Is the human self nonexistent?

Thank you for this thorough explication from your (soul) perspective The trouble is, I don't think it is very reassuring. I would never have chosen the particular trials and tribulations I have undergone in this life, or the high likelihood of them occuring. It couldn't be and certainly wasn't me that made these choices, and therefore it very much seems a mistake and unfair to the human me. I sense myself as the human not the soul. Maybe a serious limitation I know, but I think that is the common experience of mankind, and therefore there is a great injustice.

Fair enough. It can certainly appear the way you describe, when one doesn't have access the whole picture.

I sense myself as the human not the soul. Maybe a serious limitation I know, but I think that is the common experience of mankind, and therefore there is a great injustice.

In all kindness, the person/people who see your soul are objective to your senses.  If you see yourself as having senses that are just a part of a bigger whole, you have a pathway to focus on the objective nature of yours and everyones' soul.  Direct observation is not common, but faith in others souls can win the day.

Even if you doubt your soul - others don't.  Look at their souls to get pointers in finding your own personal targets for contact.  You might find you live in an immaterial environment and you are not alone.

I firmly believe that we have souls and that we can sense its effects with our active ability to understand.  These "understandings" exist objectively.  As does the network that links individual subjective understandings into an objective network of human feelings.

Personally, I am poorly disposed to sensing my own.  But observation of the love, wisdom and good coming from others and in the environment, feeds the faith.

[Ninshub]

It couldn't be and certainly wasn't me that made these choices

That's the statement I would disagree with. It was you, but you don't remember it. When you made them, you were aware that these trials and tribulations are insignificant since you are never in the end harmed by them and they're a blip in time for an immortal being, and they are chosen to happen for growth/integration. Of course now you don't have that knowledge, and you experience yourself as cut off from All That Is and the love, etc.

For you it seems, knowing the soul made the decision is something you experience as injustice and a furthering of the experience of victimhood rather than as something empowering. I don't know if knowing exactly why you chose what you did (an LBL as opposed to as a PL regression might potentially do that, for example), and the growth it's meant to promote, would be helpful. If that would interest you. If the attitude is "no, it's unjust, and I will not accept to view it from my soul's perspective", I imagine that might further the sense of separation. (Perhaps this is part of the plan you choose however!)

There also may be exercises, like meditation, that potentially could help.

Fair enough. It can certainly appear the way you describe, when one doesn't have access the whole picture.

Not that I would class myself as particularly unfortunate in the full spectrum of human experience, but I have to consider the wrenching issue of justifying the very worst that life can bring to people, and the question of how in such worst cases could the soul possibly consider the life to have been a good learning experience. I think the validity of a philosophical/spiritual system must ultimately hinge on how it approaches the extremes that can happen in human existence. That's where the rubber meets the road, so to speak.

What comes to mind might be for example the unutterably horrible experience of a child in a war-torn African country being forced by the local warlord committer of war crimes against humanity, to either shoot his mother and become a fighter and murderer for the warlord's cause, or be shot and killed himself. He chooses survival, murders his mother, and thereafter is ridden with constant guilt and PTSD for the rest of his life. Or the case of a person who comes down with an incurable eye disease at the age of 17, goes blind, and bitterly considers himself to be a victim for the rest of his life, experiencing a greatly limited lifesyle with many important experiences barred from him, constant geat difficulties in living, etc. etc. How can anyone blame this unfortunate victim for constantly feeling a victim, and unjustly deprived of a normal life? This is indeed the truth of his circumstances. 

Try telling either of these unfortunate human persons that they as their souls chose their life experience for higher reasons of the soul, and expect almost certainly a violent reaction of anger and rejection, fully justified from their perspective. They could not possibly consider their lives to have been justified by any possible benefit accruing to their souls. There is no way these persons could have full access to the "whole picture" as you term it, and they almost certainly would reject it even if they could.

The issue in such cases might be, the question of which is more important, the isolated experience of the human self, or the vastly greater experience of the soul? Can anything at all justify sacrificing the human in favor of the soul?

The issue in such cases might be, the question of which is more important, the isolated experience of the human self, or the vastly greater experience of the soul? Can anything at all justify sacrificing the human in favor of the soul?

Since the major prophets and mystic seers communicate this idea, it may be the key.

 “In our relationships we need to uphold that aspect of the person which is the real person and the soul beyond their own self-doubt.”

― Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan

“When someone's body can no longer perform its functions in the natural world...then we say that the individual has died... The person, though, has not died at all, but is only separated from the physical nature that was useful in the world...the essential person is still alive because we are not people because of our bodies but because of our spirits. After all, it is the spirit within us that thinks, and thought and affection together make us the people we are.”

Emanuel Swedenborg, Heaven and Hell 445 

I'm giving likes to everyone in case it looks inconsistent   We all know the questions brought up here are not answerable, though, even though it's a fascinating debate. I tend to think that some 'souls' likely do choose the really hard lives, even intolerable lives such as nbtruthman delineates but as he says, they'll sure as hell wish they hadn't. But when they return home, won't they be more satisfied with themselves than someone who just took the easy route? 

There's also the aspect of perspective. Hell for some is not hell for everyone. I'm English and as you'll be aware, our Queen recently died  For seventy years she had to perform the requisite duties of office with no way out. She was fabulously wealthy and entitled but I wouldn't have chosen that life for all the tea in China; it would literally be hell on earth for me. But of course that's a mere platitude and what use is that.

I don't believe that souls choose to be blind or have cancer etc. In my opinion this is pure fiction. It is also illogical. What lessons one could learn from being blind?

Matlock didn't find any evidence suggesting elaborate life planning. Stevenson, Tucker, Haraldsson etc. haven't find such evidence either. According to Jenny Cockell, who remembers several previous lives, we don't choose to have diseases or disabilities. If somebody gets for example cancer, it is 100% due to biological/physical causes. I agree with her.

Nevertheless, there is some good evidence for souls choosing their parents for the next life, and I think it is possible that some (perhaps more advanced) souls may have some kind of blueprint or certain goals for their next lives. Perhaps there is even some kind of destiny which brings different events to our lives. It may also be possible that our actions in previous lives have certain consequences in the future lives.

I don't believe that souls choose to be blind or have cancer etc. In my opinion this is pure fiction. It is also illogical. What lessons one could learn from being blind?

Matlock didn't find any evidence suggesting elaborate life planning. Stevenson, Tucker, Haraldsson etc. haven't find such evidence either. According to Jenny Cockell, who remembers several previous lives, we don't choose to have diseases or disabilities. If somebody gets for example cancer, it is 100% due to biological/physical causes. I agree with her.

Nevertheless, there is some good evidence for souls choosing their parents for the next life, and I think it is possible that some (perhaps more advanced) souls may have some kind of blueprint or certain goals for their next lives. Perhaps there is even some kind of destiny which brings different events to our lives. It may also be possible that our actions in previous lives have certain consequences in the future lives.

Yeah personally I think reality *might* shift toward something more ordered, more meaningful but Survival in all its aspects is more a natural phenomenon that is in many ways as arbitrary as this life. There doesn't seem to be any clear evidence of meaningful order, and perhaps that's for the best since it would ultimately (IMO) be confining...

I even suspect everyone who is human has souls with different paths taken through the possible afterlives...admittedly I think people feel this is too "video-gamey" but not sure how we would decide which afterlife evidence to ignore:

The Hells? The ones where you have to get a job and work like you do in this life? The afterlife descriptions where people meet God, or the ones where it seems like the ground of all being is some formless, identity-less Awareness?

It seems whatever "cut" people make would at some critical point be arbitrary, based on personal preference...

I don't believe that souls choose to be blind or have cancer etc. In my opinion this is pure fiction. It is also illogical. What lessons one could learn from being blind?

Matlock didn't find any evidence suggesting elaborate life planning. Stevenson, Tucker, Haraldsson etc. haven't find such evidence either. According to Jenny Cockell, who remembers several previous lives, we don't choose to have diseases or disabilities. If somebody gets for example cancer, it is 100% due to biological/physical causes. I agree with her.

Nevertheless, there is some good evidence for souls choosing their parents for the next life, and I think it is possible that some (perhaps more advanced) souls may have some kind of blueprint or certain goals for their next lives. Perhaps there is even some kind of destiny which brings different events to our lives. It may also be possible that our actions in previous lives have certain consequences in the future lives.

I also would choose to believe this. But there are certain implications if this is the case. 

Then apparently, there is (option 1), where souls simply don't have the paranormal knowledge necessary to predict these very unfortunate outcomes for their intended upcoming incarnations, despite there being ample evidence in the genes for genetic defects leading almost certainly to disease, or family circumstances leading almost certainly to severe abuse, or societal/cultural factors almost certainly leading to terrible consequences like the one I detailed with the war-torn African country, or another very simple and obvious one that comes to mind, where the mother has transmitted her AIDS infection to her unborn fetus, who will certainly be born with AIDS and almost certainly to a terrible early and apparently pointless death. The soul still chooses to go ahead with an upcoming incarnation despite these unknown possibilities. 

Option (2) here is that the soul does have this paranormal knowledge, but chooses to ignore it, and chooses at random, so that the bad and the good outcomes are simply a matter of the luck of the draw. Not a very palatable option.

Option (3) is the one we really want to avoid, where the soul has the paranormal pre-knowledge, and still actively chooses sometimes, for its own purposes, the terrible lives of the sorts that I outlined examples of.

Option (4) is the last one that comes to mind, that there is no soul choice involved at all - it is a mechanical system that automatically selects upcoming lives according to some unknown criteria, originally set up by the powers-that-be. If we want to blame somebody or someone, we can't really identify whatever it was (or they were). The supposed laws of karma come to mind as a (remote) possibility. 

Option (1) is the most palatable (or least unpalatable) of the options, where the soul, strongly desiring Earth incarnation, looks at the broad goals of its upcoming sojourn into physical reality, and at the merely possible outcomes based on incomplete knowledge of the probabilities, and makes choices it thinks will give its incarnation a good chance at accomplishing at least some of the goals. Again, in this case the soul accepts the luck of the draw as at least partially determining the outcome for the forthcoming life, good or bad from the human standpoint. The soul considers the risk of a bad outcome worth the potential for benefit. Again, in this tradeoff decision apparently not considering much the well-being of the human involved. 

If anyone can think of any other possiblilities or better interpretations in this spectrum, or in others, I am interested in finding one that is more reassuring.

I also would choose to believe this. But there are certain implications if this is the case. 

Then apparently, there is (option 1), where souls simply don't have the paranormal knowledge necessary to predict these very unfortunate outcomes for their intended upcoming incarnations, despite there being ample evidence in the genes for genetic defects leading almost certainly to disease, or family circumstances leading almost cetainly to severe abuse, or societial/cultural factors almost certainly leading to terrible consequences like the one I detailed with the war-torn African country, or another very simple and obvious one that comes to mind, where the mother has transmitted her AIDS infection to her unborn fetus, who will certainly be born with AIDS and almost certainly to a terrible early and apparently pointless death. The soul still chooses to go ahead with an upcoming incarnation despite these unknown possibilities. 

Option (2) here is that the soul does have this paranormal knowledge, but chooses to ignore it, and chooses at random, so that the bad and the good outcomes are simply a matter of the luck of the draw. Not a very palatable option.

Option (3) is the one we really want to avoid, where the soul has the paranormal pre-knowledge, and still actively chooses sometimes, for its own purposes, the terrible lives of the sorts that I outlined examples of.

Option (4) is the last one that comes to mind, that there is no soul choice involved at all - it is a mechanical system that automatically selects upcoming lives according to some unknown criteria, originally set up by the powers-that-be. If we want to blame somebody or someone, we can't really identify whatever it was (or they were). The supposed laws of karma come to mind as a (remote) possibility. 

Option (1) is the most palatable (or least unpalatable) of the options, where the soul, strongly desiring Earth incarnation, looks at the broad goals of its upcoming sojourn into physical reality, and at the merely possible outcomes based on incomplete knowledge of the probabilities, and makes choices it thinks will give its incarnation a good chance at accomplishing at least some of the goals. Again, in this case the soul accepts the luck of the draw as at least partially determining the outcome for the forthcoming life, good or bad from the human standpoint. The soul considers the risk of a bad outcome worth the potential for benefit. Again, in this tradeoff decision apparently not considering much the well-being of the human involved. 

If anyone can think of any other possiblilities or better interpretations in this spectrum, or in others, I am interested in finding one that is more reassuring.

I think it probably depends on the soul and the environment before it gets incarnated into a body. Sometimes it seems there is very little choice or no choice at all, other times it seems the incarnating soul has a large amount of choice in its parents and even if it takes on disabilities in this life.

I'm basing this on accounts from NDErs and those with past life memory but I'd have to do a deeper reading in both cases to get a fuller sense.