What Is The Soul? 13 Possible Definitions

[highlander]

The following link is to a 5 minute video of a number of experts describing what they think the soul is. There is a transcription below the video. I've list a few examples but you have to go to the article for the whole list. Do any of them resonate with you?

What Is The Soul?

Oprah: What is the soul?

Iyanla Vanzant: The soul, I believe, is the fingerprint of God that becomes a physical body. I believe that. It's the fingerprint... It's unique to everybody.

Deepak Chopra: The soul is the core of your being. It is eternal. It doesn't exist in space/time. It's a field of infinite possibilities, infinite creativity. It's your internal reference point with which you should always be in touch.

DeVon Franklin: The soul is the spirit. It is the connecting line to God. I believe the soul is where the Holy Spirit resides. I believe that it is literally, you know, when you pick up the phone and then you have your 4G network? The soul is the 4G network right to heaven to me.

Sarah Ban Breathnach: The soul is the spiritual essence of who we really are.

Daniel Pink: The soul is, I think, our capacity to see that our lives are about something more than simply the day to day, and that we're here for a purpose. It could be connected to religion or not, but that there is a purpose of your being here.

Jean Houston: I believe that the soul is the essence of who and what we are. I personally believe that it transcends our leaving this mortal coil. And I think it it comes with codes, and possibilities, and the next layers of who and what we may yet be. It is often a pain in the neck because it says, "Wake up. It's time to wake up. Don't go to sleep." I think it is also the lure of our becoming. That's what I think the soul is.

 

[five sounds]

this is cool. posting as a bookmark. thanks [MENTION=8936]highlander[/MENTION].

 

[Firebird 8118]

Hmm - Deepak Chopra (whose works I admire) and Sarah Ban Breathnach's definitions of the soul come very close to mine. I believe that the soul is our true self, which resides within a material body. The relationship between the soul and the body is sort of like that of a driver and his car: the driver depends on the car to take him wherever he needs to go, and the car acts according to the will of the driver.

 

[indra]

The soul is a notion toward essentialism.

Our selves are primed for these attitudes: ever since birth, I've been me.

Thus, our soul is born.

I think it may have been said best in Cloud Atlas, our lives are not our own.

 

[Chthonic]

I'm happy with Daniel Pink's definition.

 

[johnnyyukon]

The soul is like this thing, ya know?




You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.

The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.

The more you suffer, the more soul you earn. The best music comes from heroin addicts and such. Or people that have been through some other kind of wringer.

I gave her my heart but she wanted my soul.

Until you know that life is interesting - and find it so - you haven't found your soul. ~Geoffrey Fisher

Find out who you are and be that person. That's what your soul was put on this Earth to be. Find that truth, live that truth and everything else will come.
~Ellen DeGeneres


A beautiful woman delights the eye; a wise woman, the understanding; a pure one, the soul.
~Minna Antrim

The soul is that thing that tells you if you’re on the right path, or wrong path. Choose to ignore it, and things may get shitty.

 

[Firebird 8118]

The soul is like this thing, ya know?




You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.

The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.

The more you suffer, the more soul you earn. The best music comes from heroin addicts and such. Or people that have been through some other kind of wringer.

I gave her my heart but she wanted my soul.

Until you know that life is interesting - and find it so - you haven't found your soul. ~Geoffrey Fisher

Find out who you are and be that person. That's what your soul was put on this Earth to be. Find that truth, live that truth and everything else will come.
~Ellen DeGeneres


A beautiful woman delights the eye; a wise woman, the understanding; a pure one, the soul.
~Minna Antrim

The soul is that thing that tells you if you’re on the right path, or wrong path. Choose to ignore it, and things may get shitty.

I like this explanation thanks for sharing!

 

[Ene]

I believe that people are three part beings, part eternal (Spirit), part temporal (body) and part a mix between the two (Soul).

First, there is the Spirit (Shen). Our spirits are eternal and non-corporeal. They are the truest and purest part of us. They retain eternal knowledge that is veiled or hindered upon entering a corporeall body. We may be awake or asleep to our true nature, but we are all Spirits. Spirits can neither be created nor destroyed. We are energy beings at our core.

Second, there is the body, or the vechile that transports the spirit during its journey through the mortal realm. The body is limited and fragile in comparison to the spirit but without it we can't operate in this physical world.

Thirdly, there is the soul, which retains our earthly intelligence, our temporal memories, our basic emotions and our current life force, sometimes called Chi. Unless the spirit remains in the body Chi cannot flow and if Chi doesn't flow, the body dies.

The soul is the result of Spirit and Flesh uniting. When a spirit leaves a body, the body decomposes, because there is no energy force to animate it. When the spirit leaves the body, it takes the knowledge of the "soul" with it. So, in a sense, the soul never dies, but eternally exists and is merged into our spirits as collective knowledge and experience. In some cases I speculate that a soul can leave some sort of energy signature behind, like an ethereal imprint or fossil do sorts, which accounts for "hauntings."

Basically, we never die. We just pass from Spirit realm to corporeal realm and back again. We cross over, we do not pass away. In the Cherokee language there is no word for good-bye because it is common knowledge that no one is ever really gone. I thought some of you might find that interesting.

 

[Evee]

I believe that people are three part beings, part eternal (Spirit), part temporal (body) and part a mix between the two (Soul).

First, there is the Spirit (Shen). Our spirits are eternal and non-corporeal. They are the truest and purest part of us. They retain eternal knowledge that is veiled or hindered upon entering a corporeall body. We may be awake or asleep to our true nature, but we are all Spirits. Spirits can neither be created nor destroyed. We are energy beings at our core.

Second, there is the body, or the vechile that transports the spirit during its journey through the mortal realm. The body is limited and fragile in comparison to the spirit but without it we can't operate in this physical world.

Thirdly, there is the soul, which retains our earthly intelligence, our temporal memories, our basic emotions and our current life force, sometimes called Chi. Unless the spirit remains in the body Chi cannot flow and if Chi doesn't flow, the body dies.

The soul is the result of Spirit and Flesh uniting. When a spirit leaves a body, the body decomposes, because there is no energy force to animate it. When the spirit leaves the body, it takes the knowledge of the "soul" with it. So, in a sense, the soul never dies, but eternally exists and is merged into our spirits as collective knowledge and experience. In some cases I speculate that a soul can leave some sort of energy signature behind, like an ethereal imprint or fossil do sorts, which accounts for "hauntings."

Basically, we never die. We just pass from Spirit realm to corporeal realm and back again. We cross over, we do not pass away. In the Cherokee language there is no word for good-bye because it is common knowledge that no one is ever really gone. I thought some of you might find that interesting.

I like this a lot.

 

[Ene]

Thank you, [MENTION=22109]Evee[/MENTION]

 

[Mole]

We are meaning creating animals so the soul is a meaning we have created.

Since the Western Enlightenment we have learnt to test any meaning we create against evidence and reason.

And testing the soul against evidence and reason we find their is no evidence the soul even exists, never mind its qualities.

So a belief in the soul is blind faith that underlies the power structure of religious institutions.

And thank heavens, not only religious institutions, but all institutions in properous and developed countries, are loosing their power to hypnotise us.

The soul is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

 

[GarrotTheThief]

This is a really cool thread. Thanks for starting it.

I would like to contribute this video which I think exemplifies how this sort of question might be answered in a symbolic way. It's an old blues song called, "What is the soul of a man(WOMAN)." I would have it be rewritten to include both genders but I think that it's implied that it does...it was written ages ago so we might excuse that nuance.

 

[Mane]

*Cough*

*Cough*

 

[PocketFullOf]

The soul is to the entirety of the person as the mind is to the brain.

 

[á´…eparted]

I find it to be a confusing and convoluted term. I don't use it, many conventions of what it "is" I simply disregard as nonsense.

Next please.

 

[Pionart]

I believe that people are three part beings, part eternal (Spirit), part temporal (body) and part a mix between the two (Soul).

...

The soul is the result of Spirit and Flesh uniting.

Interesting, I had had this idea just the other day, only I had interchanged the role of spirit and soul. I thought soul was the pure, eternal stuff we are made of. Pure consciousness. Body was the physical, lifeless stuff that just is there. Spirit is when the two combine, giving rise to the plethora of qualia and aesthetics that we experience.

You're probably more correct.

 

[Thalassa]

All of them kind of make sense, but I like the Jean Houston description. I think the soul prompts us on a different level from mere rationality. We have to have reason to survive in the physical plane, but my soul is the reason I felt at home in a lawn full of screaming Lana del Rey fans (one journalist described her concerts as a religious experience). Other people would be bored or annoyed. It's things like that, they mean something, it's how you recognize people who are on the same page, it's the thing that drives you, but it's something beyond personality. People of a similar vibration could have different personalities and serve different purposes. ..and from a Christian standpoint sure I could understand the explanation that it's that line to God, the 4G network, the place where the spirit resides. We can want things that aren't of the soul, we have that free will, but when we align to the needs of the soul it will eventually serve our highest best interest, and won't necessarily harm others, I think that's crucial, that it's kind of a love zone, but we can even twist things our soul wants into something about the ego. I think being human is this precarious balance of listening to our souls without our souls purpose becoming about the ego. That's why most people are hypocrites unless they're exceptionally advanced spiritually. I am not Hindu but am almost inclined to believe in reincarnation sometimes for that reason. Some people just seem to be old souls, people like Mother Teresa or the Dali Llama.

 

[Thalassa]

I believe that people are three part beings, part eternal (Spirit), part temporal (body) and part a mix between the two (Soul).

First, there is the Spirit (Shen). Our spirits are eternal and non-corporeal. They are the truest and purest part of us. They retain eternal knowledge that is veiled or hindered upon entering a corporeall body. We may be awake or asleep to our true nature, but we are all Spirits. Spirits can neither be created nor destroyed. We are energy beings at our core.

Second, there is the body, or the vechile that transports the spirit during its journey through the mortal realm. The body is limited and fragile in comparison to the spirit but without it we can't operate in this physical world.

Thirdly, there is the soul, which retains our earthly intelligence, our temporal memories, our basic emotions and our current life force, sometimes called Chi. Unless the spirit remains in the body Chi cannot flow and if Chi doesn't flow, the body dies.

The soul is the result of Spirit and Flesh uniting. When a spirit leaves a body, the body decomposes, because there is no energy force to animate it. When the spirit leaves the body, it takes the knowledge of the "soul" with it. So, in a sense, the soul never dies, but eternally exists and is merged into our spirits as collective knowledge and experience. In some cases I speculate that a soul can leave some sort of energy signature behind, like an ethereal imprint or fossil do sorts, which accounts for "hauntings."

Basically, we never die. We just pass from Spirit realm to corporeal realm and back again. We cross over, we do not pass away. In the Cherokee language there is no word for good-bye because it is common knowledge that no one is ever really gone. I thought some of you might find that interesting.

I like your description a lot.

 

[johnnyyukon]

I dunno, but this is what it sounds like:

Warning: Do not listen if you don't like chills up your spine.

 

[Chad of the OttomanEmpire]

I question the existence of the soul, and consequently none of those struck me as being overly profound.

If I had to guess, I'd say it was your consciousness. But blah blah.