Are WE but APES with hidden tails & without a SOUL?

Not at all.

This is not what Yogis & Free Mystics of India found eons ago. As they do today.

The Truth does not change with time. IT is what It Is.

Long before Darwin, much before any ism, including Hindu-ism, found itself popularly established, Yogis & Free Mystics sought “That” WHICH IS. Sans this or that religious belief. Their Aim & Objective was then, as is now, The Ultimate Truth: What-So-Ever IT may be. Above and Beyond any Seeker’s personal belief system, inherited or inscribed.

So, what do The Yogis & Free Mystics of India find?

After going through the requisite meditative & spiritual practices - as prescribed by their respective Guru, of this or that ilk and inclination - the Seeker so blessed by his Karmic Due, LITERALLY “sees” his-her “life-form” separating from her-his bodily-form. He-she, being advanced in Yoga by this time, realizes that he-she is more than the body. Is not The Body. But more.

THIS “baptized” being, after passing through innumerable mystical visions, “astral travel” etc, finds - at The End - one’s own self to be neither “this” nor “that” being or entity, but merely An Observer OF & A “Witness” TO All That Is “Happening”. It is almost as clear, if not more, as is Experimentation to A Clinical Scientist in a Laboratory. It is no  imagined “vision” or hallucination as such.

Thereafter, THIS Observer-Witness to The HAPPENING, “sees” - again, literally - The Observing-Witnessing Self “dissolve” as if, unto ALL THAT IS. Thus, “becoming” WHAT “It” IS. That is - ALL “That” Is. The “Seeing”-Self observes-witnesses its “self” as The SELF of ALL. As “Aham Sarvum”: as “I AM ALL (That Is).” In a nutshell, as The Universal Self.

This Universal Oneness and “Self”-ness is Our Soul-Self. So to say.

This "Life" is without a tail. No Darwin knows or affixes IT. With a tale only Yogis & Free Mystics tell.

Yet, "KNOWING" thus  is The Birthright of All.