Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
Is that why you feel it cant be known?
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Does the Soul Exist?
- Thread starter TruePathFinder
- Start date
Is that why you feel it cant be known?
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
No, the reason I think it can't be known is because Baha'u'llah wrote that the soul is a mystery:
“Thou hast asked Me concerning the nature of the soul. Know, verily, that the soul is a sign of God, a heavenly gem whose reality the most learned of men hath failed to grasp, and whose mystery no mind, however acute, can ever hope to unravel. It is the first among all created things to declare the excellence of its Creator, the first to recognize His glory, to cleave to His truth, and to bow down in adoration before Him. If it be faithful to God, it will reflect His light, and will, eventually, return unto Him. If it fail, however, in its allegiance to its Creator, it will become a victim to self and passion, and will, in the end, sink in their depths.” Gleanings, pp. 158-159
“Verily I say, the human soul is, in its essence, one of the signs of God, a mystery among His mysteries. It is one of the mighty signs of the Almighty, the harbinger that proclaimeth the reality of all the worlds of God. Within it lieth concealed that which the world is now utterly incapable of apprehending.” Gleanings, p. 160
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
I guess soul for you is spirit to me. I see the soul as the sum our personality and who we are as people. That is knownable if one seeks to know more about themselves inwardly. Spirit is the energy (actual energy) that is vital for a living beings function, action, and growth. We are learning more about what makes a life become life-what second do we call life, life-and many shoud it as the spark of god.
A lot of things we dont know about ourselves, we attribute it to something grander (say god), more deep intelligence and profound wisdom of self (The Buddha's Dharma), general meditation experiences, as well as syncronized events we say are blessings.
Take away Bahaullah's words, culture of the Indies, and faith of the newer age, what does one have left.
No one wants to talk about
Thats the nature of the soul. Gotta be willing to look into it though. But your faith doesnt support that. Not many god-religions do. To me, thats unfortunate.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Soul and spirit are just descriptors. The human spirit is the same thing as the soul.
Saying that the soul is a mystery simply means we will never fully understand its nature, what it is comprised of, etc., but we can still talk about its functions.
Guy Threepwood
Mighty Pirate
We preserve all our memories, experiences to the extent we can, why would God choose to discard everything we have experienced?
YmirGF
Bodhisattva in Recovery
Don't need to.
I've explored the subject extensively. Though I have deep respect for science I do believe they have a few more surprises to unravel in the future that will explain much.
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Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
Soul and spirit are just descriptors. The human spirit is the same thing as the soul.
Saying that the soul is a mystery simply means we will never fully understand its nature, what it is comprised of, etc., but we can still talk about its functions.
If we looked onto ourselves, we find our nature so we can align our functions accordingly. I am creative, but without knowing my family history, natural tendency, and passion as an artist, to broadly use the term, I wouldnt know how to be and do me.
Aka. If you dont know god than whatever you do (your functions) could mean just about anything.
We know our soul/personality/nature when we are intuned with self, have a healthy functioning brain, and foundation. Its not overnight. Spirit, by definition, isnt our personality, nature, or soul.
Soul is our nature
Spirit is our function
Some say the soul is of or from (or a sign) of god
Some say the holy spirit is the function of god
There are differences. I do know the nature. Knowing the nature is easier but applying the function of it, takes time and patience and reflection.
Show me any evidence that comes from someone without a religious belief or agenda regarding this. And show me any evidence for a soul existing. True we will unlikely agree.
godnotgod
Thou art That
Via consciously directed and concerted focusing, the brain responds, in part by outputting alpha waves. So it's not that the 'mind' is controlling anything. The brain response, along with deeper, slower, and rhythmic breathing, as well as a slower heart beat. What we call 'mind' is not separate from the brain in the sense that it is a controller of the object 'brain'. The shift in consciousness from action to inaction simply results in the slowing down of brain and other functions. It is not 'mind' that is doing anything; consciousness is awakened and simply watches, revealing the illusory nature of a separate 'mind' from the reality it objectifies. This subject/object split merges at some point in the meditative process. This is called 'yoga'.
"Yoga is the cessation of all of the activities of the mind"
Yoga Sutras by Patanjali
I was merely responding to the comment by Unveiled Artist, who essentially stated that the brain controls everything. In the example you gave above, the brain is simply responding automatically to stimulus. What I am really saying is that consciousness set it up that way, so it needn't have to continuously deal with things like heart beat, digestion, breathing, etc. and focus instead on what is up front, like a tiger in the bush ready to spring, something we inherited from our jungle ancestors. IOW, consciousness stores these types of automatic and autonomic responses in the brain, or other areas of the body, as you pointed out. Consciousness is what people here are referring to as 'soul', or 'spirit', but I intend the meaning as a universal, rather than a localized sense.
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godnotgod
Thou art That
Perhaps 'soul' is not so much an encapsulated entity as in 'thing' for which 'evidence' exists to demonstrate it's existence in the ordinary way in which other 'things' can be so proven to exist, but rather simply a state of conscious awareness that is transcendent of individual 'self', a state of awareness that is the experience of 'soul', but not A soul. I am equating 'soul' with consciousness and spiritual awareness. They're all really the same thing. The important thing is that it is an AWAKENED consciousness, and not a conditioned one, otherwise known as 'Identification', ie; the belief that there is something called 'I' that exists and with which many identify with as themselves. 'Soul' then, is not existence in Time and Space as an individual self, but rather Being not in Time or Space as an individual self which can or cannot be subject to proof of its 'existence'. Being does not require an individual 'self' or 'soul', but since one in that state of awareness must sill live and function in the world of conditioned reality, he must utilize such trappings like schedules and appointments in time and space. However, the difference between awakened consciousness and conditioned consciousness is that awakened consciousness KNOWS the self of Identification is a fiction, and his true nature is that of awakened consciousness, or Being.
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godnotgod
Thou art That
The soul is not some thing apart from our personality and the sum total of our experiences.
The soul is our personality and the sum total of our experiences.
But isn't the nature of 'soul' universal to all things, 'all things' just being the differences in form, while personality, or individual self, is unique to each form? For example, each snowflake is unique, but all are composed of universal water. 'Soul' is that essence deep down that does NOT change; that has no form; that is Unborn, Unconditioned, and Undifferentiated, and is therefore universal to all things. In being Unborn, Unconditioned, and Undifferentiated, it is empty of self but it is conscious, and that consciousness is none other than soul.
The 'soul' that you have/are, is the same soul present in all things. Some just want to sculpt it into an individual and unique thing, as in 'my' soul vs. 'your' soul. It's a fiction. Personality is just decoration.
Let us not confuse 'things' with 'form'.
....and let's not attempt to encapsulate essence into a limited 'thing' with form in order to make it palatable to the rational mind, when it is something beyond the reach of the rational mind.
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Whatever one believes about any nature of consciousness and of our identity, to my mind it all ceases when we die, so no place for a soul to exist. I can understand why many believe differently and we will all have to disagree, just like how I don't believe in any religion, I can accept that many do.
The soul is not some thing apart from our personality and the sum total of our experiences.
The soul is our personality and the sum total of our experiences.
Perhaps we will have to disagree on the terminology then.
How are you getting on with the house situation? I've been motivated to make war on the weeds in my garden - not me personally - I got some soldiers in to fight the battle.
Regarding this article, from October 2014, perhaps it shows that even those born with some intelligence and professionally involved in medicine will still be deceitful when it promotes their views and their writing:
What heaven's really like - by a leading brain surgeon who says he's been there: Read his testimony before you scoff...it might just shake your beliefs | Daily Mail Online
Firstly, this comment on the article:
To all the people waving their hands in the air and screaming "praise Jesus" you may want to read the articles about this man in Esquire and Forbes. Firstly, he had been sacked from various hospitals for malpractice, and on at least two occasions had forged medical records to cover this up. Secondly, his coma was medically induced and, according to the doctors treating him, he DID have brain function. In fact he was conscious and apparently hallucinating. Lastly, he has written a book about his supposed experience which is being gobbled up by religious nuts everywhere... making him a tidy profit. So yeah, this man is demonstrably dishonest and anyone who believes his nutty story needs to spend a few years dribbling in a padded cell.
'Proof of Heaven' doctor Eben Alexander faced $3million malpractice lawsuit | Daily Mail Online
And my comments:
Firstly, scientists do not have a full understanding of the brain, consciousness, and when death actually occurs. It is still relatively recently that those in vegetative states have been shown to have consciousness, so it is almost certain that he wasn’t actually dead. Secondly, this just conforms to his particular religious upbringing - did he not see any Muslims, or even atheists (shudder) there?
What is unique in my case is that I am, as far as scientific records show, the only person to have travelled to this heavenly dimension with the cortex in complete shut-down, while under minute observation throughout. There are medical records for every minute of my coma, and none of them show any indication of brain activity. In other words, as far as neuroscience can say, my journey was not something happening inside my head.
Plenty of scientists have a lot of difficulty with this statement. My experience undermines their whole belief system. But the one place I have found ready acceptance is in church, where my story often tallies with people’s expectations.
Yes, including your expectations of what Heaven would be like! And see above about not actually being dead.
Heaven is as vast, various and populated as earth is ... in fact, infinitely more so. But in all this vast variety, there is not that sense of otherness that characterises our world, where each thing is alone by itself and has nothing directly to do with the other things around it. Nothing is isolated in Heaven. Nothing is alienated. Nothing is disconnected. Everything is one.
But it isn't on Earth either, everything is connected, we just don't often see the connections.
It was as if I could hear the grace and elegance of the airborne creatures, and see the spectacular music that burst out of them. Even before I began to wonder who or what they were, I understood that they made the music because they could not contain it. It was the sound of sheer joy.
The sheer joy of all animal life going about their daily business of eating those lower down the food chain? I sometimes wonder if the creationists have such a ferocious opposition to evolution because of any association with the rest of the food chain, where it is essentially a free-for-all concerning whether a species survives or perishes. Life is tough and often short, especially at the bottom of the ladder.
No doubt plenty more where that came from.
What heaven's really like - by a leading brain surgeon who says he's been there: Read his testimony before you scoff...it might just shake your beliefs | Daily Mail Online
Firstly, this comment on the article:
To all the people waving their hands in the air and screaming "praise Jesus" you may want to read the articles about this man in Esquire and Forbes. Firstly, he had been sacked from various hospitals for malpractice, and on at least two occasions had forged medical records to cover this up. Secondly, his coma was medically induced and, according to the doctors treating him, he DID have brain function. In fact he was conscious and apparently hallucinating. Lastly, he has written a book about his supposed experience which is being gobbled up by religious nuts everywhere... making him a tidy profit. So yeah, this man is demonstrably dishonest and anyone who believes his nutty story needs to spend a few years dribbling in a padded cell.
'Proof of Heaven' doctor Eben Alexander faced $3million malpractice lawsuit | Daily Mail Online
And my comments:
Firstly, scientists do not have a full understanding of the brain, consciousness, and when death actually occurs. It is still relatively recently that those in vegetative states have been shown to have consciousness, so it is almost certain that he wasn’t actually dead. Secondly, this just conforms to his particular religious upbringing - did he not see any Muslims, or even atheists (shudder) there?
What is unique in my case is that I am, as far as scientific records show, the only person to have travelled to this heavenly dimension with the cortex in complete shut-down, while under minute observation throughout. There are medical records for every minute of my coma, and none of them show any indication of brain activity. In other words, as far as neuroscience can say, my journey was not something happening inside my head.
Plenty of scientists have a lot of difficulty with this statement. My experience undermines their whole belief system. But the one place I have found ready acceptance is in church, where my story often tallies with people’s expectations.
Yes, including your expectations of what Heaven would be like! And see above about not actually being dead.
Heaven is as vast, various and populated as earth is ... in fact, infinitely more so. But in all this vast variety, there is not that sense of otherness that characterises our world, where each thing is alone by itself and has nothing directly to do with the other things around it. Nothing is isolated in Heaven. Nothing is alienated. Nothing is disconnected. Everything is one.
But it isn't on Earth either, everything is connected, we just don't often see the connections.
It was as if I could hear the grace and elegance of the airborne creatures, and see the spectacular music that burst out of them. Even before I began to wonder who or what they were, I understood that they made the music because they could not contain it. It was the sound of sheer joy.
The sheer joy of all animal life going about their daily business of eating those lower down the food chain? I sometimes wonder if the creationists have such a ferocious opposition to evolution because of any association with the rest of the food chain, where it is essentially a free-for-all concerning whether a species survives or perishes. Life is tough and often short, especially at the bottom of the ladder.
No doubt plenty more where that came from.
godnotgod
Thou art That
Again, when the TV set goes kerputt, does the TV signal die as well?
Not a good analogy for me, since we do know all about where the TV signal comes from - a human creation - I haven't come across anything in my life to shift my views on religions, life after death, existence of the soul, etc. I can accept I might be entirely wrong but I live and presumably will die believing that - just lack of any substantial evidence to believe any of this.
Some relevance perhaps:
Inspired to Believe: The Connection between Inspirational Experiences and Belief in God
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-06-brain-spiritual.html
Spiritual experiences can be religious in nature or not, such as feeling of oneness in nature or the absence of self during sporting events.
Or even in a love-at-first-sight experience perhaps, where the same sort of dissolution of the self seems to occur, since I have experienced this. Perhaps my only 'spiritual' experience - but not leading to anywhere unfortunately.
Inspired to Believe: The Connection between Inspirational Experiences and Belief in God
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-06-brain-spiritual.html
Spiritual experiences can be religious in nature or not, such as feeling of oneness in nature or the absence of self during sporting events.
Or even in a love-at-first-sight experience perhaps, where the same sort of dissolution of the self seems to occur, since I have experienced this. Perhaps my only 'spiritual' experience - but not leading to anywhere unfortunately.
Here's two of a hundred examples I could give you that in the cumulative has convinced me that something not understood by the 'brain is everything' theory is indeed going on.
Example 1: An elderly woman had been blind since childhood. But, during her NDE, the woman had regained her sight and she was able to accurately describe the instruments and techniques used during the resuscitation her body. After the woman was revived, she reported the details to her doctor. She was able to tell her doctor who came in and out, what they said, what they wore, what they did, all of which was true. Her doctor then referred the woman to Moody who he knew was doing research at the time on NDEs.
I myself have come to believe the interpenetrating physical and non-physical bodies can separate upon trauma and death.
Example 2: In another instance a woman with a heart condition was dying at the same time that her sister was in a diabetic coma in another part of the same hospital. The subject reported having a conversation with her sister as both of them hovered near the ceiling watching the medical team work on her body below. When the woman awoke, she told the doctor that her sister had died while her own resuscitation was taking place. The doctor denied it, but when she insisted, he had a nurse check on it. The sister had, in fact, died during the time in question.
As I said, the cumulative weight of so many cases has convinced me beyond reasonable doubt.
Thermos aquaticus
Well-Known Member
Would you say that it is the brain that is focusing, and as part of that focus is produces alpha waves?
Thermos aquaticus
Well-Known Member
Where is the evidence that these events actually occurred and aren't made up stories?