What are souls?

[SusanDoris]

Indeed. That's why it's a mistake to try to define such words.

That's also why children should never be told that a 'soul' or a 'spirit' is a real thing. It is a word to describe an aspect of us.

[wigginhall]

A lot of the problems with soul and self stem from seeing them as actual entities.   I don't know whether Descartes is the cause of this, as Arry the Bottle said that soul is the form of the body.   I can see something in that, but for AB soul is like the Fat Controller, in charge of all the engines.   

[Nearly Sane]

I said tea.

I took that as poetrea.

[Nearly Sane]

That's also why children should never be told that a 'soul' or a 'spirit' is a real thing. It is a word to describe an aspect of us.

what 'aspect'?

[Sriram]

Hi everyone,

Words evolve and their meaning changes with time. Often different people use it in different context.  All this can add to the confusion.

The word 'soul' usually refers to that which leaves the body on death and lives on in the after world. In that sense, it is the eternal and non-corporeal entity that occupies the body and sheds it at the time of death. It can be called the Self.

That is simple enough but the moment we start analyzing it further  (as with anything else) it becomes complicated.

According to Yogic science.....what leaves the body during death is not a simple 'one person'.  It is a complex entity consisting of many sheaths.  The innermost being is the real Self   which can be called the Spirit.

These sheaths consist of various mental energies that envelope the Spirit and  force it to be reborn.   As the strength and intensity of these sheaths reduce over several life times, the Spirit gets freed and while attaining mukti (salvation) the spirit leaves the body with almost no sheaths attached. It is thereafter not reincarnated.

This spirit is ultimately identified with the Supreme Being itself. 

So...we can perhaps think of the soul as the Spirit enveloped in several sheaths that leaves the body and gets reincarnated. It can be identified with the individual self. The Spirit being the ultimate Self or subject that gets freedom and is beyond individual traits.

Just some thoughts.

Cheers.

Sriram

[SusanDoris]

what 'aspect'?

The aesthetic appreciation aspect; the aspect of being a human which imagines, loves stories, music, singing, moving to music, the aspect that enables us to know we exist; and the aspect that ends with the whole integrated body/brain, i.e. death.

[Nearly Sane]

The aesthetic appreciation aspect; the aspect of being a human which imagines, loves stories, music, singing, moving to music, the aspect that enables us to know we exist; and the aspect that ends with the whole integrated body/brain, i.e. death.

And why do you want to seperate that as something 'other'?

[Nearly Sane]

Hi everyone,

Words evolve and their meaning changes with time. Often different people use it in different context.  All this can add to the confusion.

The word 'soul' usually refers to that which leaves the body on death and lives on in the after world. In that sense, it is the eternal and non-corporeal entity that occupies the body and sheds it at the time of death. It can be called the Self.

That is simple enough but the moment we start analyzing it further  (as with anything else) it becomes complicated.

According to Yogic science.....what leaves the body during death is not a simple 'one person'.  It is a complex entity consisting of many sheaths.  The innermost being is the real Self   which can be called the Spirit.

These sheaths consist of various mental energies that envelope the Spirit and  force it to be reborn.   As the strength and intensity of these sheaths reduces over several life times, the Spirit gets freed and during mukti (salvation) the spirit leaves the body with almost no sheaths attached. It thereafter is not reincarnated.

This spirit is ultimately identified with the Supreme Being itself. 

So...we can perhaps think of the soul as the Spirit enveloped in several sheaths that leaves the body and gets reincarnated. It can be identified with the individual self. The Spirit being the ultimate Self or subject that gets freedom and is beyond individual traits.

Just some thoughts.

Cheers.

Sriram

So, Bramble, is this Sriram being poetic?

[SusanDoris]

And why do you want to seperate that as something 'other'?

How on earth do you get the idea that I want to separate it as 'something other'?

[Nearly Sane]

How on earth do you get the idea that I want to separate it as 'something other'?

By the fact that you seem to want to define it as different from feeling hungry, liking Marmite, wanting to punch someone.

[SusanDoris]

By the fact that you seem to want to define it as different from feeling hungry, liking Marmite, wanting to punch someone.

I am an integrated whole. All physical parts of me, all emotional feelings, reactions, sensations, are an integrated part of me.
Various parts of me can be removed or replaced which enable me to carry on living, All these parts have words to label them, all thought up by humans, otherwise we would not be able to talk about them.

[Nearly Sane]

I am an integrated whole. All physical parts of me, all emotional feelings, reactions, sensations, are an integrated part of me.
Various parts of me can be removed or replaced which enable me to carry on living, All these parts have words to label them, all thought up by humans, otherwise we would not be able to talk about them.

That's a non sequitur

[SusanDoris]

That's a non sequitur

That doesn't make it not true!

[Nearly Sane]

That doesn't make it not true!

Just irrelevant

[wigginhall]

I am an integrated whole. All physical parts of me, all emotional feelings, reactions, sensations, are an integrated part of me.
Various parts of me can be removed or replaced which enable me to carry on living, All these parts have words to label them, all thought up by humans, otherwise we would not be able to talk about them.

I don't see myself as an integrated whole, except physically, and that is fraying at the edges.   Mental stuff is not integrated really, so the idea of a soul must be attractive, as it seems to bring control and unification.   How do I find it? 

[Dicky Underpants]

and the ''illusion of self'' cranks.

Well, that's the whole of Buddhism dismissed.

(Except for the idea of an overall Self, as wiggi pointed out earlier. As in Hinduism: "Brahman is the only reincarnator".

[Dicky Underpants]

I don't see myself as an integrated whole, except physically, and that is fraying at the edges.   Mental stuff is not integrated really, so the idea of a soul must be attractive, as it seems to bring control and unification.   How do I find it?

You need to reach the 'Clear', wiggi. Sort out those Thetans. I'm sure there's a branch of Hubbard's love-child near you.

[wigginhall]

You need to reach the 'Clear', wiggi. Sort out those Thetans. I'm sure there's a branch of Hubbard's love-child near you.

The Jungians have the interesting idea of deintegration/reintegration.   Or sort of, going to pieces, and then reassembling them, well, I've  done that a few times in my life.  They sometimes use the image of islands, which form an archipelago. 

[Nearly Sane]

I don't see myself as an integrated whole, except physically, and that is fraying at the edges.   Mental stuff is not integrated really, so the idea of a soul must be attractive, as it seems to bring control and unification.   How do I find it?

Agree, the casual use of soul seems an indulgent avoidance of methodological  naturalism by those scared of the implications.

[Dicky Underpants]

The Jungians have the interesting idea of deintegration/reintegration.   Or sort of, going to pieces, and then reassembling them, well, I've  done that a few times in my life.  They sometimes use the image of islands, which form an archipelago.

Thus hypothesising an original integrated self? I think Gurdjieff used to promote the idea that the self was never an original unity - only something to be achieved.

Like you, I've done what seemed like a fair amount of reassemblage during my life.

[ekim]

I don't see myself as an integrated whole, except physically, and that is fraying at the edges.   Mental stuff is not integrated really, so the idea of a soul must be attractive, as it seems to bring control and unification.   How do I find it?

One way is said to be by withdrawing one's attentive consciousness within, in stillness, until you realise that you are it.  Another is by detaching one's consciousness from it's attachments to the constituent components of the self/ego i.e. the physical, mental and emotional components, until you realise that you are not them.    I believe within the Hindu tradition the first is called eti, eti ... I am that, I am that and the latter is called neti, neti .... I am not that, I am not that.

[Sriram]

Thus hypothesising an original integrated self? I think Gurdjieff used to promote the idea that the self was never an original unity - only something to be achieved.

Like you, I've done what seemed like a fair amount of reassemblage during my life.

Actually, it is both preexisting and also something to be achieved. The real Self is hidden and masked by the lower self. Through repeated experiences the lower self is to be eroded bit by bit and the Higher Self is to be brought out and realized.

In this sense, the Higher Self is both preexisting and also something to be realized or achieved. There is no contradiction.

[wigginhall]

Thus hypothesising an original integrated self? I think Gurdjieff used to promote the idea that the self was never an original unity - only something to be achieved.

Like you, I've done what seemed like a fair amount of reassemblage during my life.

The expert on this in Jungian circles was Michael Forham, who I think posited an initial state of infant with mother, involving blissful unity, feeding at the breast, having one's needs met, being loved and held.   However, as we all know, this can rapidly break down into feelings of chaos, fear, anger, and so on, or in fact, never got going because of parental failure.   This is a kind of deintegration, which involves loss, yet is also necessary, if eventually you are to become separate.  In fact, separation and intimacy are twin poles here, and obviously we need both.  But some people get too much deintegration, and cannot function properly.   Of course, some people have suggested that the early bliss is the source of religious feelings, loss of boundaries, and even the notion of God.   Who knows.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Equating soul to self sounds ok to me, although self is hard to pin down. Given that you recognise the nature of self as being emergent, therein lies its illusory quality.

Are you equating the emergent with the illusiory? On what warrant?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Equating soul to self sounds ok to me, although self is hard to pin down. Given that you recognise the nature of self as being emergent, therein lies its illusory quality. It is illusory in that we think of ourselves as persons, primarily, yet the self is not fundamental, it is derivative, emergent, and forever changing, hence hard to pin down.

Again isn't this just hard reductionism?
What is it that is being illuded and stubbornly refusing to accept it's own non existence?