|
Register | Sign In |
|
QuickSearch
Thread ▼ Details |
|
|
Author | Topic: What is the soul? | |||||||||||||||||||
JavaMan Member (Idle past 2319 days) Posts: 475 From: York, England Joined: |
What is "separateness"? You don't ask much do you? Even if my personality is a process, fundamentally interlocked with other processes, the effect is to create the appearence of myself as a discrete entity. And it is that experience of myself as a discrete entity that is my experience of 'me'. Even if I have moments in which I am aware of my connection with the rest of the universe, even sometimes to the extent of forgetting myself entirely, this sense of connection can never be a permanent thing even for the most dedicated monk. While I'm alive the 'me-ness' will always push itself forward, must push itself forward if I'm ever to do anything. And when I'm dead, I'm dead, whether I'm an entity or a process.
And how do you mean permanent state, do you mean it's eternal? For my lifetime, of course - which I guess is eternity for me.
Fatal means it kills. What does this fatal illusion kill? The hope of seeing the world as it is. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible
|
|||||||||||||||||||
robinrohan Inactive Member |
If everything is process, what is it that's being processed?
|
|||||||||||||||||||
lfen Member (Idle past 4678 days) Posts: 2189 From: Oregon Joined: |
While I'm alive the 'me-ness' will always push itself forward, must push itself forward if I'm ever to do anything. That is the majority experience of our lives and of humanity. The Buddha said that awakening was rare. The word "sage" refers to those who claim to experience life from a non "me-ness" perspective. Revealed religions are based on some experience a self has that imparts information about some ultimate reality. Buddhism as a religion is based on the experience of an individual who discovered that there was no self, or soul and who said that that perception is true for everyone and that they might be able to see it. On the other hand you don't have to accept or be interested in it.I'll quote a brief passage from the first page of Wayne Liquorman's book Accepting What Is: ...I want to emphasize that nothing I say is the Truth. ...Truth can't be spoken. All of these words, all of these concepts are simply pointers, indicators of a Truth that is right here--that is ever-present--as clear, and as unmasked as it could possibly be. You might hear in this the opening words of Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching that the true Way is nameless but in order to talk about it he has to uses names so he calls it the Way. lfen
|
|||||||||||||||||||
lfen Member (Idle past 4678 days) Posts: 2189 From: Oregon Joined: |
If everything is process, what is it that's being processed? This is one of the best, if not the best question you've ever asked!This is a fundamental question. I'd like to hear from the physic people here for I think an answer is energy which then leads to the question: What is energy? I have chosen energy because as I understand it fundamentally all we can say about what matter is is that it can transform into energy per the E equals mc squared expression. Contemporary nondualists would most likely answer Consciousness (note the capitalization) as in Franklin Merrell-Wolff's Consciousness without an object. Merrell-Wolff and Liquorman explicitly use the word Consciousness to indicate the fundamental mystery that is happening. Ramana would have spoken of the Self (the capitalization means this refers to pure Isness and not to self as the subject experiencing the objects of human existence.) running out of time this morning. That is such an excellent question I'll be thinking about it for some time. lfen
|
|||||||||||||||||||
sidelined Member (Idle past 5908 days) Posts: 3435 From: Edmonton Alberta Canada Joined: |
Ifen
I have chosen energy because as I understand it fundamentally all we can say about what matter is is that it can transform into energy per the E equals mc squared expression. This is not correct since the equation E=Mc^2 is an equivalence expression between mass and energy. This is to say that energy and mass are two sides of the same coin.
|
|||||||||||||||||||
robinrohan Inactive Member |
This is to say that energy and mass are two sides of the same coin. Two forms of the same substance--analogous to water and ice? This message has been edited by robinrohan, 04-26-2006 02:54 PM
|
|||||||||||||||||||
riVeRraT Member (Idle past 416 days) Posts: 5788 From: NY USA Joined: |
I don't know exactly what it is, but I can tell you what I feel.
My soul is who I am, the chemical make-up of my brain, my DNA, my thoughts, whatever. It seems to me mostly physical, and can be damaged. My Spirit, wasn't awakened until about 2 years ago, and that is when I felt something different inside of me. No doubt, someone will say it is just my mind playing games with me, but that's ok. About a month and a half ago, I had a strange experience, that was probably caused by a severe migrain headache. I actually did not know who, what, or where I was, or what time of year it was. It lasted all of 1 second, and then my head was screwed up for about 2 weeks afterward. It happened the night I got a pretty bad headache. Yea, I had every test in the world done to me, from MRI's, EEG, blood work, x-rays, you name it. They never found out exactly what it was. They even thought it was a seizure, and gave me medicine for it. I took one pill, and said forget this crap. What a bad experience. The funny thing, is when that moment happened, and for that split second, I did not know who I was, but I knew my spirit. I felt like me, whoever that was, and I knew I was me, and that would not change. I think that was my spirit. The next week or so, I had trouble maintaining thoughts is my head. You know in a chess match when you think several moves in advance, well I do that on a regular basis, with everything, since I am into so much, running my own business and everything. I couldn't keep the first move in my head. The next day, I couldn't remember the easiest songs when I played in the church. I was putting wrong words in my sentences, and I knew it. But my spirit was there, and I felt like me. I was not scared, I felt like God was going to handle the situation. Funny, I felt like God was trying to show me something, maybe about my spirit, and how separate it is from the physical being? Oh and just becasue I felt like God was going to handle it, doesn't mean I should ignore technology in the least.Everything is from God anyway, so it was a learning experience to go through. From the begining, I thought they wouldn't find what was wrong, and in time I would be fine, and that is what happened. I know this is all subjective, but it's what I went through. Lol, I thought it was Christmas when I lost mind, and it was spring. Funny how I thought it was Christmas.
|
|||||||||||||||||||
lfen Member (Idle past 4678 days) Posts: 2189 From: Oregon Joined: |
Funny, I felt like God was trying to show me something, maybe about my spirit, and how separate it is from the physical being? RR, I am very interested in your experience. Experiences like you had have been recorded through history by people in different parts of the world and different religious traditions. Your experience gives you a tiny taste of what the Buddha was talking about, or what the Hindu Sages down to Ramana are talking about. This was also experienced by Christian contemplatives, Sufi mystics, etc. What I want to briefly comment on is that you moved from concepts about derived from language to direct experience of. For some individuals who experienced this there were headaches, sometimes severe, and sometimes for a prolonged period of time, but that is not a feature for all. The experiences though having typical features are individual and different. If you are interested in other's experiences I can give you some references but you may prefer to just allow your path to unfold on its own. lfen
|
|||||||||||||||||||
riVeRraT Member (Idle past 416 days) Posts: 5788 From: NY USA Joined: |
I believe it was a headache that caused it, and there was a tingling in my head for 2 weeks that followed, and headaches.
It affected my memory. I feel fully recovered from it now. My point was, I guess that even though I lost all that memory, I still had a feeling "of", or a sense of being? Which even though I couldn't relate it to anything, I knew it was me.
|
|||||||||||||||||||
fred Junior Member (Idle past 5963 days) Posts: 8 Joined: |
You are correct soul & spirit are two different things. As you stated man became a living soul, not man was given a soul. The soul is man himself. The soul can die Eze 18:4. Animals are souls Lev 24:18. The spirit is a lfe force. Before God breathed into man the breath of life he was lifeless. Ec 3:19-21 discusses what happens at deat respection both humans & animals. The spirit or life force goes out, they die. The spirit could be likened to electricity. BBy itsely electricity has no personality, when when it activates a light it glows, when turned off it goes out. So too with the spirit it is the life force in all living creatures . When it goes out the creature dies. The light does not go anywhere it simply ceases to exist.
|
|||||||||||||||||||
crashfrog Member (Idle past 1467 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
So too with the spirit it is the life force in all living creatures Living creatures do not possess a "life force." There's no such thing as "life force." Living things are animated by the chemical reactions that go on in their cells, and what drives those reactions is merely the fact that some arrangements of electrons in and between atoms are more stable than others. Aside from the chemical energy produced by the formation of chemical bonds, there's nothing that could be described as "life force." And that chemical energy is not specific to living things, but present in all chemical reactions and interactions. There's no such thing as "life force."
|
|||||||||||||||||||
fred Junior Member (Idle past 5963 days) Posts: 8 Joined: |
Call it what you like, but there is a difference between life & death. That force is the spirit
|
|||||||||||||||||||
Fosdick  Suspended Member (Idle past 5500 days) Posts: 1793 From: Upper Slobovia Joined: |
Ringo writes:
Hey, if there’s a God gene maybe there’s a soul gene. The soul must be used to be of any value. The sheep will be divided from the goats based on the value of their souls - and the value is based on how well-used their souls are. ”HM
|
|||||||||||||||||||
crashfrog Member (Idle past 1467 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Call it what you like, but there is a difference between life & death. There's a difference between water and ice, too, and it's the same difference. "Spirit" has nothing to do with it.
|
|||||||||||||||||||
Raphael Member (Idle past 463 days) Posts: 173 From: Southern California, United States Joined: |
Ok. What is the Soul?. I'm sorry to say this, but there is no SOUL.
There is no........ethereal property in man. Proof of this comes from the bible. Since there is no immediate ascention to heaven or Fall to hell upon death, (that belief is completely contrary to what the Bible teaches) there can be no soul. What i like to think of the "Soul" is just "The Breath of God". The same Breath He breathed into Adam. When we die, that leaves us. Raph Truth is still Truth, Weather One or a Thousand People believe it.
|
|
|
Do Nothing Button
Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved
Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024