The Nature of the Soul

Let me preface this wandering commentary with the following. My beliefs are fluid. In my ignorance and searching, I have tried on many ideas, some with brand names and some of my own divining. Over time they have become both more and less defined, depending on the facet of discussion.

Sometime after Cloyde’s death, a very nice woman apparently decided to take me on as a personal project. She is a Jehovah’s Witness and despite being told that I will not join her group, she continues to come back for us to engage in long conversations. My questions often lead her off track until she’s used up her (and my) time.

Understand that I like this woman and that I respect her motivation as being of pure heart. She is a true believer and worries that in my ignorance I am in mortal danger. She also admits that she likes the challenges I offer her. But the bottom line is this, I already am a Judeo Christian who also incorporates some Eastern and other cultural theories into my beliefs. This is the problem she has with me. If she cannot find a direct reference supporting my idea in the published Bible, she is certain it cannot be of God.

Recently, we disagreed on the nature of the soul. She disapproved of my interchangeable use of the words “soul” and “spirit.”

I freely admit that I do not possess her encyclopedic knowledge of the Bible, but I also know that I have read many other cultural references to Yeshua having spent those unaccounted-for years of His life in other countries like India and Tibet, as well as others. Based on several books I’ve read, I also believe it more likely than not that Mary Magdelin was actually the wife of Yeshua, not just some random woman in His entourage, and certainly, never a prostitute. I also freely admit that I cannot PROVE any of this to be true any more than she can PROVE it to be false.

But something she said gave me the most profound feeling of emptiness. She does not believe that the soul is eternal. She believes that when the body dies, so does the soul, that her recently departed mother lies asleep in death without continuing consciousness, that rather than leaving her body, her soul ceased to exist and will remain without any “being” until the final resurrection, when all will be restored in physical form.

There are endless theories on what exactly the resurrection is or where the soul goes when it leaves the body and what is the nature of its existence, but I cannot accept that because the body dies the soul or spirit is no more. In my friend’s mind, all of the “evidence” of past life memories, near death experiences, astral projection, and various documented paranormal occurrences can be ascribed only to proof of the demonic, the great deceiver. The thought that she might be correct, I find devastating.

Any well-versed atheist would agree with her, minus the demonic angle, of course. He would claim that my belief is irrational and evidence of a mind incapable of logic with an abject desperation to believe in the unseeable and the unknowable. But there are ample logical arguments that can be made for the existence of a creator God, even if you insist on calling it “The Force,” which would describe “A beyond corporeal convergence of collective spirit, knowledge, and power.” You might as well refer to “The Force” as God, unless you are talking about the dark side of The Force.

I need to keep this short, so I will limit the facets of argument and instead, I will ask some questions. Why is it that so many of us (in the proper light) can see the auras of people and other living bodies? This existence of auras has actually been proven with Kirlian Photography. Why are there young children who can tell you about their past lives, their mothers, their names, how they died, and can give enough details to find where they lived and document their existence? Please argue the reasons that the lengthy string of “near misses” in my life can’t best be described as repeating miracles. Then, how can you explain the non-skid soap dish on a dry countertop that was knocked off and broken by no one, or the spice cabinet that emptied itself onto the floor when no one was home, or the glass that tipped itself onto its side before my eyes on the coffee table, all since Cloyde’s death? How can you explain the spirits that I saw in our house in New York when I was a small child? Please rationalize my daughter’s ability to name who was calling on the phone when she was a toddler, or her waking up screaming whenever I had a scary dream, or when I was several rooms away writing a scary story?

If you’ve never experienced these things, I can see how you might dismiss all of this, but how do you deny when two old souls, soulmates, meet and, before they even know each other well, are having the same thoughts, even the same words, and look at each other and each thinks, “Oh, THERE you are! Where’ve you been?”

Can you explain my very recent discovery that there is astonishing proof of Biblical prophesy, from both the Old and New Testaments, that can be footnoted right down to the dates of modern occurrences? Having never been a student of eschatology, this blows me away. The volume of coincidences defies explanation. If you’ve no idea what I’m talking about, read one or more of Rabbi Jonathan Cahn’s books.

And another thing; the polarity of the universe. I am no astronomer, but the evidence is there for polarities within galaxies, solar systems, stars and planets, and for all things on and about our own Earth. Polarities exist of positive and negative charges within a given body, the laws of attraction and repulsion, good and bad motives and outcomes, yes, even the obvious existence of good and evil. You cannot live on this Earth and deny that good and evil exist. You can only argue about why they exist and what might be the source. These forces are so existential that without them I doubt life as we understand it could exist.

These forces are born of opposing spirits, whether you acknowledge them or not. It is spirit (or soul) that animates the organic body in all of its complexity. You say it cannot exist because you cannot SEE it. Can you see the air that you breath? You might see particulates floating in the air, but you do not see the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and all the other atoms and molecules that make up our life-giving air. So, invisibility on the human level is not proof of non-existence.

I cannot fully describe to you what it is, but I believe the soul is eternal, that we are spirit beings having a physical experience, that our physical bodies more or less act as organic containers of our souls (our consciousness), sort of like a porous glove might contain a gaseous glowing hand. The soul is riding inside the body, but also shines through it.

That aura that surrounds the body has been depicted through the ages as a halo. Some auras shine more brightly than others. And if the soul is eternal while the body is temporary, the concept of reincarnation is not out of the question, although for many this complicates the concept of the final resurrection. Is this a physical resurrection of the collaborative body of souls? If it resurrects the decomposed body and the soul has experienced multiple lives, which one comes back? Or is there a new and perfect body created that represents the combined life experiences of a soul’s several lifetimes? I don’t have the answers, but I keep coming up with more questions and possibilities.

In my mind, these possibilities do not negate the incarnate Son of God, the supernatural existence of Yeshua the Messiah. It’s just a larger construct of the same concept. The limitation of my JW friend’s beliefs is just too sad and empty for me bear. There must be reason, even if we cannot fathom it.

Karl Marx described religion as the “opiate of the masses.” His followers support this by claiming that only a furtive and lesser mind needs to cling to religion or spirituality to justify itself, that religion is a means of controlling the savagery of man. It is partially true that kind of belief can be seen as a fearful control, especially if it forbids questioning. I believe that kind of religion can do more harm than good, but that doesn’t mean elements of it shouldn’t be used as a starting place for spiritual growth and understanding. And it could also mean that whomever is in charge of THAT name brand of religion could be purposely misrepresenting, censoring selected content, and misinterpreting the teachings in the Bible.

But pure religion or spirituality (if there is such a thing) can also be seen as an armiture for sculpting a society of love and beauty, with plenty of room to wander through and debate specific ideas and details.

You can say, “May the Force be with you,” but you might as well simply say, “May God be with you,” because if you are talking about the positive Force, it comes with a name that I have heard described as the sound of breath being inhaled and exhaled, Yahweh.