2024-02-29, 03:32 AM
(2024-02-25, 06:08 PM)nbtruthman Wrote: [ -> ]Everything you have written concerning the relationship of the human and the soul seems to me to at least indirectly imply a temporary real separation occuring during incarnated life. During physical life the human experiences a separate human personality existence, while at the same time the soul still exists as a separate sentient being with vastly expanded memory and wisdom and likes and dislikes, and experiences both itself and the human existence.
The Soul cannot be actually separate ~ else the human self couldn't exist. During my last profound Ayahuasca journey, I had an experience that seemed as close to being my Soul as I had ever gotten so far... and it was so transparent. There was no separation... really just a veil, a wall ~ to my side of things. In the moment I broke though, and was closest to being my Soul, there was nothing missing or lost. It was just... more me. Not in the incarnate sense, but in a fuller sense. I definitely felt very different, but I was still fundamentally me. It's rather hard to explain the feeling... I never thought to look at other aspects of me as my Soul, as it had no importance in the moment. There was a purpose, and little time to experience it in.
So, it's not separation, so much as the incarnate self not being normally aware of the rest of itself. Not until the veil is pierced through. Temporarily, at least.
(2024-02-25, 06:08 PM)nbtruthman Wrote: [ -> ]During that time both are definitely separate beings - one being with a stream of sentient consciousness consisting of a drastically limited different and "human" personality and memories and very different likes and dislikes, the other being with a vastly expanded memory of past existences, wisdom, and different likes and dislikes, experiencing the human as a very small part of itself.
You speak as if you know from experience... but I think you are interpreting this through a very particular lens that you haven't explained very well. Why precisely do you believe that the Soul and incarnate self are so different?
(2024-02-25, 06:08 PM)nbtruthman Wrote: [ -> ]It also occurs to me that this model invokes the contentious old philosophical problem of understanding how one ultimate central consciousness (supposedly the one ground basic spiritual substance of existence) can simultaneously manifest and experience the vast number of apparently separate incarnate consciousnesses . This issue has been encountered in analyses and critiques of Idealism and Monism as philosophies of the mind-matter relationship, and I think the consensus of one debate at least was that it is impossible.
It is impossible if you think that said central consciousness is anything like consciousness we understand it. Logically, that's absurd, considering existence as we know it. Logically, it must be far beyond anything we can comprehend, as it must encompass all potentialities and possibilities. You may as well not even call it "consciousness" as it is so far removed from what we can comprehend from such a limited perspective. And yet... this ground of being is reality itself, giving rise to all potentials.
That is why Neutral Monism looks a lot clearer in this regard for me. Dialectical Monism, maybe. Or something resembling model that vaguely resembles the Tao or the Kabbalistic Three Veils of Negative Existence.
(2024-02-25, 06:08 PM)nbtruthman Wrote: [ -> ]Contrary to this, it occurs to me that there is at least one empirical data point that conflicts with this - some cases of MPD (Multiple Personality Disorder) seem to show that sometimes the dominant manifesting personality is at the same time being interfered with by one or more of the other personalities in an attempt to take over. Obviously, at that moment both personalities exist and manifest and have separate faculties of agency with (different) intentions and desires, though they are just parts of the one person.
They are all part of the same underlying incarnate existence, as far as I can tell.