The soul, suffering, healing, learning, and spirituality [Night Shift split]

The "veil of forgetfulness" would seem to prevent learning by the human, not enable growth, since for the human there is little or no accumulation of wisdom painfully acquired in past incarnations. Wisdom requires having the accumulated collective partial memory of a large array of past experiences, good and bad so as to know from experience what is good and works, and what is bad and doesn't work.

After contemplating my previous experiences... I think the veil of forgetfulness extends to memories that were formed in the higher, non-physical realms of existence. Because we do accumulate wisdom painfully acquired from past incarnation ~ we just often don't perceive the roots of that wisdom when we bring it into this life. It's not just wisdom... but any strong talents, fears or connections we might have. Such as... a child prodigy being able to play the piano without having been taught, or someone who has an irrational fear of the ocean, despite never having been there before in this lifetime, or having a curious knowing-at-first-sight, as if you know this person somehow, but you can't place the feeling. These are all past-life memories.

But each current human incarnation has to mostly learn the same lessons all over again. Such a system would seem to be extremely inefficient and unfair to the human, but can be understood if as you imply, it is the Soul that does the learning, a mostly different and vastly greater being (essentially another distinct being) that has total recall of all the previous incarnations, and has all the time in the worlds to achieve greater wisdom (so it doesn't care about inefficiency).

But we don't have to learn the same lessons again, because the incarnate self is not a blank slate ~ as the Soul grows in experience, each incarnation will carry different sets of unconscious memories with them. I've come to suspect that the Soul can choose what set of past-life unconscious influences it will give to the incarnate self so that it can be influenced by those, for whatever purpose they are to serve in the upcoming life.

The human self is a portion of Soul, don't forget... so the whole Soul learns in real-time from the incarnate portion of Soul. There's no inefficiency ~ just working within the limitations of the system it has to work with. So, the Soul needs to get creative.

So in this model the Soul, unlike the human, can truly learn from past mistakes and successes. Unfortunately this scheme is profoundly unfair to the human due to the human not being his soul in any humanly meaningful way - which is mainly due to the no memory of past lives issue and to the lack of participation in future life planning issue. But what is, is, and we have to accept it. It was established by powers vastly greater than our own.

You almost seem to consider the human an entirely different existence to the Soul, almost as if the Soul is something alien. The human can learn from past mistakes and successes. The human incarnation is the Soul ~ in part. It carries the potential the whole Soul considers necessary for the lessons to be learned in that lifetime.

Every major outcome the human incarnate makes can most certainly affect the Soul's decision making. The Soul isn't a distant entity. It actively watches, and can see every little detail, even those that the incarnate self is unable to.

When the human incarnation's body dies, that portion of Soul expands until it becomes one with the whole Soul again ~ as if it was never parted. Because it never was, in a sense. Souls can be influenced quite a bit by their incarnation's experiences.

I would even go farther and suggest Survival seems to be a natural phenomenon.

This isn't to discount the evidence of Cosmic Fine Tuning, but just as a city can become part of the wild landscape so too could the universe and even larger segments of reality be designed yet now left to some natural order. There could be some Ur-Mind behind all realities but I don't know if It has plans or interests...perhaps Narratives and unfolding Story?

That would seem to make sense, when viewed from this microcosm... our lives are composed by the meaning of a lived narrative and story ~ we find and create meaning where we are attracted to it. So maybe in the macrocosm, something vaguely similar happens... not that those narratives and stories will look like any tradition form that we know of down here.

What seems to be most important to me is the question of what is it that actually survives long term in survival and the afterlife. As I implied in the previous post, logic at least (which may be sadly limited), implies that what actually survives long term is the vastly different and greatly expanded Soul consciousness, not the human person that we instinctively identify with.

The human person still exists as part of the expanded Soul. I don't see why it wouldn't... the experiences the Soul had as a human person just get recontextualized as part of a remembrance of all of their other memories. The essential meaning of those experiences aren't lost, however. The web of relations between different memories and experiences just gets an update. We can make various connections and insights we weren't able to before.

I have to agree with this assessment, though I would interpret it along the lines of there still being a sort of immediate practical reality to the interactional substance Dualist model, since it is how a vast amount of phenomena actually work in human experience despite an ultimate existential reality of a One Substance composing the creative Intelligence behind everything. Your highlighted statement indicates essentially the same sort of creation of rules by fiat of a higher power that I have been suggesting.

All of this only applies to the nature of this physical reality ~ which, despite ridiculously massive in scale, is still only a minisicule aspect of reality as a whole. In an infinite reality, anything and everything can be possible. Outside of this physical reality with its known rules... who knows what the "rules" are, if any.

However, the creative Intelligence would not just create a reality composed of Substance Dualism and be done with it ~ it would also have the potential to create any number of limited states of existences with any number of aspects. Maybe some reality has a Substance Pluralism of a set of completely incomprehensible substances resembling nothing imaginable to us. Maybe another limited reality just has the one substance.

With unlimited creativity and unlimited potential, there are no limits to what is possible. On that scale, anyways.

I also would agree with your statement about Neutral Monism but with the caviat that this understanding needs to be the proper interpretation of this philosophy.

Neutral Monism is rather flexible, because it's base definition is that mind and matter derive from an underlying base substance that can meaningfully compose both, which also allows for their interaction, as it provides a common medium for that interaction.

For me, that Neutral Substance is... a supra-mind, souls, spirits, something with the creative potential possible. And that's to say nothing of "God", which I almost consider to be all of reality itself.

In a model incorporating Daoism... God would be the Tao, the Ain and the Ain Soph, while the world of souls and spirits and such would be the Ain Soph Aur, the infinite light which is infinite possibility and infinite manifestation.

After contemplating my previous experiences... I think the veil of forgetfulness extends to memories that were formed in the higher, non-physical realms of existence. Because we do accumulate wisdom painfully acquired from past incarnation ~ we just often don't perceive the roots of that wisdom when we bring it into this life. It's not just wisdom... but any strong talents, fears or connections we might have. Such as... a child prodigy being able to play the piano without having been taught, or someone who has an irrational fear of the ocean, despite never having been there before in this lifetime, or having a curious knowing-at-first-sight, as if you know this person somehow, but you can't place the feeling. These are all past-life memories.


But we don't have to learn the same lessons again, because the incarnate self is not a blank slate ~ as the Soul grows in experience, each incarnation will carry different sets of unconscious memories with them. I've come to suspect that the Soul can choose what set of past-life unconscious influences it will give to the incarnate self so that it can be influenced by those, for whatever purpose they are to serve in the upcoming life.

The human self is a portion of Soul, don't forget... so the whole Soul learns in real-time from the incarnate portion of Soul. There's no inefficiency ~ just working within the limitations of the system it has to work with. So, the Soul needs to get creative.


You almost seem to consider the human an entirely different existence to the Soul, almost as if the Soul is something alien. The human can learn from past mistakes and successes. The human incarnation is the Soul ~ in part. It carries the potential the whole Soul considers necessary for the lessons to be learned in that lifetime.

Every major outcome the human incarnate makes can most certainly affect the Soul's decision making. The Soul isn't a distant entity. It actively watches, and can see every little detail, even those that the incarnate self is unable to.

When the human incarnation's body dies, that portion of Soul expands until it becomes one with the whole Soul again ~ as if it was never parted. Because it never was, in a sense. Souls can be influenced quite a bit by their incarnation's experiences.

My problem here is the clear implication of the nitty-gritty working out in real life of this rationalization and implied scenario. 

My most important sticking point on this well expressed rationalization of the seemingly unrationalizable, is due to considering a couple of concrete real-life examples of between-lives choices presumably made by the Soul. 

One hypothetical test case example is the Soul deciding during the between-lives period to choose a very challenging new incarnation involving the high probability due to genetic defects of a slow and excruciatingly painful death by cancer at an early age, so agonizingly miserable as to likely incur attempts to commit suicide by the incarnate personality. As actually happens sometimes. 

Of course I know that Soul choice isn't the only mechanism for establishing characteristics of the next incarnate life, but this hypothetical example is certainly possible and undoubtedly happens some times assuming reincarnation is a fact. The Soul with its paranormal capabilities should certainly have psychically derived knowledge of the likely outcome of the potential upcoming physical life, especially including knowing about the probably eventually lethal genetic birth defects.

My point is that a human person contemplating such a horrible possible future life choice would absolutely never knowingly and voluntarily choose it for him/her self. Suffering and especially extreme suffering are instinctively avoided by human persons at all costs. Therefore, the Soul being that actually made that future life choice must necessarily be essentially a different being than the human, with profoundly different personality characteristics, who is not averse to subjecting its next incarnation to intolerable horrid suffering. 

Another hypothetical test case thought experiment that comes to mind could be the choice by the Soul of a next incarnation where the person is very likely to be drafted into the Army in some war-torn country with a very high probability of death or severe injury in battle at a young age before having accomplished much of anything in life - a meaningless death. Is it plausible that the human person would actually choose such a predictable future life?

These somewhat realistic thought experimental tests seem to have proven that the differences between a human person and his Soul being are so great and profound that the two must necessarily be considered separate and very different beings.

My problem here is the clear implication of the nitty-gritty working out in real life of this rationalization and implied scenario. 

My most important sticking point on this well expressed rationalization of the seemingly unrationalizable, is due to considering a couple of concrete real-life examples of between-lives choices presumably made by the Soul. 

One hypothetical test case example is the Soul deciding during the between-lives period to choose a very challenging new incarnation involving the high probability due to genetic defects of a slow and excruciatingly painful death by cancer at an early age, so agonizingly miserable as to likely incur attempts to commit suicide by the incarnate personality. As actually happens sometimes. 

Of course I know that Soul choice isn't the only mechanism for establishing characteristics of the next incarnate life, but this hypothetical example is certainly possible and undoubtedly happens some times assuming reincarnation is a fact. The Soul with its paranormal capabilities should certainly have psychically derived knowledge of the likely outcome of the potential upcoming physical life, especially including knowing about the probably eventually lethal genetic birth defects.

My point is that a human person contemplating such a horrible possible future life choice would absolutely never knowingly and voluntarily choose it for him/her self. Suffering and especially extreme suffering are instinctively avoided by human persons at all costs. Therefore, the Soul being that actually made that future life choice must necessarily be essentially a different being than the human, with profoundly different personality characteristics, who is not averse to subjecting its next incarnation to intolerable horrid suffering. 

Another hypothetical test case thought experiment that comes to mind could be the choice by the Soul of a next incarnation where the person is very likely to be drafted into the Army in some war-torn country with a very high probability of death or severe injury in battle at a young age before having accomplished much of anything in life - a meaningless death. Is it plausible that the human person would actually choose such a predictable future life?

The problem is that there is quite a lot of information about people who remember previous lives. These ideas come from that source. In the absence of any other data, I'd rather come to terms with those ideas than dismiss them because they are too horrible.

I'd love there to be much more data about memories of past lives, various taboos make that hard to obtain. As I have pointed out above, the concept that people will train in extremely uncomfortable ways to 'improve' themselves is well established. To me that makes these stories more plausible.

Remember also that we don't know what may apply at the extremes. For example, perhaps the most severely handicapped are animated by some less sentient form of spirit - we just don't have a sufficiently complete picture of the scheme.

These somewhat realistic thought experimental tests seem to have proven that the differences between a human person and his Soul being are so great and profound that the two must necessarily be considered separate and very different beings.

That may well be, but don't forget that the word 'soul' in this context is sometimes referred to as the 'over-soul' is not quite the same as what is usually referred to as the soul, as in, "His soul separated from his body".

I'd be interested if others commented on just how well grounded this picture is.

Since the number of people on the planet is increasing, it is interesting to speculate if an over-soul can animate more than one body at once.

If this topic ceased to be taboo, who knows what might be found out!

David

That may well be, but don't forget that the word 'soul' in this context is sometimes referred to as the 'over-soul' is not quite the same as what is usually referred to as the soul, as in, "His soul separated from his body".

I'd be interested if others commented on just how well grounded this picture is.

David

The term "soul" means something different in different cultures.  In Genesis in the Bible, God created Adam out of the dust of the Earth, then breathed life (spirit) into him and he "became a living soul."  There is very little in the Bible that gives the impression of a separate soul; probably one or two verses translated from Greek.  Who knows what is lost in the translation?

My problem here is the clear implication of the nitty-gritty working out in real life of this rationalization and implied scenario. 

My most important sticking point on this well expressed rationalization of the seemingly unrationalizable, is due to considering a couple of concrete real-life examples of between-lives choices presumably made by the Soul. 

One hypothetical test case example is the Soul deciding during the between-lives period to choose a very challenging new incarnation involving the high probability due to genetic defects of a slow and excruciatingly painful death by cancer at an early age, so agonizingly miserable as to likely incur attempts to commit suicide by the incarnate personality. As actually happens sometimes. 

Of course I know that Soul choice isn't the only mechanism for establishing characteristics of the next incarnate life, but this hypothetical example is certainly possible and undoubtedly happens some times assuming reincarnation is a fact. The Soul with its paranormal capabilities should certainly have psychically derived knowledge of the likely outcome of the potential upcoming physical life, especially including knowing about the probably eventually lethal genetic birth defects.

The Soul does know, but that doesn't mean the Soul has any proper understanding. If you've never had an experience before, you cannot hope to truly understand it just by seeing it from a second-hand perspective or hearing about it from a third-person perspective. A Soul free from the burden of physical limitations cannot hope to really grasp the nature of what it is to go through such an experience, so if it gets the idea that maybe it would like to understand what that's like, for whatever reason stimulated that notion. Maybe in one lifetime, the incarnated Soul saw a crippled person, and felt horribly about it, and then decided it wanted to understand, to empathize.

Though, sometimes, Souls decide to just choose random experiences as a leaping board into the unknown ~ maybe they don't know what they want, and not knowing what's possible, take a leap, ignorant of what might happen.

My point is that a human person contemplating such a horrible possible future life choice would absolutely never knowingly and voluntarily choose it for him/her self. Suffering and especially extreme suffering are instinctively avoided by human persons at all costs. Therefore, the Soul being that actually made that future life choice must necessarily be essentially a different being than the human, with profoundly different personality characteristics, who is not averse to subjecting its next incarnation to intolerable horrid suffering.

I had to spend a few moments think about this, as I have wondered myself why the first half of my life was filled with so much suffering. Crippling trauma, severe anxiety, uncontrollable possession by unhealthy psychological habits...

After having my mind cleared by the worst of that by Ayahuasca... I feel like I'm able to have a bit more insight now, but I'm still unsure. Further contemplation gave me a rather simple answer of sorts ~ we don't have the full story, the full context, while we are incarnated. We cannot remember the full decision-making process that lead to the particular life we chose. When the Soul prepares to incarnate, it knows that its incarnate aspect will not be able to remember why its in that situation, due to the amnesia, the veil of forgetfulness. The Soul knows that it will be painful, but that the pain and suffering will become fully cleansed when the body dies and the ego-boundaries dissolve, and the human mind expands fully back into the Soul again. The pain and suffering is given full context.

The Soul isn't subjecting a different entity to intolerable horrid suffering ~ it is subjecting a piece of itself to intolerable horrid suffering with a grim reason of seeking some sort of insight. But because it knows the suffering and pain is only temporary, it can handle that period of pain. It's not the end of the world. The horror of not knowing why the suffering happens only lasts for a short time, relatively, so it can handle it. Souls are immortal, so perspective-wise, it doesn't seem like much.

I say this... but then, not all Souls would like this at first, so I guess they would aim for the more pleasant lives ~ that's the vague intuition I'm getting. Or what they think are pleasant lives... the cushy life isn't so pleasant. They're boring and miserable. But, Souls new to incarnation need experience, I guess...

Another hypothetical test case thought experiment that comes to mind could be the choice by the Soul of a next incarnation where the person is very likely to be drafted into the Army in some war-torn country with a very high probability of death or severe injury in battle at a young age before having accomplished much of anything in life - a meaningless death. Is it plausible that the human person would actually choose such a predictable future life?

These somewhat realistic thought experimental tests seem to have proven that the differences between a human person and his Soul being are so great and profound that the two must necessarily be considered separate and very different beings.

They are not that realistic in that they don't take into account that the Soul isn't some distant entity lounging in some distant pain-free reality. No, the Soul experiences everything its incarnate experiences ~ and it knows beforehand that its incarnate self will not be able to remember, that it will be confused and lost. The Soul accepts that ~ though the newer Souls to incarnation will not really understand what that means, as they've never experienced what the feels like. But it's just a shock to overcome.

If you can contemplate the idea that the Soul is fully aware of what its incarnate self experiences ~ most intimately ~ and that it is fully aware that the mystery of suffering and pain its incarnation may undergo is a temporary trial to be endured, then perhaps you can understand why Souls subject pieces of themselves to such trials.

Incarnating into this reality comes with amnesia of why we're here. If we knew... the Soul wouldn't receive the appropriate insights. It needs that fresh perspective, unburdened by Soul knowledge. Past-life knowledge can be informative, sometimes, and as it is on the same level of grounded experience as the current life, it is actually comprehensible.

The Soul does know, but that doesn't mean the Soul has any proper understanding. If you've never had an experience before, you cannot hope to truly understand it just by seeing it from a second-hand perspective or hearing about it from a third-person perspective. A Soul free from the burden of physical limitations cannot hope to really grasp the nature of what it is to go through such an experience, so if it gets the idea that maybe it would like to understand what that's like, for whatever reason stimulated that notion. Maybe in one lifetime, the incarnated Soul saw a crippled person, and felt horribly about it, and then decided it wanted to understand, to empathize.

Though, sometimes, Souls decide to just choose random experiences as a leaping board into the unknown ~ maybe they don't know what they want, and not knowing what's possible, take a leap, ignorant of what might happen.


I had to spend a few moments think about this, as I have wondered myself why the first half of my life was filled with so much suffering. Crippling trauma, severe anxiety, uncontrollable possession by unhealthy psychological habits...

After having my mind cleared by the worst of that by Ayahuasca... I feel like I'm able to have a bit more insight now, but I'm still unsure. Further contemplation gave me a rather simple answer of sorts ~ we don't have the full story, the full context, while we are incarnated. We cannot remember the full decision-making process that lead to the particular life we chose. When the Soul prepares to incarnate, it knows that its incarnate aspect will not be able to remember why its in that situation, due to the amnesia, the veil of forgetfulness. The Soul knows that it will be painful, but that the pain and suffering will become fully cleansed when the body dies and the ego-boundaries dissolve, and the human mind expands fully back into the Soul again. The pain and suffering is given full context.

The Soul isn't subjecting a different entity to intolerable horrid suffering ~ it is subjecting a piece of itself to intolerable horrid suffering with a grim reason of seeking some sort of insight. But because it knows the suffering and pain is only temporary, it can handle that period of pain. It's not the end of the world. The horror of not knowing why the suffering happens only lasts for a short time, relatively, so it can handle it. Souls are immortal, so perspective-wise, it doesn't seem like much.

I say this... but then, not all Souls would like this at first, so I guess they would aim for the more pleasant lives ~ that's the vague intuition I'm getting. Or what they think are pleasant lives... the cushy life isn't so pleasant. They're boring and miserable. But, Souls new to incarnation need experience, I guess...


They are not that realistic in that they don't take into account that the Soul isn't some distant entity lounging in some distant pain-free reality. No, the Soul experiences everything its incarnate experiences ~ and it knows beforehand that its incarnate self will not be able to remember, that it will be confused and lost. The Soul accepts that ~ though the newer Souls to incarnation will not really understand what that means, as they've never experienced what the feels like. But it's just a shock to overcome.

If you can contemplate the idea that the Soul is fully aware of what its incarnate self experiences ~ most intimately ~ and that it is fully aware that the mystery of suffering and pain its incarnation may undergo is a temporary trial to be endured, then perhaps you can understand why Souls subject pieces of themselves to such trials.

Incarnating into this reality comes with amnesia of why we're here. If we knew... the Soul wouldn't receive the appropriate insights. It needs that fresh perspective, unburdened by Soul knowledge. Past-life knowledge can be informative, sometimes, and as it is on the same level of grounded experience as the current life, it is actually comprehensible.

Thanks for fully engaging with this difficult issue. It seems hard in general to get people to do that. You seem to have dealt with it quite thoroughly. That it is complicated, that some Souls will be inexperienced (or even be seemingly unintelligent) and make mistakes, that the way things are designed is not for the comfort and pleasure of incarnation but for learning sometimes at any cost in suffering, that suffering is ultimately temporary, all has the ring of truth, the imperfection that would be expected of anything not directly of the Godhead. I will just have to reserve my sovereign right to dislike this arrangement of Reality as being deeply unfair to incarnate human beings, the suffering of humanity being still an ongoing endless injustice. I know, there must always be tradeoffs.

Thanks for fully engaging with this difficult issue. It seems hard in general to get people to do that. You seem to have dealt with it quite thoroughly.

Half of it is my intuition providing the drive, I think. At some points, I'm half-aware of it, just letting it happen. It's hard to describe, because I'm not aware of the source. It's just... stuff coming from somewhere, that rings true. It's all I have. I can only hope that it is true, heh...

That it is complicated, that some Souls will be inexperienced (or even be seemingly unintelligent) and make mistakes, that the way things are designed is not for the comfort and pleasure of incarnation but for learning sometimes at any cost in suffering, that suffering is ultimately temporary, all has the ring of truth, the imperfection that would be expected of anything not directly of the Godhead.

I've seen various ideas over the years, along with various idea I myself have considered, that seem to ring true according to my intuition. Some stuff just... seems to click, somehow. When it's a clear intuition at least. And it's not always clear, heh. Nice when it is, though. Not that the clarity ever lasts. It comes and goes as it needs to, I guess.

I will just have to reserve my sovereign right to dislike this arrangement of Reality as being deeply unfair to incarnate human beings, the suffering of humanity being still an ongoing endless injustice. I know, there must always be tradeoffs.

It is only unfair if you perceive it that way... I see it as being... a combination of fair and unfair to every incarnate entity ~ human or otherwise. Humans aren't the only ones living an incarnate existence. Every incarnate entity has its purpose and place. How their Souls choose their lives aren't particularly different to how our Souls do it ~ it's simply just a different ego-archetype and complimentary physical form. Though, that can be harder to wrap one's head around, understandably. I struggle to myself, but that's because it's the problem of trying to comprehend non-human psychology.