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Where Is My Soul?
Category
God
Fellow blogger Tom Stine raised a very interesting point in his latest post titled Who Is In Control?
If we accept the idea that our soul is part of us just like our mind and body, then we should be able to look within and find ourselves as a soul, right?
Temple of the Clouds by Marc Adamus
What’s peculiar, however, is that when we “look within” to find the soul, we don’t really find anything. 
I commented about this on Tom’s blog, but since it’s such an interesting realization, I’d like to extend the conversation here by coming at the soul from another angle, as well as hear your ideas regarding the existence of the soul.
When I look inside to find the smallest aspect of my body, an atom or a proton for example, I wouldn’t necessarily be able to detect it just by “looking within,” but that wouldn’t necessarily negate the existence of a collection of atoms within me, just because I can’t see it.
There’s a limit to what I can detect by looking within, but not noticing something is different from that thing’s non-existence, no?
Scientifically we know, at least according to our current understandings, that everything is energy, or sometimes called vibrating strings. Yet if we were to look within and feel for this particle of energy, we couldn’t see it, even if we were to feel energetic and alive in the moment.
The Self seems to be beyond the experience of our five senses, but that doesn’t mean it does or doesn’t exist.
The whole idea of experiencing the unexperiencable, achieving the unachievable seems silly when we get down to it, which is what enlightenment is all about.
You can’t “become enlightened” or “become the Self,” only strip away all false ideas about that which you mistakenly believed to be and thus realize what you truly are and always have been this whole time.
So if were to look within and find a soul, I may not be able to see it, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. Perhaps the soul itself is the one looking and thus anything “else” it looks at is something other than itself.
It’s a lot like people looking for God when it turns out they are God and so it’s God looking outside itself for itself. The seeker is that which is being sought.
Spiritual and religious theory aside, there are two experiences which come to mind when I seek to “find” my soul: Out of body experiences and past life regressions.
1) Out of Body experiences
I’ve had a spontaneous out of body experience in meditation which seem to be induced by a feeling of total let go and surrender. In that experience, there’s a sense of “me,” a localized non-physical awareness that literally rises above this physical body and looks down from above. It is in no way tied to the physical body, nor does it move in a way that would be limited by the physical body, yet it still feels like an individualized “me” who is separate from and witness to the room around and the body below. As soon as a thought arises in the mind such as, “Whoa, this is so cool!,” that’s a trigger that sends this “me” back into the physical body people call Ariel.
So from this experience, if we could call this localized non-physical floating individual a “soul,” that’s the best I could do at pointing to it in my own direct experience.
2) Past life regressions
The following is less concrete because it can be written off as pure imagination, but take it as you will.
I have a friend who’s certified in NLP and hypnotherapy. In guided meditation, he led me through the experience of relaxing, going up the tunnel towards the white light, and through a set of doors which I intuitively select as the one to enter, which leads me “into” a “past” life. In the life I selected, I was experiencing “myself” as a woman in Egypt, in a desert house with a view of the Pyramids. The details are not too important for this discussion, but in terms of looking at a soul, I could say that there is a localized sense of self, limited yet simultaneously boundless, that travels from this body we call “Ariel” into another body in another lifetime.
Awareness itself has no capacity for memory and is not at the effect of emotions or anything else in physical reality, yet there is still a sense of non-physical separate self which does interact with whichever body or mind it is current associated with. This non-physical sense of self I would call the soul.
The soul, much like awareness itself, seems to be finite yet boundless. It’s a lot like looking for the limits to awareness itself and not finding it, yet simultaneously not being aware of what’s happening in a neighboring country in this moment. It’s experientially boundless, but not omnipresent and omniscient.
What do you think? Can you find your soul? We can point to our bodies and minds, but if a soul also makes up our existence as an individual being in this lifetime, how would we locate our soul? By looking for auras or energy? Through some other means?
Can you find your soul?
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11 Responses to “Where Is My Soul?”
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I concur ariel
It’s like… the eye , looking for the eye.
It’s like… the water… searching for the water.
If we could notice anything, it would have to be seperate from ourselves. Our soul IS the one looking, expending spiritual nrg to locate itself.
Maybe if we stopped searching and started just letting ourselves be, we would realise we’re already are what we are looking for.
I know… i know.. it’s be said before.
:P
A
Anthonys last blog post..Song – “Sapphire”
Ariel Bravy Reply:
October 22nd, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Anthony, how’d you get so smart?
My soul is not ‘in’ me, which is why it can’t be found by looking within.
It is me.
It is all that I am, ever was, and ever will be.
It is the essence of the all.
Although I can’t look within and see it, I can look within and know it.
But only through true knowing.. which is heart-based.
Most people are mainly in tune with head/mind knowing, not heart knowing… which is completely different :-)
We are all here to evolve and grow our own soul… and that can only be done when we live in our hearts… for then we will always know what we are meant to do.
This is why we must go within- to connect with our hearts.
This is our soul’s desire.
-Wendy
Ariel Bravy Reply:
October 23rd, 2008 at 3:21 am
There’s something very beautiful in your energy, Wendy. It brings tears to my eyes.
First I don’t exactly know what is ment by Soul. According to my conditioning it was presented as following: “Some kind of energy wich is “Me” after I die and that is also attached with but not in the body. After I die this is what continues, and continious the process of purification. And after some time this soul gets attached to another body/animal/plant/etc.. After having had self realisation in live it returns home to God”.
Now I’ve actually come to a point where I do not believe in the concept of a Soul as described above. I don not believe anymore in “something” that goes from one body to another to another etc untill its end.
I did let go of this concept also because I saw it fulfilled the need of me (ego) to know “I” continue after dead, so it wouldn’t have to be afraid of that. But I (ego) want to bring it to a point where it’s (ego) oké with it’s ending some time.
What do I believe in then? Conciousness/God, making and maintaining my body by some energy (Maybe like Soul as you described) which gives my body its aliveness and presence. It’s this energy that makes my body do its deeds, and this enrgy is controlled by God/Conciousness. After my body dies, this energy gets released from it’s attachement with the body and goes back into Conciousness/God. And not that it keeps floating around for some time and then after time goes back into another body.
I tries to explain it the best I could. If anyone has any questions about it, shoot.
Ariel Bravy Reply:
October 23rd, 2008 at 9:32 am
I see, Scarface. So reincarnation doesn’t fit into your model?
Scarface Reply:
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:09 pm
That’s correct, no reincarnation (in the traditional sense.)
Well (in this “model”) one can say that, one is a reincarnation of ALL previous lives. Since there is no seperate Soul that has previously lived the life of the now dead mr. A, but not lifed the life of the now also dead mr. B (since that was the life of some other Soul). But to me it seems more like as if One Soul (aka conciousness) has lifed ALL the previous lifes.
Past life regression is very interesting. After reading the book “Many Lives, Many Masters”, me and a friend (we were both a little experienced with NLP and hypnosis) gave it a go. Apparently, my friend was a female russian ballet dancer, and I had been a woman in the previous life as well.
Jonass last blog post..Arvo Pärt
I would like to ask some questions about this concept, that when I also used to beleive in this concept always bothered me and could not get my mind straight and satisfied about.
It’s about the numbers (of souls and people).
It went inside my mind something like this:
In the year 1000 there were about 310 million peolple on earth, and lets say twice as much souls. so 620 million souls. Now there are about 6.7 billion peolple on the earth, but then there are not enough souls to occupy the bodies aven if the turn over ratio as increased significantly.
Wel, so then God must have created new souls to keep the count of souls enough for the amount of people. But there are, according to calibrations, only like a dozen peolple enlightened. And I believe a soul only ends when it has reached enlightenment. Then how can there ever be an end of time for all current souls on this earth. I mean even if the amount of peolple on this planet stays the same, and only like about a thousand people in 10 years, reach enlightenment in their lives. Then for all current souls to reach enlightenment will take about (70 million years). But then there must have been created billions of new souls to occupy the bodies of the poeple that then currently life of this eart, there can never be an end. And then i was all confused about this concept.
So my question is, was/am I missing something in this concept as numbers concern? Or whatever else you like to comment about the thought process I had about this concept.
Ariel Bravy Reply:
October 26th, 2008 at 6:10 am
Regarding calibrations, I’m not sure Hawkins’ numbers are accurate. Sure they’re not opinion, they’re not guesses, and so on, but I’m finding there’s a lot more who have awakened to their true nature than I realized. One person has suggested that there are as many as 10,000 people so far, but that most of them aren’t in public view. In any event, Hawkins’ perspective of enlightenment makes it sound much more difficult than it is and this perception is perhaps one of the largest obstacles to awakening itself.
But that’s just a slight tangent.
As far as souls ending and what happens after you’ve completed all your karma on the earth plane, I’ve heard a whole number of different plausible theories I could bring up, but to be perfectly honest, I just don’t know.
Jasper Reply:
October 26th, 2008 at 11:29 am
I differentiate between Soul and Spirit.
The Spirit is the Spark of God within, the Ever present awareness.
The Soul is a vehicle, used by the Spirit, for experience.
Its is a vehicle, that will be let go of, when it has served its purpose.
So, the Soul is an entity, made up of a very high vibing kind of matter.
Maybe one can describe it as the aura or aetheric bodies.
@Scarface: For the Soul Numbers/Population Numbers thing, I belvieve that there are Souls all over the Universe, not only on earth. So, how many Souls “are” on Earth depends on how many Souls choose to incarnate there. There are also Souls leaving earth, after their physical body dies, thus the Soul count on Earth is very variable.