What is the soul? - Page 2

There are personal truths and ultimate truths. Personal truths vary from person to person but the ultimate truth is one that is undeniable. Everyone has a unique perspective that is valid and accepting everyone's personal truth as part of the ultimate truth will lead us to the ultimate truth

being one of those "people who have died" myself, as powerful as the experience was, and as much as it has impacted my life, i still doubt its validity on almost a daily basis. its barely any sort of "proof" for myself, much less an outsider to the experience. i use to tell people about it and would always get looks like i was just crazy. so i quit. aside from mentioning it on this website a few times, i havent spoken about it in several years.

the brain does very strange things as it is about to die. tunnel vision occurs in almost everyone just before death. many factors could allow for these seemingly "prophetic hallucinations." the brain is capable of a lot more than we currently understand.

i do follow what i feel, and i do know within myself that there is something beyond death. but i cant help but question just about everything. all to often i see people going blindly through life so set on their ways, so determined that they are right about everything. these people irritate me more than just about anything, and unfortunately they seem to be in the majority. if people were at least open to the idea that there may or may not be a "beyond" or a "soul" (or a lot of other things) there would be a lot less disruption in everything that occurs.

do i know within myself that there is a god and that there is something more beyond this world? yes. but if i didnt put this "knowledge" that i have up to the utmost scrutiny, i would be just like everyone else. and quite frankly, i would be a lazy bastard as well.

people hate having to say "i dont know" about anything.

Personally I don't think there is such thing as a soul. A soul is the kind of thing that exists to you if you believe in it...that doesn't mean that some people have a soul and some don't...it mean that a soul is something we learn at a young age as being the part of us that goes onto heaven or hell [or purgory or whatever] after we die. that is, the soul is an instrument of religion, and it is taught that your soul will go onto heaven if you are good and god fearing, and will go to hell if you are not. Personally, I think the whole existence of god thing is a pile of crap, however I think that people should be able to beleive anything they want and I would never judge anyone for it.

And so it is that if you come from a background where you are taught, even losely, the existance of god you will believe yourself to have a soul, whatever you may think it is, but a soul is just, well....to me, like heaven. just a word, really

"Whether these truths stem from your personal experiences, something you have read, or simple mathematical odds, it's important to weight all your conclusions and premises with the statistical probability of it being the truth."

Decius, I think most of us have based our opinions and conclusions thus far on any or all of the above. I understand that you may feel that some people just spew information based on something that they may have heard once but have no personal experience to back it up. (At least that's how I'm interpreting what you're saying). Personally if I hear something I take it in and if it resonates with me, I will consider it further; if it doesn't I discard it as not a truth of mine. Just as an example, the human aura I know to be something that exists and, like the soul and spirit, is electric in nature. I have seen auras but "know as fact" very little about it. I have heard many things and some I believe, some I don't. I don't necessarily have anything 'logical' to base my conclusions on except for whether it resonates with me or not. The idea of heaven and hell as brought up by Courtney doesn't make any sense to me. I believe there is a cosmos we all enter and there are different degrees within this cosmos depending on how 'god-like' we lived our lives. The more god-like, the closer we are to that essence when we get to the other side. But the idea of hell as in an eternal punishment for your wrong doings, I don't buy it. Forgiveness and acceptance is offered to everyone. But again I have no personal experience to base this on it is just what makes most sense to me at this time. I could hear something tomorrow that resonates even stronger and therefore I change my entire outlook.

No one really knows. We just have to trust our instinct and listen with our higher self.

Hi Mystic... It's nice to know someone is on the same wave length

thought - "Resonate" is a vague word. Basically its just gut feeling?

courtney - I *almost* agree with you. Because I think that there is at least 1 thing which differentiates us but is not physical, the fact that I see through my eyes and not your's.

There is a scientific basis for the idea of resonation. And although I am not one who looks at the scientific basis of things, I will try my best to explain what I think it is. Everything is energy and every energy form vibrates at a certain frequency. Ideas, emotions, colours, musical notes, stars, plants, sounds all do this. So when I say ideas resonate with me it means that their frequency or waves are similar to mine and therefore is part of who I am. Einstein talks at great length about this concept.

What do you base your ideas on? In your original reply to the soul post you said "The soul is what makes us feel only from one body and not your neighbor's." Is it not instinct or 'gut feeling' as you call it that lead you to that belief. Did you hear it somewhere along the way and decide somehow that it was true? Or do you have something that could "prove" this statement?

Where would we be without our feelings and instinct? Where would we be without our intrinsic desire to explain the seemingly inexplicable? Isn't that the fun of being human?

"Everything is energy and every energy form vibrates at a certain frequency. Ideas, emotions, colours, musical notes, stars, plants, sounds all do this. So when I say ideas resonate with me it means that their frequency or waves are similar to mine and therefore is part of who I am. Einstein talks at great length about this concept."
Right, well it its pseudoscience, thankyou.

"What do you base your ideas on? In your original reply to the soul post you said "The soul is what makes us feel only from one body and not your neighbor's.""
Its based a logic. I define soul as that which defines us as conscious beings, but which isn't physical. The ONLY thing which we know FOR SURE, that defines us but isn't physical is the fact I see out of my eyes and not your eyes. So its a minimal definition of the soul, if there are other things which define us but aren't physical (which I doubt, but maybe) then we can say the soul is also that. No feeling here.

"Where would we be without our feelings and instinct? Where would we be without our intrinsic desire to explain the seemingly inexplicable? Isn't that the fun of being human?"
Of course, we must no reject our instincts, or we wouldn't be human. But when we are trying to determine the truth, instincts only distort our perception and blind our reason.

I don't know what to say DT. Only if you are likely to extend yourself beyond your idea of logical reasoning will you ever be able to relate to a lot of what I say and live for.

I think it is our reasoning that keeps us (humans) stuck in the reality we are in, which in my view, is a dim one. If we could turn off our brains and experience life another way, I think we would be amazed by what we would find. There are countless examples of things beyond the physical world and if you and I were in the same room perhaps I could show you something that would convince you of this. (Perhaps). But we are not so you and I are not likely to see eye to eye.

Sub-conscious is definitely a better term to describe this part of us than instinct and agree with what you say about the sub-conscious mind. Intuition would have been my choice but I know that would have put me further into the "vague" category in DT's eyes.

As far as instinct goes. I don't think that it is necessarily negative. Instinct now means going to the grocery store rather than killing a buffalo so we can eat and both are necessary for survival. IMO only from the perspective of the dark side of humanity does primal equal negative.

So to further make the distinction between instinct and sub-conscious. Let's assume for a moment we're primal beings. We're hungry and need to kill a buffalo so we can eat. Our sub-conscious mind is what connects us and leads us to the buffalo and instinct is what tells us to kill it. Does that make sense?

"this ability to take what emotions the sub-conscious gives you that you know to be truths, and decode it through meditation of the conscious mind" For me this is not a necessary step (although it definitely helps when communicating with someone who doesn't think along the same line as you). Like I have said before I think we spend too much time in the realm of, and give way too much credit to, our intellectual selves. I see the brain as a tool that should, if we are to live a life of ease, be off most of the time and only needs to be called upon to do necessary calculations, etc.)

So from that perspective, "starting to understand your sub-conscious' intentions and abilities more." is beyond our logical self and, if mastering this realm is the goal, its involvement should be minimal.

"This will not only give you strength in your beliefs and statements, but permit you to discuss your "feelings" with far more certainty."

If my goal here was to convince everyone that "my way is the only way" then I definitely would need to change my approach. I am here to listen to other people's perspectives, to challenge people and to be challenged. Being challenged makes us question our beliefs, look at them from other perspectives, and in the end, if it is still to be our belief, polish and solidify them; if it is not to be, alter our perspective accordingly.

" There are a great many things in this world that differentiate me from you, including our physical bodies and characteristics."
Sorry I wasn't clear, those things are irrelevant to what I am saying (its hard to express this).

What I am trying to say, is that you could have been born in my "body" (if we can call it that), you could have known the world as I saw it, and vice versa. But for some reason, you are bound to your body, not mine for some arbitrary reason (and even if we pretend we are all connected somehow, you know as self-evident that you are more closely bound to your body then anyone elses).

Thus I call that soul, because granted we are all different, so I can differentiate 2 people. But how do I differentiate the "me" and the rest? There is no physical reason for me to differentiate me from the rest, because although the rest is physically different from me, me and the rest are no more and no less different then 2 other people picked at random. Basically, I am saying, how do you know what is me? Physical characteristics are irrelevant, even if (hypothetically) you are I were completely identical, we would still be able to differentiate each other (even if no one else could).

Thus we differentiate the "me" and the "everybody else" without resorting to physical differences.

thought -" IMO only from the perspective of the dark side of humanity does primal equal negative. "
Primal is useless for trying to find truth, that is all. I am not saying its always useless.

"Our sub-conscious mind is what connects us and leads us to the buffalo and instinct is what tells us to kill it. Does that make sense?"
Why is looking for a buffalo sub-conscious?

Why is looking for a buffalo sub-conscious?

It's not entirely a sub-conscious action but if we are listening beyond our conscious brain, we could connect and therefore be lead to the buffalo.

Are you saying that as we hunt buffalo we psychically connect to them to know where they are?

I'm not saying we all necessarily do that but that we definitely can. Psychically connecting to the buffalo itself, I would think, would be a farely advanced method but that would be one way. I don't know how else to describe it other than intuition. You just know, on some level, a level beyond the logical brain, where the buffalo is.

It's like, for me, when I'm lost and trying to find an address in a new city, the more in my brain I am, the more lost I get, and the more frustrated and anxious I become. As soon as I get out of my brain and just relax and drive where my sub-conscious pulls me, I find it. The more I trust that process, the faster I get there.

Or when I am just about to go to the phone to call my friend and the phone rings and there she is. That to me would be more in the classification of a psychic connection. I can't even count the amount of times I have called or ran into someone and they've said "I was just thinking about you" or vice versa.

There are countless examples of where this can play a part in our lives. We have the power to create just about anything, if our intention is right, and if we stop letting our logical self, our ego, interfere.

"I'm not saying we all necessarily do that but that we definitely can. Psychically connecting to the buffalo itself, I would think, would be a farely advanced method but that would be one way. I don't know how else to describe it other than intuition. You just know, on some level, a level beyond the logical brain, where the buffalo is."
Have you done this before?

"It's like, for me, when I'm lost and trying to find an address in a new city, the more in my brain I am, the more lost I get."
Sometimes I get lost and lost and lost some more. If what you are saying were true, toddlers should never get lost because they have no logic.

"We have the power to create just about anything, if our intention is right, and if we stop letting our logical self, our ego, interfere."
If that were true, the indians would have conquered us, not the other way around.