What is a soul?

[Age]

Wow. So from my comprehension, the soul has consciousness via the human body (*in our instance) ...and yes, when you communicate with me you are talking to my unique soul within the universe (and a body) and when I respond I am talking to your soul (which is unique within the universe).

This suggests that the soul cannot exist without a physical body, and maybe even that it is exclusive to one particular body.

The 'soul' is continually being created, or what I call continually becoming anew, that is; while that body is 'alive' and there is 'consciousness' within that body.

But why the 'soul' is said to exist after 'that body' is NOT 'alive' anymore is because 'that soul' was ALREADY being passed on into other bodies.

And we don't actually know what consciousness is.

Who does the 'we' word here refer to, EXACTLY?

Is it something that is created by the brain, or is it maybe a fundamental property of the universe that our brain somehow taps into, or something else?

The word 'consciousness' just refers to the 'awareness' that exists, usually in reference to a human body. The MORE a body has experienced, the MORE 'awareness' or MORE 'consciousness' could exist.

Whatever it is, I can't help wondering how consciousness/soul that is associated with a particular brain can be considered to be the same consciousness/soul when it is associated with a different brain.

But WHY would one even 'consider' this?

EACH and EVERY body has its OWN 'consciousness/soul', and this is just because EACH and EVERY body has had its OWN individual and different experiences.

[Age]

I've never had a NDE personally, but my mum did when she was involved in a nasty car crash in her 20's. She told me her experience had helped her let go of the fear of dying.

Thanks for your thoughtful response.

Yes, no more fear of dying. For me, having an out-of-body experience of awareness without any attachment or identity, free of fear and need and judgement, changed the way I thought about things after I was back in this body and this world/life. I had a new sense of things not being so terribly serious, while at the same time having a sense of more freedom and capability as a result. It has been a relief and an inspiration.

(As I've also written about before...) Years later, I had another profound experience during a walking meditation in the forest of suddenly seeing 'behind the worldly veil' with startling clarity for a few moments, and being filled with the understanding that all was perfect and fine. I wished that we humans could share and live with such an awareness,

Some of 'us' do ALREADY. But some do NOT BELIEVE this when 'we' say we do.

Also, telling children that 'all is perfect and fine' when they are being ABUSED is NOT the most helpful NOR Right thing to do.

Furthermore, as long as one KNOWS that there is a LOT MORE that they, "them" 'self', could do to CHANGE for the BETTER while understanding that 'all is perfect and fine', literally MEANS that ALL is ACTUALLY perfect and fine. BUT, if while one is saying or understanding that 'all is perfect and fine' while continuing on as they have been, then, OBVIOUSLY, NOT ALL is perfect and fine.

but I understood that was not where we were at nor what we were doing. That experience, too, has impacted my way of thinking and living ever since.

But if that experience has NOT CHANGED 'you', away from your ABUSIVE WAYS, then, REALLY, NOT is ALL perfect and fine, AT ALL.

I was no longer in control of myself, it was so intense and made me want to jolt out of the sensation, which I did. I've only ever experienced this once in my whole life, the experience has never repeated, and it's something I'll never forget.

Such experiences/glimpses stay with you! I think 'being in control' within this human cocoon is a huge part of our human need/experience, and our minds and bodies aren't really made for much beyond this... but that's okay!

Here is this 'mind' word AGAIN. So, what are these 'minds', EXACTLY?

When we poke our heads through the veil just enough to see beyond the limitations of our world/reality, I think we can use that broadened awareness to expand and free our capability and potential from the ego creations/beliefs we might otherwise be intoxicated with.

LOL WHY just 'poke' around? WHY NOT just go BEYOND and LIVE THERE, INSTEAD? If and when 'you' do, then there will NOT be ANY MORE of the CONFUSION that OBVIOUSLY exists in the days when this is being written.

Simply having the realization that there's 'more' than the human entrapments, and that this is not the end-all/be-all, offers me more tools and capability to see and be and do more than I otherwise might.

I FOUND it MUCH BETTER to KNOW, FOR SURE, the 'MORE', and NOT just 'realize' that there is 'MORE'.

The reason why I'm here no longer matters. I'm engaging in what is and continually exploring with as much thoughtfulness and appreciation as I can muster at any given time.

LOL "lacewing". you are just FOOLING "yourself" here.

you COULD explore with MUCH MORE thoughtfulness and MUCH MORE appreciation than you do here now, that is; if you were Truly Honest with "yourself".

And when I seem to 'screw up' or thrash around too much, it's all just part of the dance. No need for severe condemnation. Just more of a chance to learn/practice greater compassion and love.

What do you mean by 'seem' to screw up?

Either you do 'screw up' or you do not. So, which one is 'it'?

Also, if you are NOT CHANGING, for the BETTER, then NO amount of compassion NOR love is REALLY going to matter here. If you are NOT CHANGING, for the BETTER, then you WILL just KEEP ON REPEATING the Wrong and just KEEP 'screwing up'. That is, if you REALLY ever do 'screw up'?

I think the only thing that might matter beyond this human adventure ride/reality/world is the kind of energy we've nurtured/expressed/created here. I don't know -- but I try to create and act for the right reasons with awareness beyond the limits of the human stage and stories.

I suggest INSTEAD of just 'trying to' do the things here that you actually DO the things here, INSTEAD.

There's a lot of play. Any reasonable god would 'get this'. It's beautiful and worthy of love. Anyone who takes it all too seriously is caught up in drama.

Is HOLDING the BELIEF that God does NOT exist and/or could NEVER exist taking it all too seriously here? Or, is this BELIEF a perfectly NORMAL one to HAVE and HOLD?

...our impression of being an ''individual soul'' who is having a separate experience is like the impression a wave arising from the ocean has of itself. The ocean endlessly generates infinite numbers of waves, and each one believes for the brief duration of it's appearance that itself, and all the other waves, are not connected.

Perhaps there is one ocean of consciousness, and it generates infinite numbers of points of attention. You are a point of attention in the ocean of consciousness. So am I. But really, behind our masks of separate individual identities and experiences, we are really one thing experiencing ourself under the temporary arrangement of taking on a specific role wearing different masks, some of which are more denser and heavier than others. But some masks are more transparent in the sense they can see more clearly the illusion of separateness.

Very nice description. We would not judge the ocean and its waves as being right or wrong for what they simply are and do.

So, "others" could ABUSE children, for example, and you would NOT judge this as being right NOR wrong, correct?

To you this would just be simply what they are and do. Is this correct?

Nor would we demand that the ocean be divided up into specific independently working parts.

LOL NO one that I KNOW OF 'demands' ANY such thing.

LOOKING AT the 'Ocean' in divided, specific independently working parts is HOW the human brain WORKS 'things' OUT and comes-to COMPREHENDING and UNDERSTANDING HOW thee One 'Thing' ACTUALLY WORKS.

The human brain, itself, can only UNDERSTAND by LOOKING AT the PARTS of the WHOLE.

To WORK OUT HOW 'things' WORK 'you' HAVE TO LOOK AT 'them' INDIVIDUALLY. And this is HOW how the human brain ACTUALLY WORKS was ALSO WORKED OUT and UNDERSTOOD, FULLY.

It all works together as one, and it's more vast and varied than our small human identities can fathom, and that's wonderful and perfect.

HOW ALL-THERE-IS WORKS, together as One, has ALREADY been WORKED OUT FAR MORE than your OWN VERY SMALL and LIMITED 'view of things' here "lacewing". SOME human beings just take a LOT LONGER to come-to REALIZE, COMPREHEND, and UNDERSTAND SOME 'things'.

We might as well be content swimming in it and improving our surfing skills.

Sayings like this one that keeps human beings "justifying to themselves", ONLY, to keep on doing what they have been doing. Which are OBVIOUSLY VERY Wrong and STUPID.

[Age]

If nothing else, Harbal, I highly doubt that there could exist a more "natural" and "organic" vision of reality than what the "Ultimate Seed" theory suggests.

In your acorn/tree analogy, we are the acorns, but why do you think we aren't already the trees?

For the same reason that acorns aren't yet trees, because our souls that are still held within the "seedpods" of our human bodies have yet to "germinate."

I'll leave it to your imagination as to what the process of "germinating" entails.

You asked atto the following questions,...

Do you think the soul is conscious, and if so, does the you I am communicating with now occupy the same consciousness as your soul? Is the awareness that you are experiencing now your soul?

...and the answer is YES to all of that.

The soul is just another name for your central consciousness (also known as your "you," or the "eye" of your mind, or your "I Am-ness").

Can you REALLY NOT SEE the CONTRADICTION here?

If no, then just let me know and I can SHOW you.

Your soul is the living, self-aware core of your inner-being that forms the structural basis of your singularly unique and personal identity.

If what you propose here was somewhat true, then who or what is this 'one', EXACTLY, which is allegedly 'self-aware'?

Saying the 'soul' is the living, self-aware core of the inner-being, then does this 'thing' living after the body and brain has stopped functioning?

As always, I'm just speculating here,

Just so you are AWARE this is and was VERY obvious.

but contrary to popular ideas regarding reincarnation, or the nonsense that God could simply create a new soul out of thin air at the snap of her divine fingers,

If God created Everything out of so-called 'thin air', then creating just a soul 'out of thin air, is, REALLY, relatively NOTHING AT ALL.

our souls did not exist prior to our physical birth a few years ago on this planet.

And the point is that even God requires a mechanistic process by-which to awaken her own offspring into existence, and the human reproductive system is how she does it.

(I do believe we've had a similar conversation in the Christianity thread, so please forgive me if my old man brain is causing me to repeat stuff.)

There is nothing to suggest that trees go on to a higher level of existence when they die, what evidence is there that we do?

Well, for one thing, trees (or rabbits, or mice, or flies, or frogs or dogs, etc., etc.) are not created in the image of God (i.e., are not her literal offspring), no more than those same beings are your human mother's offspring.

And what are you basing this CLAIM on, EXACTLY?

As the German theologian Meister Eckhart once stated:

“The seed of God is in us: Pear seeds grow into pear trees; Hazel seeds into hazel trees; And God seeds into God.”

Are the pear seeds created in the image of the pear trees, and are the hazel seeds created in the image of the hazel trees?

And secondly, I have made it quite clear in several annoyingly repetitive posts that humans (in general) cannot be allowed to have any sort of irrefutable evidence of the existence of God and of the existence of a higher (and more desirable) life after death.

Why?

Because they will seek it out prematurely and thus drain the earth of the means by which new souls are created.

(Continued in next post)
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But the IRREFUTABLE PROOF ALREADY EXISTS, and by the way, it is HERE, CRYSTAL CLEAR, for ALL to LOOK AT and SEE.

Also, your reasoning here is absolutely FLAWED and FAULTY.

[Age]

1. What is the DIFFERENCE between 'an existence' and 'an actual existence'?

I included the word, "actual", to emphasise that I didn't mean a sort of metaphorical existence.

There is NO 'soul' that has 'an actual existence after the physical body is not breathing nor pumping blood anymore, within that body. That 'soul' is, in a way, just living 'now, or have 'an (actual) existence, within other bodies.

But there are people who believe that the soul does have an actual existence after the physical body is not breathing nor pumping blood anymore, and it was to those people that I was directing my question.

Have they answered your question sufficiently enough for you?

And, what about my answer, did it explain sufficiently enough for you how 'souls' have actual existences AFTER bodies stop, what is generally called, 'existing' anymore?

To me the apparent contradiction in what I wrote was obvious, did you not want to pick me up on this?

[Age]

I don't believe that human beings are special. As far as nature and the universe are concerned, we are just one among many other forms of life. That's how it seems to me, at least.

Right.

And if the blind and mindless workings of "nature"...

(which is simply the word "chance" dressed-up in a mother's apron)

...was the only thing responsible for the unfathomable order of the universe, then you would be fully justified in feeling that way.

However, if there truly is something living and intelligent behind it all, wouldn't that perhaps make you a little less nihilistic about our situation?
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Considering the size of the universe, I can't think of human beings having any significance either way. Even if there is intelligence behind "it all", I still don't see why you separate human beings from other species of animal, as far as our place in the whole scheme of things is concerned. Animals are made of flesh and bone, so are humans; animals have to eat to survive, do do humans; animals and humans reproduce in exactly the same way. Humans are prone to desease in exactly the same way animals are, and humans are equally susceptible to physical injury. Humans are just a species of animal. That seems glaringly obvious to me.

To me, absolutely EVERY thing is SPECIAL, but NO thing is is more NOR less SPECIAL than ANY other thing is. EVERY thing is AS SPECIAL or UNIQUE as EVERY thing else. Human beings are just ANOTHER thing in the Universe.

Humans are also just ANOTHER animal, however, there is a difference between the human animal and ALL of the other known animals on earth.

Your "mythology" might be correct, or it might not, I don't really mind one way or the other. Either way, it doesn't affect my here and now, and while I am alive, I could never know for sure anyway, just as I couldn't be sure of any other religious or spiritual set of beliefs. For that reason, it seems to make more sense to confine my thoughts to the world I do know exists, rather than speculate about way might come after I am no longer one of its residents.

But what ACTUALLY happens after human bodies, so-call, 'die' is ALREADY KNOWN

Your "mythology" is quite an achievement, btw, so I still congratulate you on it.

[Age]

Coming here and continually complaining about not having a girlfriend is NOT going to help you in ANY WAY getting one.

No. It's not. But it passes the time that I am not with her in a way that is fulfilling and soothing to me. It's difficult to say nothing about something that is constantly on one's mind.

There may be a lot of some truth to this, but there are also different places to talk about different 'things'.

[Agent Smith]

What is a soul but the eyes of a girl in the rain; she has an umbrella but doesn't use it, she can go inside the house but she doesn't, she can bid the rain stop but she doesn't, she can ... but she ...

[Harbal]

And, what about my answer, did it explain sufficiently enough for you how 'souls' have actual existences AFTER bodies stop, what is generally called, 'existing' anymore?

Your conception of the soul differs from what might be called the typical, and the problems I find in the more conventional ideas of what the soul is aren't applicable to it.

To me the apparent contradiction in what I wrote was obvious, did you not want to pick me up on this?

I'm not sure I spotted the contraciction. What was it?

[Age]

And, what about my answer, did it explain sufficiently enough for you how 'souls' have actual existences AFTER bodies stop, what is generally called, 'existing' anymore?

Your conception of the soul differs from what might be called the typical, and the problems I find in the more conventional ideas of what the soul is aren't applicable to it.

To me the apparent contradiction in what I wrote was obvious, did you not want to pick me up on this?

I'm not sure I spotted the contraciction. What was it?

If you did not spot 'it', then that is good, and if you still can not spot 'it', then that is even better. This might mean that you understood what I meant better than I thought you might.

[Ferdi]

SOUL is the religious label for the LIFE in YOU.

[Ferdi]

Correction'
SOUL is the religious label for the LIFE in YOU.