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I read Imam Ghazali’s book The Alchemy of Happiness [1]. Its the kind of book that you must read over and over again. It has something new to teach everytime you come back to it. In simplistic terms it says that a pure soul is the key to happiness. I will try to expand on the notion of soul and happiness.

In modern times, there stands two schools of thoughts on the idea of soul. First, is the rational thought or logical-postivist notion that anything I can’t see or measure is not real. Therefore, there is no such thing as soul, per say. The later is the spiritual or religious notion that there is a soul and its the actual essence of the indiviual. My atheist friends state that we (humans) are just computers. Our brain processes information, knowledge is reinforced through trail and error and we make judgements based on our DNA or hormonal changes. Further, if humans are similar to robots, then our actions can be predicted, there is no room for free-will and the universe trajectory is deterministic. If this is true then the world is dull, dry, boring and soulless. The rational school of thought is supported by known public figures as: Richard Dawkins, Geohotz [2], Robert Sapolsky, Steven Pinker and Marvin Minsky.

I want to give the spiritual school of thought a fighting chance and defend the claims as best as I can. Spirituality states that there is an entity in our being which goes beyond the body and mind. Ghazali book opens with the Virgil maxim: Know thyself or as Prophet quoted: the one who knows himself knows God. It places the emphasis on knowing yourself rather then creating yourself. It means that creation is the exampler of the creator. Further, this maxim interrelates with Plato notions of prior-knowledge. All knowledge (that humans have and can possess) is as if imprinted in our mind. There might be no such thing as tabula rasa (the notion that humans start from a clean slate of mental processes). The Plato maxim is stated in Quran (2:31) He taught Adam the names of all things, then He presented them to the angels and said, “Tell Me the names of these, if what you say is true?. It is possible that the brains hard-drive is filled with all the knowledge. We learn ways to retrieve it from time to time but it may all be there for us to access. Another of my favorite quotes in the book is Quran (17:85) They ask you ˹O Prophet˺ about the spirit. Say, “Its nature is known only to my Lord, and you ˹O humanity˺ have been given but little knowledge. This clearly states that the knowledge of soul is a hard problem. It might be out of reach of humans to theoretically explain. The problem of consciousness and the origin of language falls under the same realm. Soul may remain a mystery indefintely.

The book relates the state of happiness to pure soul. The healthier the soul, the happier will you be. There are three stages of the soul: animalia, devil and the angel. Soul is similar to a mirror. It doesn’t have a definite shape or form of its own but it reflects what you shine on it. If the mans true nature is animilia then you must spend your time in animal qualities (eat, sex, sleep). If your true nature is devil then spend your waking hours in doing bad things. If your true nature is angelic then strive to learn and be good. Spend your waking hours to seek God and truth. The heart of man is the king because thats where the soul resides. The heart (arabic: qalb) is subjectively used not the actual flesh in our bodies.

It doesn’t matter if there is a soul or not. We may never find out. But happiness lies in moral assets. Try to be good. Don’t commit evil. Happiness is a state which flourishes in peace of mind. Mental peace is a reward for a good man. Strive to be good, rest will take care of itself.

References:

[1] https://archive.org/details/alchemyofhappine00algh/page/6/mode/2up?view=theater

[2] https://geohot.github.io/blog/jekyll/update/2024/12/01/the-soul.html