Regarding my soul

That phrase has always confused me – even as a child. “My soul” sounds like it is a possession, like “my car” or “my finger”. And I’ve always seen it used in a context where something happens to it, or it does something. (The most common, everyday use being “Your soul goes to heaven (or hell)”.) So what happens to “me” when “my soul” goes someplace. And for that matter, where is my soul while I am here? (I have my own opinion on this, and it isn’t likely to change, but I’m interested in understanding how other faiths view the issue.)

There is no death, only a change of worlds.

Everyone has their own view on the semantics of words, and all views are valid. Quite often when these terms are used by authors in book (or by religions) the terms will be defined as per the author or belief system that is currently using the word.

I always give a wide berth to semantics, and words can mean quite differnt things in differnt contexts. For example, the term 'soul' can simply refer to a person's chrisma or personality. For example, "He's got soul", or "She really really sing with soul". That simply means that they put a lot of emotion into something or feel it on a very deep level. It has nothing to do with religious ideas of a soul.

In terms of religious view I personally make no distinction between "spirit" and "soul". For me these are just two differnet words that mean precisely the same thing. Just like "car" and "Automobile" are two different words that refer to the same idea.

My spirit (or soul) is the true essence of what I am. It cannot be 'lost' or taken away from me because it is me. If my spirit dies, then I die. I am my spirit. I am my soul. For me, they are just two words that mean precisely the same thing.

Some religious people try to make distinctions between them. For example they might claim that you "soul" could be in danger of going to hell, and you'll never attain a true 'spirit'.

From my point of view that's nothign more than a bunch of phiolosophical mumbo jumbo. If you go to hell then that's where you are at. Talking about whether you are a 'spirit' or a 'soul' is meaningless.

Does it really matter what you call it? It's either you, or it isn't you. Playing with semantics would seem kind of pointless.

There can be only one you. And it doesn't really matter what labels you use, it ultimately comes down to whether or not you exist.

If you are not your "soul" then why should you care what happens to your "soul".

It's pointless semantics as far as I'm concerned. You are what you are. You either are a spiritual being or you aren't.

Playing with semantics of what you call is nothing more than playing with a label gun. The labels can't change the substance of what you are.

me-ness and you-ness. we are individual it is our souls.
the essence of us and yet so familiar when one looks
around. alive like coral lives. souls exchange in dance.
touching each other and growing our whole lives affecting
us deeply...in our children and our children's children
and our friends.

a sea of life and love which never dies and holds all
of humanity godly in power and scope and beauty.

this is my soul.

I love this psalm...it talks about the "condition" of the soul.

There is so much in the psalms about how the presence of God affects the soul. Very awesome.

BTW... thanks for the reminder.

Psalm 103
1Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.

2Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits:

3Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;

4Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies;

5Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's.

6The LORD executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed.

7He made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel.

8The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.

9He will not always chide: neither will he keep his anger for ever.

10He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.

11For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him.

12As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.

13Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him.

14For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.

15As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.

16For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.

17But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children;

18To such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them.

19The LORD hath prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom ruleth over all.

20Bless the LORD, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word.

21Bless ye the LORD, all ye his hosts; ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure.

22Bless the LORD, all his works in all places of his dominion: bless the LORD, O my soul.

Hmmmm……. I don’t want to come out and say flatly that I disagree with you, so let me approach it this way…

I absolutely agree with the last sentence, which I would paraphrase as “The map is not the territory.” But the map DOES have meaning. And ignoring the meaning of the map will almost inevitably lead to getting lost. Now applying that “map” analogy to my original post, I’m essentially saying this: I can’t see the territory (the “substance” as you put it). All I have is this map (the phrase “Your soul goes to heaven”). But I can’t read the map because some of the symbols (the two words “Your soul”) don’t make sense to me. Can you explain the meanings of those symbols so I can read the map? And “the meaning of the map” is what semantics is all about.

(By the way, I happen to agree completely with you that "spirit", "soul" and "me" are synonymous. The way I think of it is "I don't HAVE a soul, I AM a soul.")

Well, I can't prove it, but I suspect 'soul' is to 'self' as the square root of -1 is to real numbers and math-- even though it's imaginary, it exists and allows one to complex math in terms of the other.


-Kerry O.

flesh wrapping a soul influenced in spirit.

Does the flesh or the spirit lead?

the soul goes with the leader.

The soul focuses on one or the other, not both.

where the flesh is, there is the soul in death. dust to dust.

But where the spirit is, is the soul there? breath to breath?

And which spirit? Our own, or God's.

Our own returns where? to the maker.

But God's Spirit? It returns to the bosom of the Father of all, the Creator.

The soul serving the spirit returns to spirit.

The soul serving the flesh returns to dust.

As creatures, we worship creation or the Creator.

No man can serve two masters.

Not two spirits, and not spirit and flesh.

It is one spirit or the flesh.

If a man tends to be clinging too much to one, it is the master, but if man is found to be given the Spirit of God, as Jesus says, that man is sealed for eternity by God and is lead by God and not man and will be with God for eternity and well.

May God lead all that you do that all may be well with your soul.

Since I believe in reincarnation, my view of "soul" or individual souls is a bit different than most probably.

My true self in not "my soul," it is my higher self. My higher self is a spiritual individual who came to the earth to experience life and death within the third density earth.

It is the true me.

This spiritual being sends forth life streams which animate life in specific third density time slots. (I won't go into all stages of incarnation, as we are only concerned with humans at this point.)

Many lives are experienced as human, around 1500, all in different time locations, past or future. For humans, all of these lives are "simultaneous" as the higher self is outside of our space-time.

Each of these lives have what is called an individual "soul" which simply contains the person and that person's information and experience that developed while living in that particular life time.

That person is not the entire self. The entire self is a combination of all incarnated persons. They share the higher self and are animated by the higher self.

All of these units of consciousness are connected to each other to form the higher self.

That is just my best guess.

That's a very interesting analogy Kerry. And probably quite true actually.

Thank you for sharing that idea.

I can understand that concept. I would have no problem conversing with you using the words 'soul' to mean what you describe.

As I stated before each person uses these words to mean different thing. The important thing is not to argue about semantics but rather to try and understand how each person is using words and what they are attempting to convey by them.

It's ultimately the ideas that are important. Not the words.

Once you have defined how you are using the word, then everytime I hear you speak it, I know what idea you are conveying.

I find your idea of multiple souls being lived simultaneously be a single higher self to be interesting, and not necessarily unique as I've heard similar ideas before.

I personally don't believe that way for several reasons. (not intended as arguments, but rather just to share my view).

First and foremost I just don't feel that's the case intuitively. And secondly I don't see the needs for it. I mean, what would be the 'rush'? Why the need for the higher self to run multiple 'souls' to experience multilple lives simulataneously? Is there some rush to gain a whole lot of experience real quick?

Or is it just the nature of the spiritual beast to be like that?

I also tend to be a very introverted private person. So this may be why I am more attracted to the idea of being a 'singular' being.

Here's a question for you.

Does anything in our experience (as humans) reflect the true nature of our higher self?

In other words, if I am an introverted human, is my higher self also an introverted higher self? In other words, are higher selves unique? Do they too have specific and differnt personalities from other higher selves? And if so, are the higher selves just on a higher journey of self-discovery?

It just seems to me that such a scenario doesn't help much. It would just end up with more complicated beings that aren't any better off than we are as individual humans.

However, this might even be the case if we are individual spirits only tending to one incarnation at a time.

Just as with my question about being and introvert or an extrovert, what about all other characteristics?

If I'm a good-natured human, does that mean that I have a good-natured higher self? Or does my higher self run all different-natured individual souls? Is your higher self running Jeanniebean in this world and playout out the part of Jack the Ripper in another world?

If that's the case then what 'defines' the character of the higher self? Or does it not even have a character of it's own?

I think these kinds of question would also be of interest even for people who believe in externals Gods that take souls into an eternal heaven. Would shy meek humans still be shy and meek in heaven? Would bold argressive humans still be bold and aggressive in heaven?

Even aggressiveness doesn't imply evil. I've met some very aggressive preachers and religious people in my day. They seemed to mean well, but they were also quite bold and even brash.

Do our personalities belong to our spirits? Or are they solely the property of our 'souls' (as you define the soul)?

I like to think that my personality belongs to the 'real me'.

It just seems to me that if it doesn't then I wouldn't even know who I am.

I mean, I think I'm a good person, but if that isn't the real mean then maybe I'm a bad spirit and don't even know it.

I think I just blew this thread away with all these questions. Maybe I should have sent a private email.

I get a good feeling for the sum total true self being a combination of all its experience and lives it spent here in this third density world simply because I can feel different "little selves" inside of my current personality.

The combination of all of these "little selves" within my current little self makes up who I am.

Some people simply consider them to be different aspects of their personality. I tend to talk to myself, even argue with myself.

Maybe not everyone experiences this. Some call it "inner conflicts" but I just view it as all of my inner personalities.

The question asked "Why are we in a hurry.." is a really good one ~~and I have a very interesting answer.

We are involved in the galaxy game. It has a beginning, middle and an end.

The galaxy aliens have been here a very long time compared to us. They incarnate one single life at a time and when they die and are reborn they retain all their memories of their past lives. That is how they "live so long" and that is how they retain their technology and culture. They also animate their bodies from higher selves, but they only animate one body at a time, in sequential order, one after another.

Humans, on the other hand, incarnate throughout all time lines and although they do it one after another, they do not do it according to our earth sequential time line.

In other words, your next life could be in the past, future, or in our present time in some other part of the world. In fact, you could even bump into one of your previous or future lives.

These galaxy aliens, (which I know you don't really believe exist) will be here (in this galaxy) a long time after all humans are gone. It is their galaxy, not ours. So in reality we are the "aliens."

The "game" has many players, but the two main factions are the galaxy aliens and the new players, the humans.

The humans came in late and will leave early, leaving the galaxy to them. The game involves them using their technology to try to follow the humans into the next density.

Humans will ascend to the next density because of their more rapid spiritual path and because they are equipped (have developed) more emotions and more capacity for love and compassion.

I got this information mostly from the leading edge research group and a few other sources. I thought it made sense to me, and it did fit into my picture of reality, spirit, aliens, the game, etc. so I adopted it as my temporary foundation for the sketch.

Its all just an idea, but I liked it.

PS
Each higher self is an individual with individual interests and pursuits. They are the sum total of all the lives they spent in their journey. Each higher self has their own personalities, likes, dislikes, goals etc.

After doing the "earth thing" they move to the next adventure, which will be completely different.

JB

shameless bump to overpost the overposters.

Well since you're looking for attention I'll comment on your post.

What you're calling the 'flesh' the Buddhists would call the 'ego'.

They already have that battle very well-defined. You should read some of the posts made by Smiless recently on Buddhism.

They cover that battle in great detail. There's no need for a judgmental godhead in that battle. That battle is won or lost on its own merit. There's no need for a judge, and no 'savior' can win that battle for you. That's a battle that you must face on your own.

Jesus already won the battle ....2000 years ago on that cross.

NOT.

buddhism obviates natural and sensual impulses into oblivion.

It is not that complicated.

The heart in man wrestles with the flesh from the outset and redfining the obvious is not filling the void in the heart longing for God.

It traps and condemns the heart to appease the flesh, nnot overcome it.

Much the same way that overposting does not negate the truth, but addresses it with obstinance and belligerence hoping that the last word is somehow justified and negating of any other voice.

That is emblematic of a competitively closed mind seeking selfish reward not free discourse and respect for others to draw from a bigger well and drink what they will, unlike the demands made by those that would have it otherwise according to their own determination for others to follow.

All of which is guesswork according to assumptions made belief by the will and not by echoing a universal awareness that is inherent in every heart seeking the fullness of joy and satiation of spiritual hunger and thirst found only in truth.

Truth is echoed and never the same twice for any similarity, but new with each circumstance presenting the openness of a soft heart, not the reiterations ad infinitum of a hardened heart.

An echo of oneself in a cave is not instructive, but the echo in the heart from independent and unrehearsed voices consistently reflecting the greater purpose in congruity is food and drink to the unfed and that well of clean clear water cannot be forced by any on another to be partaken of.

Finding such a well to draw from is not a journey the flesh makes for the health and well being of the spirit, but rather, is a wellspring of life which the flesh serving soul disdains entirely.


Where the flesh is weak, the spirit is willing.

Where the flesh is strong, the spirit is quenched.

temporal fullness overwhelms spiritual fullness for momentary satiation, but spiritual fullness bridles the flesh and honors the vessel without idolizing and worshipping the vessel.

The flesh craves idolatry and creation worship.

The spirit rejoices in the Creator and the cravings of the flesh diminish .

The flesh cannot apprehend itself otherwise. It is only a temporal vessel, and nothing more.

Death is swallowed up in vctory.



As MorningSong pointed out.

BINGO! Same here, I am a Living Soul!

Well, clearly that's one point of view. I personally don't see anything complicated about Buddhism at all. It just offers a lot of examples. If you don't understand them they appear to be overwhelming. When you do understand them you realize they are all just different ways of saying the same thing.

Nothing complicated about it at all once it's understood.



Fear of death is the first thing a person needs to overcome.

I also believe in something that I call “reincarnation”, but it is much different from what you described:

“I” takes on (possesses/inhabits/gains control of) a body. “I” uses that body for a span of time until it no longer works. When it stops working, “I” takes on another one. That cycle is what I call “a lifetime”. The main difference I see between our beliefs is that I think of memories and experience as being the possessions of ‘I’, as opposed to being the building material used to construct ‘I’.

Ok, I just got to you second post.

The “non-sequential time” aspects of what you call the “game”, contain too many paradoxes and circular dependencies for me to accept, but I have to say that my idea of “reincarnation” is not a bit incompatible with your description of “galaxy aliens”. And in fact, the only difference between the reincarnation you say they experience, and the reincarnation I believe in, is that I forget (or occlude or deny) the memories and experiences of past lives, whereas they remember them.