Citrus County chronicle ( September 26, 2008 )Bulletin Daily Paper 12/20/11
Bulletin Daily Paper 12/20/11
The Bulletin Daily print edition for Tuesday December 20, 2011From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Image of the soul in the
The soul in many religions, philosophical and mythological traditions, is the
essence of a living being. According to , only human beings have immortal souls. For example, the Catholic theologian
attributed "soul" () to all organisms but argued that only human souls are immortal. Other religions (most notably
and ) teach that all biological organisms have souls, while some teach that even non-biological entities (such as rivers and mountains) possess souls. This latter belief is called .
Greek philosophers such as ,
understood that the
(ψυχ?) must have a logical faculty, the exercise of which was the most divine of human actions. At his defense trial, Socrates even summarized his teaching as nothing other than an exhortation for his fellow Athenians to excel in matters of the psyche since all bodily goods are dependent on such excellence ( 30a–b).
is the concept of a "world soul" connecting all living organisms on the planet.
The Modern English word "", derived from
sáwol, sáwel, was first attested in the 8th-century poem
v. 2820 and in the
77.50. It is cognate with other German and
terms for the same idea, including
sêula, sêla,
sêla, s?la,
siela. Further etymology of the Germanic word is uncertain. The original concept is meant to be 'coming from or belonging to the sea/lake', because of the German belief in souls being born out of and returning to sacred lakes,
sêola (soul) compared to
sêo (sea).
, "life, spirit, consciousness", is derived from a verb meaning "to cool, to blow", and hence refers to the breath, as opposed to
("soma"), meaning "body". Psychē occurs juxtaposed to σ?μα, as seen in :
— κα? μ? φοβε?σθε ?π? τ?ν ?ποκτενν?ντων τ? σ?μα, τ?ν δ? ψυχ?ν μ? δυναμ?νων ?ποκτε?ναι·
φοβε?σθε δ? μ?λλον τ?ν δυν?μενον κα? ψυχ?ν κα? σ?μα ?πολ?σαι ?ν γε?νν?.
: et nolite timere eos qui occidunt corpus animam autem non possunt occidere sed potius eum timete qui potest et animam et corpus perdere in gehennam.
(KJV) "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."
(LXX), ψυχ? translates
??? , meaning "life, vital breath", and specifically refers to a mortal, physical life, but is in English variously translated as "soul, self, life, creature, person, appetite, mind, living being, desire, emotion, passion"; an example can be found in :
— ?????????? ????????? ??????????? ????????? ??????? ??????? ???????
LXX κα? ?πο?ησεν ? θε?? τ? κ?τη τ? μεγ?λα κα? π?σαν ψυχ?ν ζ?ων ?ρπετ?ν.
Vulgate Creavitque Deus cete grandia, et omnem animam viventem atque motabilem.
KJV "And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth."
used ψυχ? and
specifically to distinguish between the Jewish notions of ??? nephesh and ??? ruah (spirit) (also in LXX, e.g.
???????? = πνε?μα θεο? = spiritus Dei = "the Spirit of God").
used the word "alive" for the concept of being "", indicating that the earliest surviving
view believed that the soul was that which gave the body life. The soul was considered the incorporeal or spiritual "breath" that animates (from the Latin, , cf. "animal") the living organism.
by saying that the soul sleeps while the limbs are active, but when one is sleeping, the soul is active and reveals "an award of joy or sorrow drawing near" in dreams.
writes that an early pre- belief presented the soul as lifeless when it departed the body, and that it retired into
with no hope of returning to a body.
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Plato (left) and Aristotle (right), a detail of , a
Main article:
Drawing on the words of his teacher Socrates, Plato considered the psyche to be the
of a person, being that which decides how we behave. He considered this essence to be an incorporeal, eternal occupant of our being. Socrates says that even after death, the soul exists and is able to think. He believed that as bodies die, the soul is continually reborn in subsequent bodies and Plato believed this as well, however, he thought that only one part of the soul was immortal (logos). The Platonic soul consists of three parts:
the logos, or logistikon (mind, , or )
the , or thumetikon (, spiritedness, or masculine)
the , or epithumetikon (appetitive, , or feminine)
The parts are located in different regions of the body:
logos is located in the head, is related to reason and regulates the other part.
thymos is located near the chest region and is related to anger.
eros is located in the stomach and is related to one's desires.
Plato also compares the three parts of the soul or psyche to a societal . According to Plato's theory, the three-part soul is essentially the same thing as a state's class system because, to function well, each part must contribute so that the whole functions well. Logos keeps the other functions of the soul regulated.
Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) defined the soul, or Psūchê (ψυχ?), as the "" of a naturally organized body, and argued against its separate existence from the physical body. In Aristotle's view, the primary activity, or full actualization, of a living thing constitutes its soul. For example, the full actualization of an eye, as an independent organism, is to see (its purpose or ). Another example is that the full actualization of a human being would be living a fully functional human life in accordance with reason (which he considered to be a faculty unique to humanity). For Aristotle, the soul is the organization of the form and matter of a natural being which allows it to strive for its full actualization. This organization between form and matter is necessary for any activity, or functionality, to be possible in a natural being. Using an artifact (non-natural being) as an example, a house is a building for human habituation, but for a house to be actualized requires the material (wood, nails, bricks, etc.) necessary for its actuality (i.e. being a fully functional house). However, this does not imply that a house has a soul. In regards to artifacts, the source of motion that is required for their full actualization is outside of themselves (for example, a builder builds a house). In natural beings, this source of motion is contained within the being itself. Aristotle elaborates on this point when he addresses the faculties of the soul.
The various , such as nutrition, movement (peculiar to animals), reason (peculiar to humans), sensation (special, common, and incidental) and so forth, when exercised, constitute the "second" actuality, or fulfillment, of the capacity to be alive. For example, someone who falls asleep, as opposed to someone who falls dead, can wake up and live their life, while the latter can no longer do so.
Aristotle identified three hierarchical levels of natural beings: plants, animals, and people. For these groups, he identified three corresponding levels of soul, or biological activity: the nutritive activity of growth, sustenance and reproduction w the self-willed motive activity and sensory faculties, which only animals and p and finally "reason", of which people alone are capable.
Aristotle's discussion of the soul is in his work,
(On the Soul). Although mostly seen as opposing Plato in regard to the immortality of the soul, a controversy can be found in relation to the fifth chapter of the third book. In this text both interpretations can be argued for, soul as a whole can be deemed mortal and a part called "active intellect" or "active mind" is immortal and eternal. Advocates exist for both sides of the controversy, but it has been understood that there will be permanent disagreement about its final conclusions, as no other
text contains this specific point, and this part of De Anima is obscure.
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Following Aristotle,
(Ibn Sina) and , a , further elaborated upon the Aristotelian understanding of the soul and developed their own theories on the soul. They both made a distinction between the soul and the spirit, and the
doctrine on the nature of the soul was influential among the . Some of Avicenna's views on the soul include the idea that the immortality of the soul is a consequence of its nature, and not a purpose for it to fulfill. In his theory of "The Ten Intellects", he viewed the human soul as the tenth and final .
While he was imprisoned, Avicenna wrote his famous "Floating Man"
to demonstrate human
and the substantial nature of the soul. He told his readers to imagine themselves suspended in the air, isolated from all sensations, which includes no
contact with even their own bodies. He argues that in this scenario one would still have . He thus concludes that the idea of the
is not logically dependent on any physical , and that the soul should not be seen in , but as a primary given, a . This argument was later refined and simplified by
terms, when he stated: "I can abstract from the supposition of all external things, but not from the supposition of my own consciousness."
Avicenna generally supported Aristotle's idea of the soul originating from the , whereas Ibn al-Nafis rejected this idea and instead argued that the soul "is related to the entirety and not to one or a few ". He further criticized Aristotle's idea whereby every unique soul requires the existence of a unique source, in this case the heart. al-Nafis concluded that "the soul is related primarily neither to the spirit nor to any organ, but rather to the entire matter whose temperament is prepared to receive that soul," and he defined the soul as nothing other than "what a human indicates by saying "".
Following Aristotle and Avicenna,
(1225–74) understood the soul to be the first actuality of the living body. Consequent to this, he distinguished three orders of life: plants, animals, which add sensation to the
and humans, which add intellect to the operations of animals.
Concerning the human soul, his epistemological theory required that, since the knower becomes what he knows, the soul is definitely not corporeal—if it is corporeal when it knows what some corporeal thing is, that thing would come to be within it. Therefore, the soul has an operation which does not rely on a body organ, and therefore the soul can exist without a body. Furthermore, since the rational soul of human beings is a subsistent form and not something made of matter and form, it cannot be destroyed in any natural process. The full argument for the
and Aquinas' elaboration of Aristotelian theory is found in Question 75 of the First Part of the .
In his discussions of rational psychology,
() identified the soul as the "I" in the strictest sense, and that the existence of inner experience can neither be proved nor disproved. "We cannot prove a priori the immateriality of the soul, but rather only so much: that all properties and actions of the soul cannot be recognized from materiality". It is from the "I", or soul, that Kant proposes transcendental rationalization, but cautions that such rationalization can only determine the limits of knowledge if it is to remain practical.
Main article:
argument, which is a rejection of Descartes'
can provide a contemporary understanding of the soul/mind, and the problem concerning its connection to the brain/body.
Main articles:
The souls of Pe and
towing the royal bargue on a relief of 's temple in Abydos.
In the , an individual was believed to be made up of various elements, some physical and some spiritual.
Similar ideas are found in ancient Assyrian and Babylonian religion. , an 8th-century BC royal official from , ordered an inscribed
erected upon his death. The inscription requested that his mourners commemorate his life and his
with feasts "for my soul that is in this stele". It is one of the earliest references to a soul as a separate entity from the body. The 800-pound (360 kg)
stele is 3 ft (0.91 m) tall and 2 ft (0.61 m) wide. It was uncovered in the third season of excavations by the Neubauer Expedition of the
in Chicago, Illinois.
affirms that "the soul is a sign of God, a heavenly gem whose reality the most learned of men hath failed to grasp, and whose mystery no mind, however acute, can ever hope to unravel".
stated that the soul not only continues to live after the physical death of the human body, but is, in fact, immortal. Heaven can be seen partly as the soul's state of nearness to G and hell as a state of remoteness from God. Each state follows as a natural consequence of individual efforts, or the lack thereof, to develop spiritually. Bahá'u'lláh taught that individuals have no existence prior to their life here on earth and the soul's evolution is always towards God and away from the material world.
teaches that all things are in a constant state of flux: all is changing, and no
state exists by itself. This applies to human beings as much as to anything else in the cosmos. Thus, a human being has no permanent self. According to this doctrine of anatta (Pā Sanskrit: anātman) – "no-self" or "no soul" – the words "I" or "me" do not refer to any fixed thing. They are simply convenient terms that allow us to refer to an ever-changing entity.
The anatta doctrine is not a kind of . Buddhism does not deny the existence of "immaterial" entities, and it (at least traditionally) distinguishes bodily states from mental states. Thus, the conventional translation of anatta as "no-soul" can be confusing. If the word "soul" simply refers to an incorporeal component in living things that can continue after death, then Buddhism does not deny the existence of the soul. Instead, Buddhism denies the existence of a permanent entity that remains constant behind the changing corporeal and incorporeal components of a living being. Just as the body changes from moment to moment, so thoughts come and go. And there is no permanent state underlying the mind that experiences these thoughts, as in . Conscious mental states simply arise and perish with no "thinker" behind them. When the body dies, Buddhists believe the incorporeal mental processes continue and are reborn in a new body. Because the mental processes are constantly changing, the being that is reborn is neither entirely different from, nor exactly the same as, the being that died. However, the new being is continuous with the being that died – in the same way that the "you" of this moment is continuous with the "you" of a moment before, despite the fact that you are constantly changing.
Buddhist teaching holds that a notion of a permanent, abiding self is a delusion that is one of the causes of human conflict on the emotional, social, and political levels. They add that an understanding of anatta provides an accurate description of the human condition, and that this understanding allows us to pacify our mundane .
Various schools of Buddhism have differing ideas about what continues after death. The
Buddhism said there are
which continue to exist after death. In some schools, particularly , the view is that there are three minds: very subtle mind, which does not d subtle mind, which disintegrates in death and which is "dreaming mind" or "unconscious mind"; and gross mind, which does not exist when one is sleeping. Therefore, gross mind less permanent than subtle mind, which does not exist in death. Very subtle mind, however, does continue, and when it "catches on", or coincides with phenomena, again, a new subtle mind emerges, with its own personality/assumptions/habits, and that entity experiences
in the current continuum.
Plants were said to be non-sentient (無情), but Buddhist monks are required to not cut or burn trees, because some sentient beings rely on them. Some Mahayana monks said non-sentient beings such as plants and stones have .
Certain modern Buddhists, particularly in , reject—or at least take an agnostic stance toward the concept of rebirth or reincarnation, which they view as incompatible with the concept of anatta.
discusses this issue in his book Buddhism Without Beliefs. Others point to
that has been conducted at the
as proof that some people are reborn.
Soul carried to Heaven by
Most Christians understand the soul as an
reality distinct from, yet integrally connected with, the body. Its characteristics are described in moral, spiritual, and philosophical terms. , a Christian
at Oxford University, wrote that "it is a frequent criticism of substance dualism that
cannot say what souls are. Souls are immaterial subjects of mental properties. They have sensations and thoughts, desires and beliefs, and perform intentional actions. Souls are essential parts of human beings". According to a common , when people die, their souls will be
and determined to go to
or to . Though all branches of Christianity – Catholics, , ,
Protestants teach that Jesus Christ plays a decisive role in the Christian , the specifics of that role and the part played by individual persons or
rituals and relationships, is a matter of wide diversity in official church teaching, theological speculation and popular practice. Some Christians believe that if one has not repented of one's sins and has not trusted in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, he/she will go to
and suffer
or eternal separation from God. Some hold a belief that babies (including the unborn) and those with cognitive or mental impairments who have died will be received into
on the basis of God's grace through the sacrifice of Jesus.[]
Other Christians understand the soul as the life, and believe that the dead are sleeping (). This belief is traditionally accompanied by the belief that the unrighteous soul will cease to exist instead of suffering eternally (). Believers will inherit
either in , or in a
on earth, and enjoy eternal fellowship with God.
There are also beliefs in .
The Damned Soul. Drawing by
, one of western Christianity's most influential early Christian thinkers, described the soul as "a special substance, endowed with reason, adapted to rule the body". Some Christians espouse a
view of humans, which characterizes humans as consisting of a body (soma), soul (psyche), and spirit (pneuma). However, the majority of modern Bible scholars point out how spirit and soul are used interchangeably in many biblical passages, and so hold to dichotomy: the view that each of us is body and soul. Paul said that the "body wars against" the soul, "For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit" (Heb 4:12 NASB),and that "I buffet my body", to keep it under control. Trichotomy was changed to dichotomy as tenet of Christian faith at the Council of Constantinople in 869 regarded as the 8th Ecumenical Council by Roman Catholics.
The 'origin of the soul' has provided a vexing question in Christianity. the major theories put forward include ,
and . According to creationism, each individual soul is created directly by God, either at the moment of conception or some later time. According to traducianism, the soul comes from the parents by natural generation. According to the preexistence theory, the soul exists before the moment of conception. There have been differing thoughts regarding whether human
have souls from conception, or there is a point between conception and birth where the
, , and/or . Stances in this question might more or less influence judgements on the .
The present
defines the soul as "the innermost aspect of humans, that which is of greatest value in them, that by which they are in God's image described as 'soul' signifies the spiritual principle in man". All souls living and dead will be judged by Jesus Christ when he comes back to earth. The Catholic Church teaches that the existence of each individual soul is dependent wholly upon God: "The doctrine of the faith affirms that the spiritual and immortal soul is created immediately by God."
Depiction of the soul on a 17th-century tombstone at the cemetery of the
Protestants generally believe in the soul's existence, but fall into two major camps about what this means in terms of an . Some, following , believe in the
and conscious existence after death, while others, following , believe in the
and unconscious "sleep" until the . Various
derived from Adventism—including , [] and —similarly believe that the dead do not possess a soul separate to the body and are unconscious until the resurrection.
teaches that the spirit and body together constitute the Soul of Man (Mankind). "The spirit and the body are the soul of man." Latter-Day Saints believe that the soul is the union of a pre-existing, God-made spirit and a temporal body, which is formed by physical conception on earth. After death, the spirit continues to live and progress in the
until the , when it is reunited with the body that once housed it. This reuniting of body and spirit results in a perfect soul that is immortal and eternal and capable of receiving a fulness of joy. Latter-Day Saint cosmology also describes "intelligences" as the essence of consciousness or agency. These are co-eternal with God, and animate the spirits. The union of a newly created spirit body with an eternally-existing intelligence constitutes a "spirit birth"[] and justifies God's title "Father of our spirits".
Main articles:
Hindu last rites for departed souls
words most closely corresponding to soul are ,
and "", meaning the individual . The term "soul" is misleading as it implies an object possessed, whereas self signifies the subject which perceives all objects. This self is held to be distinct from the various mental faculties such as desires, thinking, understanding, reasoning and self-image (), all of which are considered to be part of
The three major schools of
agree that the atman (individual self) is related to
or the , the Absolute Atman or Supreme Self, but they differ in the nature of this relationship. In
the individual self and the Supreme Self are one and the same.
rejects this concept of identity, instead identifying the self as a separate but similar part of Supreme Self (God), that never loses its individual identity.
takes a middle path and accepts the atman as a "mode" (prakara) or attribute of the Brahman. For an alternative atheistic and dualistic view of the atman in ancient Hindu philosophy, see .
The atman becomes involved in the process of becoming and
because of ignorance of its own true nature. The spiritual path consists of self-realization – a process in which one acquires the knowledge of the self (brahma-j?anam) and through this knowledge applied through meditation and realization one then returns to the Source which is Brahman.
The qualities which are common to both Brahman and atmam are being (sat), consciousness (chit), and bliss/love (ananda). Liberation or
is liberation from all limiting adjuncts (upadhis) and the unification with Brahman.
The Mandukya Upanishad verse 7 describes the atman in the following way:
"Not inwardly cognitive, not outwardly cognitive, not both-wise cognitive, not a cognition-mass, not cognitive, not non-cognitive, unseen, with which there can be no dealing, ungraspable, having no distinctive mark, non-thinkable, that cannot be designated, the essence of the assurance of which is the state of being one with the Self, the cessation of development, tranquil, benign, without a second (a-dvaita)—[such] they think is the fourth. That is the Self. That should be discerned."
2.20 Lord Krishna describes the atman in the following way:
na jayate mriyate va kadacin 'nayam bhutva bhavita va na bhuyah 'ajo nityah sasvato yam purano 'na hanyate hanyamane sarire
"For the atman there is neither birth nor death at any time. He has not come into being, does not come into being, and will not come into being. He is unborn, eternal, ever – existing and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain". [Translation by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (Srila Prabhupada)]
Srila Prabhupada, a great Vaishnava saint of the modern time further explains: "The atman does not take birth there, and the atman does not die... And because the atman has no birth, he therefore has no past, present or future. He is eternal, ever-existing and primeval – that is, there is no trace in history of his coming into being."
Since the quality of Atma is primarily consciousness, all sentient and insentient beings are pervaded by Atma, including plants, animals, humans and gods. The difference between them is the contracted or expanded state of that consciousness. For example, animals and humans share in common the desire to live, fear of death, desire to procreate and to protect their families and territory and the need for sleep, but animals' consciousness is more contracted and has less possibility to expand than does human consciousness.
When the Atma becomes embodied it is called birth, when the Aatma leaves a body it is called death. The Aatma transmigrates from one body to another body based on
[performed deeds] reactions.
In Hinduism, the Sanskrit word most closely corresponding to soul is Atma, which can mean soul or even God. It is seen as the portion of Brahman within us. Hinduism contains many variant beliefs on the origin, purpose, and fate of the atma. For example, advaita or non-dualistic conception of the aatma accords it union with Brahman, the absolute uncreated (roughly, the Godhead), in eventuality or in pre-existing fact. Dvaita or dualistic concepts reject this, instead identifying the atma as a different and incompatible substance.
There are 25 coverings wrapped on our Atma (Reference Taken from Vaikunta Varnane written by ) 1. Iccha avarka, 2. Linga deha, 3. Avyakta , 4. Avidya , 5. Karma avarna, 6. Kama avarna, 7. Jeevacchadaka, 8. Paramacchadaka, 9. Narayana rupa avarna, 10. Vasudeva rupa Avarna, 11. Sankarshana rupa avarna, 12. Pradhyumna Avarka, 13. Anniruddha avarka, 14. Anniruddha Sharira, 15. Vasudeva , 16. Narayana Kavaca, 17. Anandamaya , 18. Vignanamaya kosha, 19. Manomaya kosha, 20. Vangmaya kosha, 21. Shrotrumaya kosha, 22. Chakshurmaya kosha, 23. Pranamaya kosha, 24. Annamaya kosha, 25. Gross Body.
Further information:
Islam teaches that the soul is immortal and eternal, and that what a person does is recorded and will be judged at the final court of God. They will either go to heaven or hell, depending on whether or not they did well in the test that was given to them by Allah.
mentions the soul:
And they ask you, [O Muhammad], about the soul (R?h). Say, "The soul (R?h) is of the affair of my Lord. And mankind have not been given of knowledge except a little." - Qur'an 17:85
It is Allah that takes the souls at death: and those that die not (He takes their souls) during their sleep: then those on whom He has passed the Decree of death He keeps back (their souls from returning to their bodies); but the rest He sends (their souls back to their bodies) for a term appointed. Verily in this are Signs for those who contemplate. - Qur'an 39:42
Main articles:
Further information: ,
In Jainism every living being, from a plant or a bacterium to human, has a soul and the concept forms the very basis of Jainism. The soul () is basically categorized in two based on its liberation state.
Liberated Souls- These are souls which have attained () and never become part of the life cycle again.
Non-Liberated Souls - The Souls of any living being which are stuck in the life cycle of 4 forms Manushya Gati (Human Being), Tiryanch Gati (Any other living being), Dev Gati (Heaven) and Narak Gati (Hell). Till the time the soul is not liberated from the innumerable birth and death cycle, it gets attached to different types of above bodies based on the karma of individual soul. According to Jainism, there is no beginning and end to the existence of soul. It is eternal in nature and changes its form till it attains ()
Irrespective of which state the soul is in, it has got the same attributes and qualities. The difference between the liberated and non-liberated souls is that the qualities and attributes are exhibited completely in case of Siddhas () as they have overcome all the karmic bondages whereas in case of non-liberated souls they are partially exhibited.
Concerning the Jain view of the soul,
quoted "the soul lives its own life, not for the purpose of the body, but the body lives for the purpose of the soul. If we believe that the soul is to be controlled by the body then soul misses its power".
The fruit of a righteous man is the , and the wise man acquires ????????? souls.
(literally "living being"), ???
(literally "wind"), ???? neshama (literally "breath"), ??? chaya (literally "life") and ????? yechidah (literally "singularity") are used to describe the soul or spirit. In
the soul is believed to be given by God to a person as mentioned in , "And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostril and man became a living being." . Judaism relates the quality of one's soul to one's performance of the commandments, , and reaching higher levels of understanding, and thus closeness to God. A person with such closeness is called a . Therefore, Judaism embraces the commemoration of the day of one's death, /Yahrtzeit and not the
as a festive of remembrance, for only toward the end of life's struggles, tests and challenges human souls could be judged and credited -
("with God's help") - for righteousness and holiness. Judaism places great importance on the study of the souls.
For I [] will not contend forever, neither will I be wroth to eternity, when a spirit from before Me humbles itself, and
[which] I have made.
and other mystic traditions go into greater detail into the nature of the soul. Kabbalah separates the soul into five elements, corresponding to the :
, related to natural instinct.
, related to emotion and morality.
Neshamah, related to intellect and the awareness of God.
Chayah, considered a part of God, as it were.
, also termed the pintele Yid (the "essential [inner] Jew"). This aspect is essentially one with God.
Kabbalah also proposed a concept of reincarnation, the . (See also
the "animal soul".)
According to Nadya Yuguseva, a shaman from the Altai, "'A woman has 40 men have just one[.]'"
considers Soul (atma) to be part of God (). Various hymns are cited from the holy book "" (SGGS) that suggests this belief. "God is in the Soul and the Soul is in the God." The same concept is repeated at various pages of the SGGS. For example: "T divine is the soul. Worship Him with love." and "The soul is the Lord, and the L contemplating the Shabad, the Lord is found." The "Atma" or "Soul" according to Sikhism is an entity or "spiritual spark" or "light" in our body because of which the body can sustain life. On the departure of this entity from the body, the body becomes lifeless – No amount of manipulations to the body can make the person make any physical actions. The soul is the ‘driver’ in the body. It is the ‘roohu’ or spirit or atma, the presence of which makes the physical body alive. Many religious and philosophical traditions, support the view that the soul is the ethereal substance – a non material spark – particular to a unique living being. Such traditions often consider the soul both immortal and innately aware of its immortal nature, as well as the true basis for sentience in each living being. The concept of the soul has strong links with notions of an afterlife, but opinions may vary wildly even within a given religion as to what happens to the soul after death. Many within these religions and philosophies see the soul as immaterial, while others consider it possibly material.
According to Chinese traditions, every person has two types of soul called
(魂 and 魄), which are respectively .
believes in ten souls, sanhunqipo () "three hun and seven po". The pò is linked to the dead body and the grave, whereas the hún is linked to the ancestral tablet. A living being that loses any of them is said to have mental illness or , while a dead soul may
to a , lower
or may even be unable to reincarnate.
Main article:
(Greek) who guides dead souls to the Underworld. 4th century BC.
In theological reference to the soul, the terms "life" and "death" are viewed as emphatically more definitive than the common concepts of "" and "biological death". Because the soul is said to be transcendent of the
existence, and is said to have (potentially) , the death of the soul is likewise said to be an eternal death. Thus, in the concept of , God is commonly said to have options with regard to the dispensation of souls, ranging from
(i.e., ) to
(i.e., ), with various concepts in between. Typically both Heaven and hell are said to be eternal, or at least far beyond a typical human concept of
In , human souls are believed to be incorporeal and . God is considered to be the Supreme Soul, with maximum degrees of spiritual qualities, such as peace, love and purity.
In 's , the soul is the field of our psychological activity (thinking, emotions, memory, desires, will, and so on) as well as of the so-called paranormal or
phenomena (extrasensory perception, out-of-body experiences, etc.). However, the soul is not the highest, but a middle dimension of human beings. Higher than the soul is the spirit, which is considered the source of everything we call "good"—happiness, wisdom, love, compassion, harmony, peace, etc. While the spirit is eternal and incorruptible, the soul is not. The soul acts as a link between the material body and the spiritual self, and therefore shares some characteristics of both. The soul can be attracted either towards the spiritual or towards the material realm, being thus the "battlefield" of good and evil. It is only when the soul is attracted towards the spiritual and merges with the Self that it becomes eternal and divine.
differentiated three stages of soul development, which interpenetrate one another in consciousness:
The "sentient soul", centering on sensations, drives, and passions, with strong
(will) and
The "intellectual" or "mind soul", internalizing and reflecting on outer experience, with strong affective (feeling) and cognitive (thinking) and
The "consciousness soul", in search of universal, objective truths.
In , the soul is considered to be an exact replica and spark of the Divine. The purpose of Surat Shabd Yoga is to realize one's True Self as soul (Self-Realisation), True Essence (Spirit-Realisation) and True Divinity (God-Realisation) while living in the physical body.
Similarly, the spiritual teacher
held that "Atma, or the soul, is in reality identical with Paramatma the Oversoul — which is one, infinite, and eternal...[and] [t]he sole purpose of creation is for the soul to enjoy the infinite state of the Oversoul consciously."
, founded by
in 1965, defines S the inner, most sacred part of each person.
The findings of science may be relevant to one's understanding of the soul depending on one's belief regarding the relationship between the soul and the . Another may be one's belief regarding the relationship between the soul and the . One problem with seeking scientific evidence for the soul is that there is no clear or unique definition of what the soul is, as it usually varies from one belief to another.[]
field, and its branch of
particularly, operates under the
assumption of . In other words, it assumes—in order to perform its science—that only the fundamental phenomena studied by
exist. Thus, neuroscience seeks to understand mental phenomena within the framework according to which human
are caused solely by physical processes taking place inside the brain, and it operates by the way of
by seeking an explanation for the mind in terms of brain activity.
To study the mind in terms of the brain several methods of
are used to study the neuroanatomical correlates of various
that constitute the mind. The evidence from brain imaging indicates that all processes of the mind have physical correlates in brain function. However, such correlational studies cannot determine whether neural activity plays a causal role in the occurrence of these cognitive processes () and they cannot determine if the neural activity is either
for such processes to occur. Identification of , and of necessary and sufficient conditions requires explicit experimental manipulation of that activity. If manipulation of brain activity changes consciousness, then a causal role for that brain activity can be inferred. Two of the most common types of manipulation experiments are loss-of-function and gain-of-function experiments. In a loss-of-function (also called "necessity") experiment, a part of the nervous system is diminished or removed in an attempt to determine if it is necessary for a certain process to occur, and in a gain-of-function (also called "sufficiency") experiment, an aspect of the nervous system is increased relative to normal. Manipulations of brain activity can be performed with direct , magnetic brain stimulation using ,
manipulation,
manipulation and by studying the symptoms of
(case studies) and . In addition, neuroscientists are also investigating how the mind develops with the development of the brain.
has written that the idea of a soul is in opposition to
(QFT). He writes that for a soul to exist "Not only is new physics required, but dramatically new physics. Within QFT, there can’t be a new collection of 'spirit particles' and 'spirit forces' that interact with our regular atoms, because we would have detected them in existing experiments."
has been invoked by some theorists as a solution to the problem of how a soul might interact with the brain but neuroscientist Peter Clarke found errors with this viewpoint noting there is no evidence that such processes play a role in brain function and concluded that a
soul has no basis from quantum physics.
Biologist  () has written that "the soul is a word to designate an idea we invented to represent the sensation of being inhabited by an existence, by a conscience". Barrette explains, using simple examples in a short self-published article, that the soul is a property
from the complex organisation of matter in the brain.
have attempted to establish, by
experiment, whether a soul separate from the brain exists, as is more commonly defined in religion rather than as a synonym of psyche or mind.
(1979) and
(2010) have argued that none of the attempts by parapsychologists have yet succeeded.
made weight measurements of patients as they died. He claimed that there was weight loss of varying amounts at the time of death, he concluded the soul weighted 21 grams. The physicist
has written that MacDougall's experiments "are not regarded today as having any scientific merit" and the psychologist
wrote that "because the weight loss was not reliable or replicable, his findings were unscientific."
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