I have not been finding it easy to write about soul. I’m not interested in traditions, scriptures or beliefs. If I cannot know what soul is from direct experience, then why should I care about it? I liked what Jim wrote in his comment to Sunday’s blog:
Soul is Pure desire for life. Even in the body, it remains Pure, no matter how corrupt one gets. This Pure Soul (desire for Life) comes from that continuity that I spoke of experiencing, it is a ‘portion’ of that whole.
Life. Yes, to be clothed in flesh. But I don’t remember desiring life. I only remember having it. So I would say that soul is the desire to Live, and the pure feeling of life.
PS I wonder if this answers the question posed in an earlier post: Do fish have souls? To the extent that they have the desire to live (which in human beings goes beyond mere survival), perhaps they have a soul. An immortal individual soul? Ah, that is another matter.
a wayfarer’s notes 
I will come back to this Post tonight, hopefully it will be available, and follow and read and see the links. But for the moment let me give my opinion on the subjects broached right here, please. Fish have souls, called Nephesh. Living beings have 'experiences'. The body of one is not the experience, the 'life' is the experience, and that life is 'recorded' in the 'whole' soul of which one little portion, is a part of. I cannot speak with any authority about this, only what I 'think' about it. From experience of life, certain thots and conclusions are drawn, knowledges. These are kept, out of them the rest could be reconstructed. The life, in its' details could be resurrected. There is no memory of beginning and ending because there is no beginning and ending in the soul, it is a 'continuity continuous'. So there is no memory conscious of it. Conscious parallels Soul, metaphorically, like but different and separate, this is like saying energy becomes matter, and matter can and does turn back into energy, they are not the same, yet they are but when energy is matter, it is very separate from pure energy. Pure energy has its inherent distinctions, matter is the most gross of those distinctions, a temporary state more so than the less-gross, perhaps.
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This space and time is (according to the Hopi and Maya among others) the fourth world that is the pinnacle of materialism, the age of matter. Life was, in my perception, initially entirely spiritual to become what it is now by the involvement of races such as the Atlanteans, Lemurians and Hyper Boreans. These are civilizations that people of today tend to place on a pedestal, because the myths concerning their supposed achievements were intentionally promoted (or notably never contradicted) by administrations, official religions and science, while the same organizations concealed other information regarding the influence of these races on life on earth or disinformed the world of these matters. But when, in the beginning, life was entirely spiritual, beings were not souls trapped in vehicles of flesh and bones and blood, free to exist in and travel to any space and time – there existed only souls.
The Cathars believe souls are trapped into the life and forms familiar to us when life is conceived. It is, by the way, the only principle of the Cathars I agree with for the time being.
We who live in the affluent west, have the luxury to conjure more or less idealistic views on what souls may be, but where and when we are born is an accident of life. People who enter this world and spend their lives in areas where there has been war or poverty for many consecutive generations, will probably have less enlightened visions on these matters. It is a shared responsibility, part of which is ours. There was no division or separation when life was entirely spiritual; these came about when matter formed and materialistic ways of life fragmented everything there is in discrete quanta.
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I understand what Rageofreason says here. No problem but a few disagreements, in short, it takes too much away from Soul as a Life form greater than the 'poor model' exhibited in 'matter', Life as we know it in body is a 'model', a poor one, and the Soul is everything and more, and better than is indicated here in matter and in this rageofreason synopsis.
For instance, the Soul does have divisions but they are not 'gross' divisions, they are integrated seamlessly but they are real divisions. There are 'individual' forms of 'being' inside the General Soul, and so separate lives with bodies that are made of the material appropriate to that particular division, I will tell you that I have witnessed this first hand. I am not interested in convincing, just saying, have your opinions about that last statement.
Any thing that has ever happened to any life anywhere in any time or phase or stage, can be 'reproduced' in soul and re-lived, or remembered in full context and content, but with a different 'knowing'.
Everyone, born into this world is purposefully placed, there is no accident at all of any kind. There is less or more purpose for this or that 'place', that is not a human concern, that is a Soul function. Soul has purpose in every part, and in general, long term, it is not just hanging in one place doing nothing but generating inside itself for no great reason, there is a great reason, all life is a part of that reason, from that the smaller continuums are reduced, yet they are integrated knowingly before hand and recorded afterwards, remembered.
Total intelligence, total purpose, total recall, total function, even the stars are a part, a grain of dust is a part, all is known forever, should it be recalled, it will exist.
For some God is only mechanical and functional mindlessly. There are some pecularities to God, I am thinking of doing a post about them.
Much of what is said by people, are envisioned from this side of life, not the soul side. So it is tainted with point of view from a physcial body standpoint. You can hear it in the descriptions, I can, and I call this 'in-house' conceiving. It starts on the ground, stays on the ground, and is always looking at the ground. It wants to perserve the ground of this life form matter, it does not want to be free of it, so it is decidedly 'in-house'. Even 'in-universe' is likewise, that is common too, ground based.
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After reading the fish post and the comments there and so on, I have one more thing I would like to say. I question the concept of 'training', learning, or achieving, as put forward for 'soul' as a task, and so giving 'purpose to life'.
I see it more as a job, each person born into any so-called 'level' or 'plane', (and those words irk me quite a bit), has a function to do there, it is always a part, an essential part of the whole of that 'place' and 'time'. In the period of being in that 'function life' the individual may 'screw up' beyond what is workable for his/her function to be fulfilled, this then requires intervention or substitution, but there is no punishment or redoing involved, no learning to be done. The thing is integrity, living in the job rightly, which is wholly meaning 'constructively in every way'. There is no job of 'destruction'. Destruction activities are an abnormality that occurs within a place, they are corrected in the whole, not in the part. Correct it in the whole, you automatically correct it in the parts. This is only a theory, I am working with it now. I am seeing some possibilities in it. Time will tell.
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I feel quite outclassed by these learned comments! I cannot imagine what a completely spiritual universe would be like, Rage. The nearest approximation would be a dream, but in dreaming we have physical experiences as available reference material. I intend to deal with your point about division and separation in my next.
'Much of what is said by people, are envisioned from this side of life, not the soul side.' I admit to being completely “tainted with the point of view of the physical”, for I do not wish to be free of matter till it is time for me to go. Though this world is a place of suffering and grossness, I am equipped for it and intend to enjoy it to the full.
Perhaps my inability to understand these esoteric ideas is a measure of my lowly status in spiritual development. But thank you so much for your comments
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It is my most profound wish to be free of matter, to exist before birth, beyond death, outside the confines of space and time where there is limit nor paradox, no reason for violence of any kind and where we blend with our source and destiny.
Esotery is merely a path through space and time, like learning is and the higher gaining of wisdom through experience. Logic of this realm is as meaningful as the platform from which it emerged. There can be entirely logical systems that have an irrational foundation (like for instance the principles of Hitler's Third Reich or any other system for that matter), even the scope of our imagination is limited by dimensions and time by our reasoning capacity that is defined by the complexity of our dna.
Conclusions we cannot arrive at using our ability to reason and visions that exist beyond the scope of our imagination contain the answers to the questions we have and those we cannot even think of.
In this plane only fragments of the Truth trickle down presenting us with puzzles that we cannot hope to solve in this life. As long as we are trapped in matter. Here and now we all exist in the reality we believe in, shaped by the logic we can apply and the imagination that our mind is capable of.
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“[Soul] is Pure desire for life”
That may be true. However, isn't it true that our desires can lead us into what Buddhists call cravings, especially with regard to the vices of greed and anger? To live is to want, but to want is to get caught up in vice. What do you think?
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jlhart7: forty-four years ago, I was seduced by the Buddhist arguments as a cure for my unhappiness, & a spiritual quest led me through strange landscapes of the soul. I don't know if they were a waste of time or good for me, but in my life that quest is now over.
In our modern western world, cravings can be explored. Greed and anger abound. No sane person will get caught up in them. All we need is sanity, and I am not sure that Buddhism helps us attain that. As far as I see, everyday life, especially amongst people on the margins who have not bought in to the great illusions of the day, offers us wisdom aplenty to navigate this “vale of tears”.
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Rage, there is a ring of truth in what you say. I intend to write about esoteric knowledge in a post here soon, not that I am deep into it like you. But you and I are different. Each day I wake with a hunger for this world: not a craving, as jlhart7 suggests, for the sin of craving is to desire one thing to the exclusion of others. I have my preferences, certainly. I prefer clouds to crowds.
My philosophy of life has recently become like that of Zorba the Greek: to live each day as if it were my last, and also to live each day as if I could live for ever.
I would like to understand how it is that you feel so trapped in this life. Perhaps I do understand, a bit. You have that yearning for the infinite life, and you are recognising it honestly. I salute you.
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Hullo Vincent, perhaps you had unreasonable expectations from “Buddhism” in your youth. This “ism”, or any “ism” – can't be a magic bullet, a quick fix, which delivers one, Boing, Wham, Cling! to “enlightenment”, after which one sails on clouds. When I hear what you say – including the Zorba the Greek mode – that's the Buddha's teaching as far as I know. The (historical)Buddha lived for about 45 years after his “enlightenment”. During this period he experienced a lot of hardships and trials. He was once also accused of rape and murder. A friend of his, a king, was imprisoned and starved by his own son. The Buddha's son predeceased him. So – no floating on clouds for anyone! But it looks like you are, really, from your love of clouds. And I'm waiting eagerly to join you in November! Best, rama
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Vincent, I am not into esoterics; I read a few books on the matter and a couple of dozens articles, but it does not fascinate me, probably because there are too many spirits involved in it that play leading roles, who do not particularly appeal to me, like Blavatsky and Crowley. There are a lot of things in the information they share that appear to make sense at first glance, but I strongly doubt the integrity of their principles.Having the desire to be free of matter does not necessarily exclude a hunger for life as you have adequately phrased it. My business in this realm of matter and time is not finished yet, and while I am here I will continue to search for the proper way to take it to the finish.
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Cravings are related with frames of mind of wanting to own, to posess, of wanting to be in a situation that is comfortable and controllable etc. If there is a desire to be free of matter, it has nothing to do with such things whatsoever.
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