27 Sep 08.

My mother suffers from Alz for over 10 years. This disease degenerates the mind, the soul and finally the physical body progressively. In fact, the mind and the soul is dead long before the physical death.

At the start of the illness, forgetfulness and absentmindedness set in. The mind fails, along with the nervous system fail gradually. The patient regresses to the mental state and the faculty of a 3 years old, then a 2 years old, then a 6 months old child. Finally, the patient does not know how to open her mouth to suck or swallow food, the stomach and intestines do not know how to digest food. And then, the body succumbs to malnutrition or failure to breathe...

Unlike other illnesses, the patient has to be cared for 24 hrs by 7 days a week. It takes one to two full-time caregivers to manage one patient at the ending stages.

Looking at the situation my mother is in, I could see the different entities of the human being -- the physical body, the mind, the soul and the spirit. My mother is a non-christian, so she may not have the spirit. With the mind 90% destroyed, she is only capable of basic involuntary functions like breathing, digestion, slow walking, and secretion of waste matters.

Since she is without a lucid mind, I would not detect her soul. There is no expression of joy or sadness, no thoughts of goodness or evil, no thoughts of love or hatred, no thoughts of earthly or spiritual things, no thoughts of right or wrong...

Without a mind capable of thoughts, I believe an alz person's soul is de-activated. One day, when the soul is liberated from this earthly body, it would recall or be aware of the eternity of life again.

Alz is a terrible disease. Honestly, it's a mystery why we are plagued by it.