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t st tantra

spirit v soul ,whats the difference?

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a q i've been wondering about for a while.

i currently view soul as sort of personal spirit and 'spirit' as ether/god.

drunvalo's merkaba sees ka and ba as being the 2 aspects of human spirituality,one is your eternal self and the other your 'dna' identity......the later returning to the earth spirit at death......

this is another pov.....

Shamans and Soul

We often read about the spirituality of shamans. I am not at all sure this is correct.

Psychologist James Hillman distinguishes between two basic orientations to the world, which he calls spirit and soul. Spirit, he says, is detached, objective, intense, absolute, abstract, pure, unitary, eternal. Soul, on the other hand, is mortal, earthly, low, troubled, sorrowful, melancholy, and profound. Spirit means fire and height, the center of things; soul means water and depth, peripheries, borderlands. Spirit seeks to transcend earth and body, dirt and disease, entanglements and complications, perplexity and despair. Spirit “seeks to escape or transcend the pleasures and demands of ordinary earthly life.” But soul “is always in the thick of things: in the repressed, in the shadow, in the messes of life, in illness, and in the pain and confusion of love.”

Spiritual transcendence, writes Hillman, “is more important than the world and the beauty of the world: the trees, the animals, the people, the buildings, the culture.” Spirit seeks “an imageless white liberation.” What Hillman calls spirit, Martin Buber calls, simply, religion — as he puts it, “exception, extraction, exaltation, ecstasy.” But the mystery instead dwells here, below, in the world, “where everything happens as it happens,” in the possibility of dialogue. Philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas puts this idea in theological terms: “Going towards God is meaningless,” he says, “unless seen in terms of my primary going towards the other person.”

Indeed, the transcendent orientation of spirit can be a way of escaping the messy demands of soul — a process that psychotherapist John Welwood, in a much-copied phrase, has called spiritual bypass. Buddhist meditation teacher Jack Kornfield puts the idea this way: “Many students have used meditation not only to discover inner realms and find inner balance but also to escape. Because we are afraid of the world, afraid of living fully, afraid of relationships, afraid of work, or afraid of some aspect of what it means to be alive in the physical body, we run to meditation.”

I believe it is soul, not spirit, which is the true landscape of shamanism — the landscape of suffering, passion, and mess. Shamans deal with sickness, envy, malice, conflict, bad luck, hatred, despair, and death. Indeed, the purpose of the shaman is to dwell in the valley of the soul — to heal what has been broken in the body and the community. Shamans live with betrayal, loss, confusion, need, and failure— including their own. The Amazonian shamans I have known have not had easy lives; think, for example, of the struggles and sufferings of the great Mazatec shaman María Sabina. Graham Harvey, a scholar of indigenous religions, puts it about as pithily as it can be put: “Salmon ceremonies and salmon respecting,” he says, “are about eating salmon, not about communing with symbols of transcendence.”

http://www.singingtotheplants.com/2007/11/shamans-and-soul/

t s t .

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yes they are interesting words to define and i'm sure for many people they might as well be the same word.

i liked this:

"Spirit, he says, is detached, objective, intense, absolute, abstract, pure, unitary, eternal. Soul, on the other hand, is mortal, earthly, low, troubled, sorrowful, melancholy, and profound. Spirit means fire and height, the center of things; soul means water and depth, peripheries, borderlands."

that to me might be defining them on "grade", and the most perfect centre qualified as spirit while all the periphery is soul.

i'm pretty much with you though "i currently view soul as sort of personal spirit and 'spirit' as ether/god."

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soul: local

spirit: global

the two interlinked, cyclic, accessing one through the other.

maybe.

its all good to hypothesize but to actually feel the definition is a more constructive & useful matter. instead of defining these things and then striving for them, set up the conditions for their experience & just chuck a tag on it later! saves on symbol/meaning inconsistencies.

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They are both terms.

In some usage their meanings overlap.

In others they do not.

One can have school spirit, but this is not the soul of the school so to speak.

Soul is sole, spirit is broader.

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I feel that the best way to use language is with a fluid and flexible stance. I see words like shallow vessels which gain depth when crafted with other words into giant linguistic stories, especially well thought out stories ie. books, essays, philosophies etc. The words self,ego,soul,spirit,energy,being,non-being,consciousness etc can, and often do, mean radically different things. It seems that they are like music - notes for a song, which comes to the most interesting fruition when crafted well by people who have been 'practicing' life and language. Also, a minor chord after a major sounds incredibly different than the other way around, if you know what I mean.

I reckon that we should look at words as fluid shallow vessels which can embody your thoughts/feelings as deep meaningful expressions upon particular constructions. The earth shifts and evolves, along with culture, language, and the individual. As soon as we 'nail-down' a word as absolute (complete) with a complex specific meaning it seems that we limit ourselves, our capacity to learn, evolve, go beyond.

I believe it is soul, not spirit, which is the true landscape of shamanism — the landscape of suffering, passion, and mess. Shamans deal with sickness, envy, malice, conflict, bad luck, hatred, despair, and death. Indeed, the purpose of the shaman is to dwell in the valley of the soul — to heal what has been broken in the body and the community. Shamans live with betrayal, loss, confusion, need, and failure— including their own. The Amazonian shamans I have known have not had easy lives; think, for example, of the struggles and sufferings of the great Mazatec shaman María Sabina. Graham Harvey, a scholar of indigenous religions, puts it about as pithily as it can be put: “Salmon ceremonies and salmon respecting,” he says, “are about eating salmon, not about communing with symbols of transcendence.”

t s t .

I think this idea is great. People often approach entheogens in attempts to simply dissolve their 'earthly' existence and and transcend beyond. An alternative, and incredibly related aspect, seems to be what the thinker above calls the shamanic experience of the 'soul' - landscapes of suffering, passion and mess.

Edited by mooksha

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i like carlos castaneda's term for soul......... oops,... in dutch it's 'verzamel punt' > translated it's 'focal point' .... not sure which term he uses in his books in english. but it is a more defined way of looking at what the soul is. read his books...... they are absolutely awesome! and can help make sense of many of the internal workings of the subconsious realms within is. if there was such a thing as an established psychonaut school...... his books would be a part of your education for sure.

spirit....... loosely you could say..... it's "the vibe"....... we were in good spirits....... the vibe was good.

some people use spirit and entity interchangeably.

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arent his books fictional?

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arent his books fictional?

The academic world, at large, despises him. His PhD thesis on 'personal shamanic journeying' rocked the anthropological scene in 1970, in which it was accepted as 'fact' for 6 years until two guys named Richard de Milles and Davi Noel both published work questioning Castanada's authenticity. Castaneda quickly became scrutinised, accused of fabrication (making it all up based on various ethnographies and other studies of shamanism), these days most academics don't believe that Don Juan even existed.

Castaneda's controversies gave shamanism a really bad name in anthropology and the social sciences in the late 70s, which is still felt today. Most academics these days when they see articles and what not concerning shamanism (esp. the entheogenic type) they'll usually read it through a scorned lens of the Castaneda controversies. But, regardless of whether Don Juan existed, or whether Castaneda's field notes really did get destroyed in a basement flood, what he managed to do is spark huge amounts of interest in shamanism outside the academy. Some suggest that he has been the single most influential anthropologist to introduce and encourage shamanism to the western public.

I read his works as quality fiction. Fiction based on 'fact'. It doesn't mean that his shamanic methods and perspectives are all useless and wrong, not at all. Rather, it seems that he has simply borrowed ideas from across the discipline - the only problem (for the academic world) is, he acted as if all his work emerged out of his own experiences with the illusive Don Juan.

George Orwell says that fiction is the best type of 'fact' - and I agree. 'Fact' is just fiction with flimsy rules.

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nice one mooksha :)

I've often heard of Castaneda and this Don Juan character but never could separate the bullshit from the.. non-bullshit hahha. You summed it up nice, I think I'll check out his books & any other literature of his. Do you know if it were just limited to a few books & papers? Or was this guy pumpin out the info at warp speed

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castaneda has written shit loads of books! generally they're pretty easy to come by in second hand book shops. i'd start from the first book & go through if i were you.

many of his books are brilliant. when i was a teenager & i first read them i was totally blown away by them. he seemed to put on paper many of my own deep experiences & thoughts. i took his books very literally & truly thought that don juan was real etc & formed many views about native american shamanism & reality itself based on his books & my own experiences. later when i realized he was being disshonest about don juans existence etc i was a little disillusioned & had to re-evaluate all my preconceptions of shamanism & everything.

i think many people have taken the books literally & have shaped their ideas about shamanism from them & i think that this could be dangerous for some (who may have taken it TOO literally) & off putting for many who identify with the books & feel jipped that it may not be literally true.

imo if the books are seen more as parable...an exciting story in which deep wisdom is embedded i think they can be very helpful for anyone whos looking deeper truth.

i think these books have much deep truth in them! i personally, rather than being angry that he may have been dishonest & don juan is not a real man, i respect castaneda more for the fact that this incredible wisdom has come from himself & not the enigmatic character he (probably) made up.

edit: sorry, back on topic...

Edited by xodarap

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Sorry to go a bit off direction a bit but have been holding off posting while digesting the question...

Would it be reasonable to see the soul as a karmic imprint of the past, a timeless landscape and a culmination of consciousness (and its implications), morals and goals? Almost a multilayered "journal" of life, historical, genetic and societal experiences interconnected to the self?

Spirit being the medium which links all into the alive cosmos to give oneness with all things, each other and the very source of existence?

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to me spirit is like over soul, it's the macrocosm if soul is the microcosm. it refers to the divine. i'm pretty sure that is a common approach even if it's not a mainstream definition.

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Sorry to go a bit off direction a bit but have been holding off posting while digesting the question...

Would it be reasonable to see the soul as a karmic imprint of the past, a timeless landscape and a culmination of consciousness (and its implications), morals and goals? Almost a multilayered "journal" of life, historical, genetic and societal experiences interconnected to the self?

Spirit being the medium which links all into the alive cosmos to give oneness with all things, each other and the very source of existence?

That' great, I really like it. Is it reasonable? It touches beyond reason!

When you say 'spirit links' are you suggesting that it is a kind of separate 'thing' to soul? Does the soul have spirit, in this sense?

Also, would you say that 'soul', in this sense, can be analogous with 'self'?

Cheers :)

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Hmm..

ultimately no difference, other than prescribed meaning.

words........

I rekcon neo-everythingism is where its at.

our ancient predecessors paved the way for the real work we're doin today :)

Just quietly, i reckon any perceived separation is a rabbit hole of illusion, reinforcing itself.

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When you say 'spirit links' are you suggesting that it is a kind of separate 'thing' to soul? Does the soul have spirit, in this sense?

Also, would you say that 'soul', in this sense, can be analogous with 'self'?

Cheers

:)

Would go for the two being connected to give one 'self' and that soul interacts with spirit, spirit interacts with soul... just a personal opinion

Edit: "True self is non-self, the awareness that the self is made only of non-self elements. There’s no separation between self and other, and everything is interconnected. Once you are aware of that you are no longer caught in the idea that you are a separate entity." ~ Thich Nhat Hanh seems like a simple way of going about it.

Edited by Alchemica

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I guess I kind of see it by the reflections of its effect, its taste, the way it makes you feel...and then somehow try and describe it through more easily defined terms.

Sort of like the concept of volume and weight by themselves they are missing a perspective that gives them substance and meaning, put them together and you begin to develop recognition and association. But this is still not enough until you experience it and gain its taste, its smell and its emotion (the reflection) and that's when it has an identity.

I can't identify soul and spirit but I know they exist only from there reflections.

AJ

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As I understand the soul is a corporeal body that can exist after death in aquantum physics and better reality functionally then what we know.

Fallen angels have fallen [and throw out of heaven], so not as functional as to quantum physics.

The spirit, is the decision making person.

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Demons believe in reincarnation.

Fallen angels have concinvced them that hell is not a eternal place for domination but a reincarnation outlook.

Simply like the antichrist as a baby.

Only way it could be with the experience they have except for death.

So a corporal body promised [incarnated in a human baby] and they get a running start as domination evil.

False, but similiar to Scientologists without demons.

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Soul includes Spirit (Hebrew = Nefesh= breath, movement)

For example, Soul is unmoveing (cf immobile), spirt is the perception aspect

b/w soul & object (inert consciousness)

Simple!

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