The soul is as mysterious as God, and we have just as few reliable facts about it. I would offer that the first fact about the soul is that it is not really as personal as people believe. The soul doesn't feel or move; it doesn't travel with you as you go about your life, nor does it endure birth, decay, and death. This is just a way of saying that the soul stands apart from ordinary experience. Since it also has no shape, getting a mental picture of the soul isn't possible.

Instead, the soul is really a junction point between time and the timeless. It faces in both directions. When I experience myself in the world, I am not experiencing my soul, yet it is somewhere on the periphery. There is no doubt that we sense its presence, however vaguely. But it would be a mistake to think that the soul and the person are the same. My grandfather was an old man with thinning hair, prone to enthuseasm and fierce in his love for us. I have powerful memories of him, yet all his qualities and all my memories have nothing to do with his soul. Those qualities died with him, his soul did not. So the soul is like a carrier of the essence, but what is that essence like? If I can't experience my soul as an emotion, if everything I know bout myself since birth is separate from my soul, it must not be a material thing.

In other words, the soul begins at the quantum level, which makes sense since the quantum level is also our doorway to God. To go through this door isn't something we choose; participation is mandatory. In India the soul has two parts. One is called Jiva, which corresponds to the individual soul making its long journey through many lifetimes until it reaches full realization of God. When a child is taught that being good means your soul will go to heaven, it is Jiva that we are talking about. Jiva is involved in action. It is affected by our good and bad acts; it rules our conscience, and all the seeds of karma are planted inside it. The kind of person you turn out to be is rooted in Jiva, and the kind of life you make for yourself will change Jiva day by day.

The second half of the soul, called Atman, does not accompany us on any journey. It is pure and simple spirit, made of the same essence as God. Atman cannot change in any way. It never reaches God because it never left in the first place. No matter how good or bad your life, your Atman remains constant; in fact, the worst criminal and the holiest saint have the same quality of soul when it is this aspect that is in question. There is no good approximation for Atman in the West, and many people might wonder why the soul has to be divided in this way.

The answer lies at the virtual level, for we have seen that all the familiar qualities of life, such as time, space, energy, and matter, gradually fade into a shadowy existence until they disappear. But this disappearance leaves something intact--spirit itself. Jiva lives at the quantum level, Atman at the virtual. So the faintest, subtlest trace of "me" that can be detected at the quantum level is Jiva, and once it disappears, pure spirit remains--that is Atman. The distinction between them is absolutely necessary, for otherwise the path back to God would break down.

quote:

You need Jiva to remember who you are personally. You need Atman to remember yourself as pure spirit.

You need Jiva to have a reason to act, think, wish, and dream. You need Atman for the peace beyond all action.

You need Jiva to journey through time and space. You need Atman to live in the timeless.

You need Jiva to preserve personality and identity. You need Atman to become universal, beyond identity.

As you can see, even though they are melded together as "soul," these two aspects are exact opposites in many ways. Such is the paradox of the soul that it manages to accommodate itself to our world of time, thought, and action while dwelling externally in the spiritual world. The soul must be half-human, half-divine in order to give us a way to retain our identity during all the prayer, meditation, seeking, and other spiritual work that is involved in finding God, and yet the soul must have a divine aspect that embodies the goal of all seeking.

On the material level I am not aware of my Atman. I walk and talk and think without any consciousness that my source lies much deeper. But at the soul level I am totally aware of who I am. The soul level is a very strange place, because it gives rise to all activity without being active itself. Think about that carefully. As I travel around from here to there, my soul doesn't move, because at the quantum level the field just ripples and vibrates--it doesn't change location from A to B. I am born, grow old, and die--these events have a tremendous significance for my body and mind. Yet at the quantum level nothing is born, grows old, or dies. There is no such thing as an old photon. We can get some clues to this riddle from a common device, a television set. When you see a TV character walking from left to right on the screen, your brain registers a false impression. Nothing on that screen, not a single electron, has actually moved from left to right. With a magnifying glass you would see that the only activity taking place is the flickering of phosphors on the surface of the cathode-ray tube. If phosphor A is to the left of phosphor B, it's flicker can be timed so that just as it goes off, phosphor B lights up. This trick makes it look as if something has moved from left to right, just as twinkling Christman lights seem to circle around the tree.

How To Know God, Dr. Deepak Chopra, page 275-277

Thank you Teo for this lengthy and very interesting post.
I have often pondered about the soul. I like this line:

quote:

This is just a way of saying that the soul stands apart from ordinary experience.

Sue

Thank you Teo for the distinction between Atman and Jiva, and from your quote from Dr. Chopra's book. I always find those quotes very interesting. I need to come back and spend more time with this post.

Love
Vicky

Thank you Teo for this very comprehensive and informative post. I have often pondered about the spirit and the soul.
*************************


I will find my refuge in soirit.
The only safe place is eternity.


[I]I couldn't sleep for the ache in my heart. I was anxious and had thoughts of dying. Then I saw a figure made of light standing by my bed. He said,"Only one thing could make you suffer this much." He bent to kiss me, and I knew my lover was the soul.

Dr. Deepak Chopra[/I]
From: The Deeper Wound

Thank you Teo.
This is another comprehensive and interesting post that I have to come back to and spend more time absorbing it.

Gisele

DIVINE DISCOURSE BY SWAMI

Q)What is the Realisation of self-knowledge? Is it not the complete Salvation and achievement of Lord?

A) The word Atma (Self) is common in both Jeevatma (Soul) and Paramatma (Lord). The word collector is common in both District collector and Bill collector. You are asking for the address of collector. The address of bill collector is different from district collector. The purpose to meet the collector must also be specified, which indicates whether you have to meet the district collector or bill collector. Therefore, the self-realisation, which means reaching either Jeevatma or Paramatma, must be clarified. If you reach Jeevatma, there is one type of benefit and if you reach Paramatma, there is another type of benefit. Benefit means to attain something, which you do not possess. Loss means to lose what you have. Some people treat that not to have a loss is also a benefit. But, benefit means really to attain something, which you do not have. If you attain Jeevatma you will not have the loss. You have attained what you have. In such case, you have become the Jeevatma, which is pure awareness (Suddha chaitanyam). You have withdrawn the ‘I’ from the physical body. Then you have withdrawn the ‘I’ from the three qualities. Finally, you have fixed your ‘I’ to the pure awareness. By doing so, you have attained the peace which is the inherent quality of the pure awareness. You have crossed all the problems. You have lost the peace in these problems. Now you have attained what you have already in yourself. By this, you have arrested the loss and you can consider this as profit. Ofcourse, this attainment is intermediate state. This is only half of the journey. The rest half is to attain and please the Lord. The peace will be useful in the next half of the journey.

surya
www.universal-spirituality.org

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