What, exactly, is the soul?

[Skwim]

Well?


.​

 

[lewisnotmiller]

It's what's left of you in a non-physical sense after you die.

I like that sentence because it's probably agreeable to both hardcore materialists and hardcore theists. Don't get to say that very often.

 

[Desert Snake]

Well?


.​

The soul is the pre-existing self that inhabits the body.

 

[osgart]

The soul to me is the place in me where i feel all my loves, hates, and ambivalences, because those feelings are uniquely mine and i have to live with them. My mind is supposed to serve my soul as a place of understanding. Its all the stuff of being you cant explain in terms of matter and energy.

 

[George-ananda]

It is a body/entity that resides on a higher realm of nature. This Causal realm exists in dimensions beyond our familiar three.

 

[YmirGF]

The so-called "soul" is that aspect of personality of which the average human animal is largely unaware but does, on occasion, sense first hand. Oddly, given that it is the primary aspect of being/identity, it remains focused mainly outside of physical reality and has interests elsewhere.

 

[sayak83]

Well?


.​

In Hinduism, soul (jiva-atman) is the mass of incipient subconscious mental imprints, habits, behavioral ticks, instincts, emotional impressions etc. that accumulate over a life and transverse from one life to the next. Older impressions are embedded deeper while younger impressions overlay them. Think of the human psychological entity as the thick continental crust of earth with multiple layers of sediments and rocks overlaying each other over billions of years. In us (and all animals) these these layered impressions and instincts form the complex and dynamical entity that is the soul, where the topsoil represents merely the newest layer of the present life. For most of our lives, we (the self) lives only over the topsoil, but large life events or shocks, and uncover the deeper layers of older lives that underguard it.

Is that clear?

 

[Epic Beard Man]

Well?


.​

The incorporeal aspect of the consciousness that has dualistic properties.

 

[Epic Beard Man]

The so-called "soul" is that aspect of personality of which the average human animal is largely unaware but does, on occasion, sense first hand. Oddly, given that it is the primary aspect of being/identity, it remains focused mainly outside of physical reality and has interests elsewhere.

mighty mouse has brains!

 

[Jedster]

It's what's left of you in a non-physical sense after you die.

I like that sentence because it's probably agreeable to both hardcore materialists and hardcore theists. Don't get to say that very often.

Nice one.
Subject Of Universal Life

 

[Frater Sisyphus]

Colloquially, it is the aspect of the self connected to consciousness that exists outside of the material brain, which is known in religion to exist in some form beyond death.

 

[wizanda]

Well?

It is a dynamic evolving melody; it is a quantum matrix character.

In my opinion.

 

[Axe Elf]

According to definition 8b below, soul is synonymous with negritude.

 

[Rival]

The Divine Spark of G-d in us.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Well?


.​

Soul: Personality/Identity of a person. ("the fact of being who or what a person or thing is." Def.) Its what "holds" the thoughts and intangible traits of a persons identity.

Spirit: the intangible energy that gives the body life and keeps the body functioning.

(Edit) Our spirits are what continues to "live" through everyone after death. The soul "dies" as a persons mind stops functioning and brain deteriorates. Spirit is fancy term for energy that doesnt cease but sustains life to all.

Spirit is what people call god. It lives in our bodies and livens the soul (our mind/identity) to experience love and defines ones identity that the spirit enlightens. Spirit is what people call god. Gods spirit: its life. (See siglet)

 

[allfoak]

Our soul is an eternal being of light, sparks of the divine.
It is what people encounter when they have an NDE.
Contrary to popular belief the soul does not inhabit the body.
We are connected to our soul-self but the eternal soul is too vast to enter into the 3d world.
Our "body" consciousness is not our soul but a spark, an allegorical representation of our soul-self.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

If you dont have a body, you cant have a soul. When you dont have a soul, the mind is brain dead. When your mind doesnt work (and youre in a coma), it devoids one of consciousness/awakened mind and functioning of the spirit. Spirit still exists (consciousness of the body) but without the soul, the spirit cannot "be."

The body is what hold holds the soul (the brain to its identity and consciousness of the mind).
The soul is the actual persons identity that cant exist without the body/brain.
The spirit is the source that keeps both functioning. What people call god.

 

[`mud]

The memories of one that influences the others that knew and maybe loved us, the part of us that goes on to the Cosmos.
Maybe `gods` are there, if not.....infinity.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Well?


.​

What do you think it is?

 

[Audie]

It is a body/entity that resides on a higher realm of nature. This Causal realm exists in dimensions beyond our familiar three.

People talk about these "realms" or "planes" as if they existed, or could be detected in any way.

Making things up and stating them as fact seems so wrong to me, somehow.

Why does it not bother the "spiritual" types?