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

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.

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?

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.

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.

Concerning the book, I just was intrigued by a few excerpts I encountered in another forum and realized the clear parallels. 
It would seem according to some spiritual teachings that during physical life a sentient conscious being (the unique vastly complex Soul) having a unitary stream of consciousness becomes two simultaneously existing separate sentient beings (the temporary human and the vastly greater and different Soul). But this splitting of a single unique sentient conscious being with a unitary sense of self and agency into two or more separate and simultaneous streams of consciousness would seem to be impossible because it would violate the unitary ultimate nature of a conscious sentient being.

This presumes that there is an actual splitting that takes case. Why should a Soul, being a vast entity, not have the capability to simultaneously experience different streams of consciousness, living many lives at once? You're looking at it from a down-here perspective, which can give you no insight into what a Soul is capable of.

All I have are my experiences that suggest to me things that I would never have previously imagined as being actually possible... yet I experienced them.

There is some data relevant to this issue. It seems that several different psychic sources have furnished accounts of the scheme that parallel to some extent the "Soul is split into two simultaneously existing beings" concept. And some people experience spontaneous moments of seeming contact by what they sense to be their "higher selves", which generally are deliberately communicating something important. We need to take these data pointing to a real split seriously.

Why does there need to be an actual split? Can you not see it as merely analogy? Multiple streams which appear separate, but are actually of the same root existence, which is not only the source, but the ground in which these experiences are had. The Soul is far more capable than you realize. It almost feels innate to the existence of a Soul ~ that it can just... do that. Experience of a limited existence is rather alien in comparison. At least to a Soul not practiced in going through the process of incarnation.

In your conception, during physical life there would still be just one single conscious sentient being - the soul - but one that has been drastically throttled down and limited.  This model could be interpreted in such a way as to confirm the "what survives is an extremely different entity - the Soul" model.

Perhaps it could, but there's nothing to say that this is the only meaningful interpretation. Maybe I'm just confused at your strong insistence of the idea.

It occurs to me that the picture just might not be so bleak, because there might be another much better interpretation. A valid analogy might be made with the drastic differences between my old adult self molded by countless experiences and situations, and my much earlier self at age 7 for instance. To me, there seem to be such huge differences between these two beings that they could almost be denoted separate unique beings. My earlier self was so much simpler and less knowledgable and accomplished that he seems almost like a different being. Yet I also know that there are deep continuities between these two beings. In some sense we really are one. This might be truly analogous in some ways to the Soul/human issue.

It's not really the same thing. The Soul learns through its incarnate selves, and gains wisdom from the insights and learnings of its incarnate self. Even insights that might have been small enough that the incarnate self missed, but that the Soul noted as important, as it misses no details. That's why life reviews can contain details that were considered previously unimportant, but turn out to have more meaning than realized, when put into a different context. Like the small kindness shown to an old lady who might need helping across the road. Small acts that brighten someone's day.

I have always thought that one of the weak points about neuroscience's explanation of the mind is that let's say we take the location of fear in the brain - the amygdala. The problem immediately arises that fear is usually caused by something - say a tiger - but then that fear can be enhanced or abolished by other information - such as the fact that there is a shatterproof transparent screen between you and the tiger. But then maybe you notice that there is a tiny crack in the corner of the screen which seems to be expanding ..... etc.

In other words fear isn't an isolated entity, it is intimately bound to everything else. For me this casts doubt on the connectionist model of the brain. Thus by analogy, I am even less keen on the idea that the soul (or mind) can be carved up into portions that can be mixed and matched in this way.

Indeed. Neuroscience is rather myopic in its understandings of psychology when it tries placing their origin in the brain. The Physicalists seem to think that fear is caused by neurochemicals, rather than the neurochemicals being caused by the unconscious psychological reaction that primes the body to be ready to respond.

I could more easily imagine a soul that would depend on a number of parameters which might be tweaked between successive lives.

Sort of like patterns and habits? Though a Soul would have far more control, not being limited in its existence, though still not infinite.

Has anyone here read the Beyond Matter book, and have you any comments?

David

Sounds interesting.

Right, but of course, you can still understand yourself back when you were 7 - you have simply matured. I think a good analogy is with the way children start to recognise the concept of sex at about age 13. Before then the world seemed to make sense without sex. I remember watching shows in which the action man took time off killing baddies to mess about with a woman (nothing pornographic - this was the 1960's). My brother and I would groan and just wait for him to get back to important matters - LOL!

That is an illustration of just how blind children (and by extension, the rest of us) can be to phenomena that they are just not ready for.

I guess these over-souls (or whatever) can't really be understood until we go through the next transition.

David

Indeed... not a bad analogy. Until we expand back into being a soul again, we cannot see the greater picture. Indeed, seeing the greater picture might be interfere with learning and growing. We might miss out on insights that we might not otherwise have had.

Back when I was trapped in depression and trauma, I was... very blind. I couldn't see any light or hope. I could never have seen what was to be, yet looking back, I see the purpose now ~ training my mind to become stronger so that I am more capable at resisting harmful influences.

It always makes sense in retrospect, as you can see where you've been and where you now are. The journey is what is important, along with reflecting on the journey. Not obsessively, of course.

The interesting thing about the concept of souls reincarnating is just how much evidence there is for this phenomenon there is for this, or which is consistent with this view.

1) The concept of people reincarnating is a traditional idea. E.g. think of the Dalai Lama.

2) Various people have investigated reincarnation scientifically.

3) The typical version of the NDE, includes the idea that you judge yourself, but aren't sent to hell if you decide that you don't come up to scratch. That sort of implies that you will come back for another chance.

4) Most people love stories that they read in books, act out in plays, etc. You can even go to university to analyse stories - e.g. English literature, or Higgs Bosons (just being provocative folks).

David

This presumes that there is an actual splitting that takes case. Why should a Soul, being a vast entity, not have the capability to simultaneously experience different streams of consciousness, living many lives at once? You're looking at it from a down-here perspective, which can give you no insight into what a Soul is capable of.

All I have are my experiences that suggest to me things that I would never have previously imagined as being actually possible... yet I experienced them.


Why does there need to be an actual split? Can you not see it as merely analogy? Multiple streams which appear separate, but are actually of the same root existence, which is not only the source, but the ground in which these experiences are had. The Soul is far more capable than you realize. It almost feels innate to the existence of a Soul ~ that it can just... do that. Experience of a limited existence is rather alien in comparison. At least to a Soul not practiced in going through the process of incarnation.


Perhaps it could, but there's nothing to say that this is the only meaningful interpretation. Maybe I'm just confused at your strong insistence of the idea.


It's not really the same thing. The Soul learns through its incarnate selves, and gains wisdom from the insights and learnings of its incarnate self. Even insights that might have been small enough that the incarnate self missed, but that the Soul noted as important, as it misses no details. That's why life reviews can contain details that were considered previously unimportant, but turn out to have more meaning than realized, when put into a different context. Like the small kindness shown to an old lady who might need helping across the road. Small acts that brighten someone's day.

Your response is deep and seemingly convincing, but is founded on an automatic ignoring of the extreme importance of the real moment in time after moment in time (sometimes seemingly endless) undeserved and unchosen subjective consciousness of suffering experienced many times by the incarnate self. These experiences are inherently, existentially, bad and unjust in my estimation, regardless of any possible insights regarding the real ultimate nature of this incarnate experientially separate personality.

The incarnate self during those periods of time is subjectively in his/her consciousness genuinely a separate being from the "oversoul", and the ultimate injustice to the incarnate person of much of this suffering is apparent. The incarnate person has experienced just his personal Earth lifetime and never ever would have made the decisions leading to his current extreme suffering. This sometimes extreme suffering is quite likely, from the incarnate  person's standpoint, to be incredibly unjust , since it was imposed on him/her by what is to the incarnate person experientially at that moment another separate vastly greater being, the "oversoul".

I believe that the inherent injustice of the subjective experience of so much suffering by the incarnate person should not be ignored as you seem to do. I myself went through a lot of very difficult periods in my youth and early adulthood, and developed a great deal of anger about the injustice of such undeserved suffering seemingly "coming out of the blue". Nothing can erase the existence of these bad even almost intolerable periods in my life; they are simply, existentially, a bad thing. Unfortunately I didn't have the kind of dramatic and illuminating spiritual experiences such as you have described, that seem to have dissolved the perception of injustice in your case.

The true ultimate nature of the incarnate self as being part of the Oversoul may be a truth, but it is immaterial to the injustice that these extremely painful things really happened to the unenlightened incarnate self in real subjective Earth time. These experiences seem to be a very high even intolerable price for the Oversoul accumulating more and more experience.

That's how it looks to me - the actual subjective experiences good and bad of the incarnate personality stand as timeless ineluctable truths that actually happened and are ultimately either justified or not strictly from the standpoint of the isolated and limited incarnate personality that actually experienced them.

Your explanation of the soul/human relationship may be the truth (though it relies on the vague invocation of supposed truths that are beyond our human understanding), but I reserve my inherent human right to heartily dislike and object to it as an inherently unjust scheme of reality.

Your response is deep and seemingly convincing, but is founded on an automatic ignoring of the extreme importance of the real moment in time after moment in time (sometimes seemingly endless) undeserved and unchosen subjective consciousness of suffering experienced many times by the incarnate self. These experiences are inherently, existentially, bad and unjust in my estimation, regardless of any possible insights regarding the real ultimate nature of this incarnate experientially separate personality.

Experiences of such suffering most certainly appear and feel existentially bad and unjust, undeserved and unchosen in the moment, and it's perfectly okay to have those feelings. I know, because I went through that hell with childhood sexual trauma... and relived those most nightmarish, black emotions in full during my Ayahuasca experience, which allowed them to be healed and integrated. There was nothing but dissociation during it, which is why the surroundings were empty. The pain was all-consuming. Now... I can recall back to those moments and feel completely unaffected, as the emotions have been healed. That piece of me has been healed of its wounds.

What I think you are not aware of is the powerful insights that come after the full healing of the pain, after trauma has been healed, and we can see with clarity unburdened by the storm of suffering. There is a method to the madness, though it may not be apparent at the time.

The incarnate self during those periods of time is subjectively in his/her consciousness genuinely a separate being from the "oversoul", and the ultimate injustice to the incarnate person of much of this suffering is apparent. The incarnate person has experienced just his personal Earth lifetime and never ever would have made the decisions leading to his current extreme suffering. This sometimes extreme suffering is quite likely, from the incarnate  person's standpoint, to be incredibly unjust , since it was imposed on him/her by what is to the incarnate person experientially at that moment another separate vastly greater being, the "oversoul".

You keep saying this, without evidence, based entirely on emotion, cherry-picking any bit of evidence that supports what you already believe, refusing to accept anything else.

It seems that no amount of anything can convince you otherwise, so I may as well just be wasting my words. Your emotions are far too strong. I can empathize, because I had my moments of emotionally-driven blindness in the past. It's impossible to see through when it clouds your mind.

I believe that the inherent injustice of the subjective experience of so much suffering by the incarnate person should not be ignored as you seem to do. I myself went through a lot of very difficult periods in my youth and early adulthood, and developed a great deal of anger about the injustice of such undeserved suffering seemingly "coming out of the blue". Nothing can erase the existence of these bad even almost intolerable periods in my life; they are simply, existentially, a bad thing. Unfortunately I didn't have the kind of dramatic and illuminating spiritual experiences such as you have described, that seem to have dissolved the perception of injustice in your case..

You almost seem to think that my experiences have left me cold and distant. No... I'm just no longer blinded by the pain, the pain being cleansed. You say there is inherent injustice, yet the soul chooses to put itself through hell for the purpose of experience and growth. It is easy to think of the soul as some cold, distant entity when that in fact is most far from the truth.

I myself have been through so much... when you're stuck in the pain, you cannot see past it all... so such feeling of it all being unjust, unfair, undeserved is perfectly okay. There's nothing wrong with such emotions. It's when they become blinding, consuming, enthralling, that they become a problem. But it's impossible to see when you are possessed by them... you don't even realize what's happening in the moment, as they compel and consume your awareness, poisoning the ability to think with clarity.

The only thing that can heal such pain and anger is acceptance and a full feeling of it. Which can be... so difficult. So, so very difficult. My mind would have broken under the weight of the emotions if I didn't have Ayahuasca guiding and supporting me, showing me how to heal it. I was still the one who had to choose to accept it, but it was easy, because I was so extremely desperate to be free of the pain.

The true ultimate nature of the incarnate self as being part of the Oversoul may be a truth, but it is immaterial to the injustice that these extremely painful things really happened to the unenlightened incarnate self in real subjective Earth time. These experiences seem to be a very high even intolerable price for the Oversoul accumulating more and more experience.

If it is intolerable to you, then so it is for the soul in the moment, as it experiences it with you. Because it is you, not separate as you believe.

Do you not sometimes willingly put yourself through strenuous, painful experiences? Maybe a hike that leaves you feeling miserable at the time, but after the fact, you can in retrospect see that you felt better because of it?

The point being that in the moment, we cannot think of the positive outcomes, only after the fact, when the experience is over.

That's how it looks to me - the actual subjective experiences good and bad of the incarnate personality stand as timeless ineluctable truths that actually happened and are ultimately either justified or not strictly from the standpoint of the isolated and limited incarnate personality that actually experienced them.

Your explanation of the soul/human relationship may be the truth (though it relies on the vague invocation of supposed truths that are beyond our human understanding), but I reserve my inherent human right to heartily dislike and object to it as an inherently unjust scheme of reality.

Understandable. Perhaps you will be able to be able to understand the point of it all once you either heal the pain, or depart into the afterlife when your time comes. That's how it seems to be, generally...

I do not fully understand why I am where I am, because I only have a part of the picture, but at least I know that pain and suffering is only temporary, not matter how harsh and unforgiving it can be. There's a reason for it all in the end.

The interesting thing about the concept of souls reincarnating is just how much evidence there is for this phenomenon there is for this, or which is consistent with this view.

1)      The concept of people reincarnating is a traditional idea. E.g. think of the Dalai Lama.

2)      Various people have investigated reincarnation scientifically.

3)      The typical version of the NDE, includes the idea that you judge yourself, but aren't sent to hell if you decide that you don't come up to scratch. That sort of implies that you will come back for another chance.

4)      Most people love stories that they read in books, act out in plays, etc. You can even go to university to analyse stories - e.g. English literature, or Higgs Bosons (just being provocative folks).

David

Indeed.

4)      Most people love stories that they read in books, act out in plays, etc. You can even go to university to analyse stories - e.g. English literature, or Higgs Bosons (just being provocative folks).

Not just plays ~ or movies. Games, also, where we create an avatar that we put through hell. We the player also suffer... though with video games, there is no qualia of emotion or thought or such, as they are nearly pure avatars of our inputs, given the limited nature of video games.

Tabletop role-playing games are a far better example, as one can go very deep with the intimacy of the character being created, crafting a personality, beliefs, thoughts, emotions, how they react in the game world. In the tabletop role-playing game, we are fully aware of the game character, and direct every aspect of it, aware of every aspect of its existence as we imagine it, but it is not aware of us. It's imagination, sure, but not a bad analogy for incarnation.

The interesting thing about the concept of souls reincarnating is just how much evidence there is for this phenomenon there is for this, or which is consistent with this view.

1)      The concept of people reincarnating is a traditional idea. E.g. think of the Dalai Lama.

2)      Various people have investigated reincarnation scientifically.

3)      The typical version of the NDE, includes the idea that you judge yourself, but aren't sent to hell if you decide that you don't come up to scratch. That sort of implies that you will come back for another chance.

4)      Most people love stories that they read in books, act out in plays, etc. You can even go to university to analyse stories - e.g. English literature, or Higgs Bosons (just being provocative folks).

David

This view is popular because it makes people feel comfortable, not because the evidence is compelling.  Nobody likes the idea that personal responsibility might be an issue and so monotheistic religions are abandoned and viewed as dogmatic.  Point 2 is false.  Reincarnation can not be examined scientifically because anecdotal evidence is all you have to go by.  Ignore anecdotal evidence and all you have left is a meager few highly interpretable physical phenomena.

Anyway as I said before, this thread is about what the brain does during sleep, there is a reincarnation forum available as well as a spirituality forum to discuss reincarnation.  With regards the brain, our discussion  should be centered around that that can be known.

Experiences of such suffering most certainly appear and feel existentially bad and unjust, undeserved and unchosen in the moment, and it's perfectly okay to have those feelings. I know, because I went through that hell with childhood sexual trauma... and relived those most nightmarish, black emotions in full during my Ayahuasca experience, which allowed them to be healed and integrated. There was nothing but dissociation during it, which is why the surroundings were empty. The pain was all-consuming. Now... I can recall back to those moments and feel completely unaffected, as the emotions have been healed. That piece of me has been healed of its wounds.

What I think you are not aware of is the powerful insights that come after the full healing of the pain, after trauma has been healed, and we can see with clarity unburdened by the storm of suffering. There is a method to the madness, though it may not be apparent at the time.


You keep saying this, without evidence, based entirely on emotion, cherry-picking any bit of evidence that supports what you already believe, refusing to accept anything else.

It seems that no amount of anything can convince you otherwise, so I may as well just be wasting my words. Your emotions are far too strong. I can empathize, because I had my moments of emotionally-driven blindness in the past. It's impossible to see through when it clouds your mind.


You almost seem to think that my experiences have left me cold and distant. No... I'm just no longer blinded by the pain, the pain being cleansed. You say there is inherent injustice, yet the soul chooses to put itself through hell for the purpose of experience and growth. It is easy to think of the soul as some cold, distant entity when that in fact is most far from the truth.

I myself have been through so much... when you're stuck in the pain, you cannot see past it all... so such feeling of it all being unjust, unfair, undeserved is perfectly okay. There's nothing wrong with such emotions. It's when they become blinding, consuming, enthralling, that they become a problem. But it's impossible to see when you are possessed by them... you don't even realize what's happening in the moment, as they compel and consume your awareness, poisoning the ability to think with clarity.

The only thing that can heal such pain and anger is acceptance and a full feeling of it. Which can be... so difficult. So, so very difficult. My mind would have broken under the weight of the emotions if I didn't have Ayahuasca guiding and supporting me, showing me how to heal it. I was still the one who had to choose to accept it, but it was easy, because I was so extremely desperate to be free of the pain.


If it is intolerable to you, then so it is for the soul in the moment, as it experiences it with you. Because it is you, not separate as you believe.

Do you not sometimes willingly put yourself through strenuous, painful experiences? Maybe a hike that leaves you feeling miserable at the time, but after the fact, you can in retrospect see that you felt better because of it?

The point being that in the moment, we cannot think of the positive outcomes, only after the fact, when the experience is over.


Understandable. Perhaps you will be able to be able to understand the point of it all once you either heal the pain, or depart into the afterlife when your time comes. That's how it seems to be, generally...

I do not fully understand why I am where I am, because I only have a part of the picture, but at least I know that pain and suffering is only temporary, not matter how harsh and unforgiving it can be. There's a reason for it all in the end.

I realise I'm stepping into the middle of a dialogue with  yourself and @nbtruthman here, I apologise for the interruption.

I've heard you speak of your own healing from past traumas and it is pleasing to hear that. There is a sense of indebtedness I feel on hearing of the sharing of such experiences.

However I wanted to add, briefly, a couple of instances of my own, one of them in my younger years, the other somewhat more recently.

As as a young adult I struggled with a trauma which was bubbling beneath the surface and became overwhelming. I was feeling the unfairness and unjustness of things as well as the pain itself. Somehow I found my own path through, in several stages. Firstly, rather than trying to suppress whatever I was feeling, and just 'soldier on', I allowed and encouraged my feelings to emerge, to be felt, to be expressed. There was also a need to simply accept what was happening, not judge it good or bad but simply let it. That was a greatly beneficial process, however it brought a further breakthrough: a realisation that the feelings of unjustness and unfairness of it all, as well as the distress itself, originated not in this present life but in a previous one. Bang! It felt like a great shock to find that simply trying to find a way to deal with pain had led to a discovery of immortality. Among it all though was a simplicity, a sense of humility and of gratitude. Humility in recognising how in this life we are peering through occasional cracks in the fabric of existence and seeing the vastness of - something. Gratitude in understanding that somehow I was helped and guided, the help was felt and it also led to a realisation that I need never be alone in my struggles. A recognition of something more, use the word God if you wish. Though not as an abstraction necessarily, more direct than that.

A more recent example of my healing was when I unexpectedly found myself spending an afternoon communing with and chatting as well as laughing with deceased loved ones. That hasn't been repeated, I'm not a natural medium, but the effect has been long-lasting.

Perhaps I should attempt to comment on the nature of the soul in all this. Though it feels like i should leave that for now. Maybe another day.