Do we have a soul? (ritual, rejecting, Creator, Earth)

[Green Gaia]

The Buddha said we do not, but other religions clearly believe we do. What do you think?

[Sunstone]

If we have a soul or spirit, then it is a mystery beyond our comprehension, and anything said about it is likely to be misleading at best.

[Ceridwen018]

I guess that depends on how you define soul. A little ball of light which lives in you chest and tells you right from wrong and travels to the afterlife after death, does not exist in my opinion, and the opinion of scientific observation.

[Ronald]

YHVH created Adam from dust of the earth, formed him and gave him mouth to mouth respiration and Adam became a SOUL. At Adams death, he breathed his last, the breath of God went back to He who gave it and the dust returned to the earth. We do not possess a soul we are a soul. This is Hebrew thought. Biblical. Genesis account (Torah)

[maggie2]

I believe that we all have a soul. My definition of soul is 'a spark of God's spirit that lives in every human being'. I also believe that free will determines how that soul survives and flourishes and whether we use it to draw closer to the Divine or to keep the Creator away.

[Master Vigil]

Would buddha's idea of no self be the same as no soul? I think his idea of soul may just be buddha nature.

What I believe is similar to this concept. I believe that are soul is what gives us life, and what connects us to everything else. And when one dies, one becomes one with everything else by way of the soul.

[Green Gaia]

I think he was rejecting the Hindu concept of an separate individual soul that is reincarnated over and over as the same soul. The term soul meant a spiritual substance that, in keeping with the dualistic position in Hinduism, retains it's separate identity forever. The Buddha rejected this.

[Master Vigil]

But he rejected the hindu idea of soul, but did that mean he did not believe in a different notion of "soul"?

[true blood]

I agree with the Biblical account. The God breathed soul is sometimes called "the spirit of man", its nothing to do with being christian or non, so long as it lives, it has soul. Perhaps all living organisms in all kingdoms have a "soul".

[wizanda]

Buddha was reincarnated was he not as is not to this very day Buddha’s return?



Yet Buddha did say about nirvana and that there was rest



Spirit therefore is transcendental and is infinite



I have also died before in this life time and have seen this from a different perspective



What I saw was the whole universe exists as quarks which are the smallest part of atoms for those who don’t know



The quarks where spirit and I was within what I saw at least it felt like that



The first place I went was into the more dense lower levels of existence which was ego and the quarks or spirit was just straight lines not containing much bounce



This was very much like Christ had said where the people where bothered about feeding them self and not each other



Everyone was talking yet no one was listening

This is/was hell it appeared to me yet not as many fictional stories have portrayed yet the dense low of the universe making up objects with in the universe with no real control over your existence



Yet I, as per usual started talking about higher things and they tried to get me and cover me with a dark level yet I called out and said I knew oneness

In my spirit and from with in me a light shone out yet the lower levels tried to quench it

Then a light from above found me and pulled me through different levels of dimension (it appeared to me) It took me into a place that was not, yet was apart of all of the universe, It had transcend solid matter and was in the realms of free consciousness

The first level of heaven was love and unconditional love for the universe and god first so that all centered on oneness.

The next was wisdom and high levels of wisdom with out comparison or disease in the thinking, true understanding of why things happen and with unconditional love contained

This level was focused in on the center of the universe as well with all the wisdom and thought of the spirit focused in on god

Yet I shouldn’t even call him/it god as no name is suitable as he/she is all names and is all things

As the way spirit exist in heaven is as bouncing radiant balls of dynamic quarks having been able to bounce them self’s into new structures within their souls

So as you float round each other you learn from the structure of the spirit with an immense love and wisdom with out comparison and free of this ego we have let over whelm our peoples and are slowly spreading more into the universal flow

Buddha’s wisdom did find rest, yet there are many who come back to try and help as all my life I have recognized people as many people do.