Thanks to all for your posts and I have a question: The Soul?

[clydefrand]

I'd like to hear what all of you have to say about what your idea of the SOUL is.

What is it? How do you know what you know about it? Experience? Or having studied about this subject?


I've been seeking answers to this question for many, many years. I still don't have a clear idea of just what it is. Is it our personality? Do we have it BEFORE we are born? Or just the ability to develop one? Is it tangible?

Guess I had more than one question. :-) Thanks for your answers. Will look again later today for them.

[ixion]

1. wow... no small question there

Note: I'm speaking figuratively here, and am not approaching this answer from the perspective of any one pursuit, but from a more literary point of view.


My feeling is akin to the way Tom Robbin's feels about the soul. The soul is the dark, the moist, the fecund, the fertile, and the place where funk comes from. :-)

The Spirit is the light, the ethereal, the godhead, as it were.

Soul and Spirit = Yin and Yang, respectively.

That's my take on it, in a nutshell, although there are many different answers one could come up with to that question.

[Maat]

2. You are very intellectual, clydefrand.

This law student, despite decades of education, just goes by a feeling inside. I believe the soul is an 'energy' within me that is unique - unique to each person. And I believe that that energy goes from human life to human life (but I'm always me - and it is GOD-energy). God is within each of us and we are all equally divine, because Spirit divided itself up into each one of us (and the birds, trees, etc.). Yes, your unique energy is your personality (although, I think that it is a bit modified with each life). Yes, we have before we are 'born;' and we have the ability to grow and develop without limit. No, it is not tangible.

That is the System according to Ma'at. Now, what do I have to back it up, in terms of scholarly work? Not much. So, as I've been accused of doing on this Board before, I do go on FAITH, and I don't see what is wrong with that.

The founder of my belief-system-religion, Ernest Holmes, studied the World's religions, finding many common beliefs and bits of wisdom in them. He also studied Thoreau and Emerson. So, I don't feel badly studying the principles derived from that.

I, for one, also enjoy Neil Walshe's books. They 'freak me out' in a good way - get me thinking.

I'll bet each one of us just gets to a point where we listen to our inner voice, our center, and decide what each believes. It is just that way. Comments?

[ixion]

3. listening to the inner voice

is the path to Nirvana, or so my inner voice tells me. :-)

[Maat]

4. I'm sure listening to YOUR inner voice would be very interesting, Ixion.

Just kiddin' Listening is O.K. Engaging in active conversation out loud in polite society might get ya' a few looks.

Take care, fellow SOUPers - I'm a goin' to lunch.

It is pouring down out here in SoCal, and as you DUers know, we don't like that - anything below a perfet 70 with light sun is just TOO cold for us! <'Hell on Earth'>

I agree, though, 'listening to the inner voice is the path to Nirvana.'

[ixion]

5. lol...

indeed. If you ever need room around yourself at a party, just start up a chat with your inner voice and in no time everyone will have cleared a circle around you. :+

hope you have a good lunch... I'm in Florida on the gulf side... and we're the same way about weather, so I feel your pain. ;-)

[Maat]

6. Thanks. I laughed out loud too!

Have a great rest of day. I think I have a duty to do a good post in the future (I'm back from lunch). I'm going to have to do a bit of brainstorming... Take Care!

[LWolf]

13. It is just that way.

I've been listening to my inner voice all of my life.

The hardest times in my life happened when I didn't listen; when I was convinced that I didn't know anything, that others knew "better" than I, and followed along behind them.

It's taken a long time, but that inner voice is now more trusted than anything from the outside.

[Az]

7. The nonsoul subthread

This is merely one possiblity from the skeptical side of the journey.

The soul is the term many use to label the sense of self. The internal self awareness. Many religions have come to the conclusion that it is something seperate from the body and brain.

However in studying the mind we find that we can alter it signicantly by affecting the brain. If the soul were indeed seperate from the body then altering the body/brain would have no effect on the soul. And yet we can change a person's personality or even eradicate it entirely just by affecting the brain.

Thus we are left with the notion that the mind is a result of the brain and not something outside of the brain.

[clydefrand]

8. AZ, please explain the last sentence a little more please.

"Thus we are left with the notion that the mind is a result of the brain and not something outside of the brain."


Are you saying here that the "mind" is the same as the "soul"?

My older sister has dementia. Her brain, mind, thoughts certainly have changed as a result of it. At times, she is terribly angry and mean. My mother-in-law also had dementia. She became a different person, impatient, angry, bitter, ridiculing. So was her soul the same afterwards?

BTW, I really enjoy reading your analysis of issues discussed here. I seem to think more along the lines that you do, but you are much more informed than I'll ever be! I appreciate that in you!

That statement is not meant to diminish others' posts. Please understand, other Soupers. I enjoy all people's opinions and ideas. And I thank all of you.

[Az]

9. Labels

The term soul can be stretched to fit the definition of mind. But this is not typically what a person positively refering to a soul is trying to imply. Using the word soul in the context I suggest would be akin to using the word god to refer to the universe as a whole without implying a sentience behind it. It fits if you stretch it but a more orthodox individual will balk at the idea.

[wildflower]

12. I see this as an issue of personality and not necessarily soul.

clydefrand,

If you've ever read "The 36-hour Day" (an excellent book, by the way; I highly recommend it) or other books about what happens to the brain in dementia, you know that alterations to a person's brain can do two things: (1) they alter the way sensory input looks to that person, and (2) they alter the behavior of that person as experienced by others.

This doesn't mean that the person doesn't have the same soul or inner spirit.

For example, let's say my friend Jane has dementia, which has affected her brain to the point that she can no longer recognize people. She may become angry and lash out at family; because she's never been comfortable around strangers (as she perceives them), and she feels lonely since (as she perceives it) she never sees her family anymore.

Damage to different areas can produce different behavioral changes. For example, damage to the frontal lobe can reduce inhibitions, and thoughts and feelings may be expressed that were previously squelched to conform to societal rules. Thus the person may seem to regress to who he or she was as a child.

I see personality as part nature (under whose auspices some might include the concept of soul) and part nurture (how we learn to behave). Changes to the brain further affect that. The underlying soul (or whatever one chooses to call it) is still there, but it's more difficult for us to get in, and for the expression of that person's soul - as we formerly experienced it - to get out.

Again, I highly recommend "The 36-Hour Day." It is illuminating and comforting. It doesn't speak of the soul (that I recall), but as I mentioned above, it explains what is happening to the person with dementia and how to understand and react to him or her.

-wildflower

[AlienGirl]

11. What if soul:brain::radio wave:radio receiver?

If you had never learned about how radio works, and you had a radio receiver, you might discover that by altering its speakers you could change the sound it made, or even eliminate the sound altogether. You might then presume that the sound was a result of the radio.

Tucker

[davidinalameda]

10. life force

I think that everything has a life force and yes, we do have one before we are born--the little sperm and egg each have their own

every cell has one--each one comes together in our body to create the "soul"

and yes, the life force can stay around once the organism is dead--that's my explanation for ghosts