On another thread, Vajra wrote: "The teaching is that complete escape from karma comes only with realisation - with the total dropping of all attachment to the belief in a personal self, and with the transcending of this reality."

Recoverer responds: 

Below is something I wrote.

Do Eternal Souls Exist?

Below are some of the beliefs people have about souls:

1.      Due to their religion they believe that eternal souls exist. Christians are an example of such people.
2.      Due to their philosophy they believe that eternal souls don’t exist, because individuality is an illusion. Advaita Vedanta and some forms of Buddhism are examples of such a way of thinking.
3.      Some people believe that only physical reality exists; therefore, there is no need to seriously consider the question of whether or not eternal souls exist.
4.      Some people figure that they don’t know what the answer is.
5.      Some people, due to their spiritual experiences, understand that eternal souls do exist.

It wasn’t intentional, but I’m glad that I ended up completing the list by writing about people who through experience have found that eternal souls do in fact exist, because in many cases experience is much more convincing than what our thought processes can come up with. Therefore, it is only fitting that the last possibility, by its very nature, gets stated last.

I apologize if I sound a bit cocky about possibility number five, but I believe it is a bit much that some people deny the eternal nature of our souls; because as far as I’m concerned life is wonderful, and I would hate to see it come to an end for any one of us. Some of you might say, “Hey wait a minute, not all of the possibilities deny the eternal existence of the soul. Perhaps possibility number one isn’t based upon experience, but it does acknowledge that souls are eternal.” You might also say, “It is true that possibility number two doesn’t acknowledge the possibility that eternal souls exist, but this doesn’t mean that it denies existence all together.”

Regarding possibility number one versus possibility number five, I believe it is fine that some people believe that they have eternal souls; nevertheless, I figure experience is very significant when it comes to determining whether or not eternal souls exist, just as I believe it is better to experience love than it is to believe in it without experiencing it. Regarding possibility number two versus possibility number five; well I have quite a bit to say about this.

For one thing, I believe that some of us come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as an I,” an individual being, an eternal soul, because some of us believe that the belief in such a thing is based upon the erroneous assumption that there is something a person can grab hold of and say, “This is I.” I agree that there isn't one thing we can grab hold of and say, "this is I"; HOWEVER, this doesn’t mean that we don’t exist as unique individuals. Oh, please let me count the ways in which we do exist as unique individuals.

Say you want to go for a ride in your car. Do you have to be able to identify which part of your car is your car in order for you to make use of it as a means of transportation; or does it suffice to acknowledge that numerous automobile parts such as spark plugs, pistons and brake pads work together to form the homogenous whole of an automobile? I hope you don’t mind me making this assumption, but I figure your answer is yes, so I’ll go ahead and explain how cars relate to us. Just as God/source being/ the divine powers that be/whatever term you prefer to use, learned to use the creative aspect of being to create stars, planets, bodies and many other things, God learned how to use his creative aspect of being to create our souls.

An object such as our sun didn’t always exist. It isn’t a completely isolated entity. It interacts with the rest of the universe including us. Its energy could’ve been used in numerous other ways; therefore, the manner in which it exists is somewhat arbitrary, albeit, probably chosen. HOWEVER, the fact of the matter is that its energy is used in the manner it is used, and as a result, many forms of life including the human race get to experience life on this planet. It is immaterial what could’ve been, what matters is what actually is! Say there is a really happy child who thoroughly enjoys life. Would it make sense to tell this child that his (or her) life is meaningless because his energy could’ve been used in another way? Of course not! What is, is.

Some of you might be squirming in your seats at this point, because you meditated and tried to find your I but couldn’t find anything. When you couldn’t find anything, you experienced a sense of not being anything in particular. I know about this sort of meditation, because I’ve experienced it. However (no need for caps this time), I eventually came to realize that when I had such an experience, I had the experience, not somebody else. I realized that I was definitely here (my here, not somebody else’s here) having it. I realized that one part of my mind erroneously tried to find the me by focusing on just one part of me, quite naturally I couldn’t find one part of me that represents the totality of me, my attention was focused on nothing in particular, and I experienced the spacious and seemingly formless part of me.

Now this spacious and formless part of myself isn’t a mere nothing. It is that part of me that allows me to be aware. It allows me to be aware of many things such as beauty, happiness, peace and love. These things, or shall I say qualities, are definitely worth being aware of. They make my life full and worthwhile, rather than empty and meaningless. These qualities come from my own being, the part of me that can seem empty, spacious and formless, if I look at it in such a way.

The ability to think also comes from the spacious and formless part of me. Where else would the ability to think come from? As far as I’m concerned it doesn’t make sense to conclude that there is pure being, awareness if you like, and within this pure being, something foreign, that comes from who knows where, appears, and becomes known as mind. Naw, that would be too dualistic. I figure that awareness, the creative aspect of being, and the faculty of mind that enables us to establish relationships so we can figure out the nature of what we experience and who we are--are all parts of the same being. As far as I’m concerned, just as it doesn’t make sense to deny the awareness aspect of our being, it doesn’t make sense to deny the creative aspect of our being, because the creative aspect of our being gives us something to be aware of. For example, love! Oh, what would existence be without love? Even though love comes from our own being, it is definitely something we are aware of.

There is also the matter of how our ability to think enables us to make choices. It enables us to determine if we are happy with the state of being we are experiencing. First we feel what our existence is like, and then we decide (think about) if we like what we are experiencing. If not, we use our intelligence to find a way to experience differently. Therefore, our mind isn’t our enemy and isn’t something that has noting to do with us, as contended by people who state that we are pure awareness and nothing else. Oh, where would we be without our ability to determine and decide? We couldn’t even determine if we want to listen to people who try to tell us that we don’t exist.

Our existence as unique souls is substantiated not only by the fact of how God chose to make use of the creative aspect of his being when he created us, but also by what love and fair play require. Since God has made it so we experience the results of how we live our life for better or worse, it is only right that we have some say as to whether or not we get to exist eternally as unique souls, rather that what a supposedly enlightened master who didn't live our life has to say. Once a soul reaches the point where it understands how wonderful existence can be, there is no way it will want to negate its existence. One of the reasons some people advocate self-negation is because they haven't acquired the wisdom which shows that not only is it possible to exist as an eternal soul, it is highly preferential. Life is suffering for people who haven't found a better way.

I don’t mean to deny oneness. Many people have found through experience that oneness exists. However, oneness doesn’t mean that there is one being all by itself. Oneness means that many beings share a state of oneness with each other. We are one and many at the same time. What could be better? We get to share our uniqueness with each other in a very close manner, once we figure out how to do so. One evening I had the following experience while wondering what oneness is about:

I lie in bed and tried to open up to love as best as I could. Suddenly I found myself walking down a city street (not physically). I felt very happy and excited because I understood that everything is “One Self.” I walked up to complete strangers and hugged them, and they hugged me back, because they too understood that we are “one self.” When I leaned forward to hug a woman I shared a mutual physical attraction with, we couldn’t experience oneness with each other, because we viewed each other as objects of pleasure, rather than divine Souls.

On another occasion:

While awake, I lay in bed and tried to expand my awareness. I experienced myself exit a house (non-physically). I looked up a hill and saw white light. I floated up the hill until I reached the top and was at a ledge by an ocean. I figured the ocean was a symbol for the vastness of the oneness we are all a part of, so I decided to jump into it. After I did so, I felt my awareness expand. The more I did so the better I felt. I did so without losing my sense of individuality.

On another occasion:

While awake, I lay in bed and suddenly saw a landscape that included a number of houses. My awareness expanded so it was as if the landscape and houses were within my awareness. This experience enabled me to have a feeling for what it is like to have a state of awareness where you are connected to other things, yet you retain your awareness as a unique soul.

I believe that my higher self/spirit guidance helped me have the above experiences. Each experience showed me that being a part of the oneness doesn’t mean that you have to give up your uniqueness as a specific soul.

I have strong feelings about the issue of whether or not we have eternal souls for several reasons. One, I sure want to exist for all of eternity. I don’t believe it is egotistical for me to feel this way. It is just that I’m so certain that a wonderful and infinite future awaits me, there is no reason for me to give up on my existence. Two, because I love my fellow souls, I want them, once they get to the point where they know how to do so, to experience an absolutely wonderful way of existence for all of eternity. Three, I don’t want God to be alone (I don’t mean to suggest that it’s up to me). Four, life in this World can be quite challenging, and one of the things that helps many people endure, is the belief and/or faith that they have a wonderful and eternal existence ahead of them. Five, life is much more joyful when we either believe or know that the afterlife exists. Regarding knowing, due to how grace has enabled my life to play out,  I have come to know through various experiences that a wonderful and eternal future awaits me. Six, a lack of belief in the eternal nature of my soul influenced my spiritual growth in a negative way for several years.

A little while ago I stated that some people meditate in a manner that causes them to believe that there is no such thing as an I, individual being, eternal soul. People who meditate in this way also try to find out who they are. I’ve done the same. When we meditate and try to determine what our reality is, it is important to make certain that we don’t miss a key point. It is possible to meditate in a manner where we tune into source being so we experience it in a formless way and it seems as if only pure awareness exists. We might also experience qualities such as peace, bliss, divinity, love and vastness as we meditate in such a way. If we think about it we’ll find that even such qualities are a form of manifestation, because if nothing manifested at all, we wouldn't experience anything. In order for awareness to be aware, it needs something to be aware of.

I’ve had experiences where my energy was really active and it seemed as if I was aware of the creative aspect of source being before it had the chance to be modified in some way. Such an experience became possible after my kundalini had fully awakened (see Chapter 10 for information on kundalini). Because I experienced nothing other than pure energy, I can’t say this experience was worth having other than what it told me about the nature of reality before it was modified in some way. I’m not certain, but I believe it is possible that God started out in such a state, and at some point he learned to connect the dots of his experience in a way so he knew how to use his energy in a wonderful way. He reached the point where he first created and then experienced qualities such as happiness, peace and love.

At some point God decided that he didn’t want to be alone and wanted other beings to share his existence with. Also, a big also, because through his experimentation God found out about love, he was inspired to make it so many beings could partake in the joy of existence. He used his own being to do so. I figure he considered it a joy to see us come into being, just as loving parents consider it a joy to see their children join this World. Sure we have to take some lumps along the way; however, I believe, due to various experiences and what some sources of information state, that God figured out a way so that in the end everything works out wonderfully. Our growing pains are a part of the process.

Back to the point I started a few paragraphs ago. If we meditate in a particular way, we can become aware of what God’s being was like before God created us. If we experience existence this way and forget to consider what came to be when God created us and we created what we created, then we won’t allow ourselves to see what exists beyond the very basic traits of existence. People sometimes choose such an approach and don’t venture beyond, because their belief system limits what they try to experience and understand. If they follow a source of information they believe to be infallible and this source of information contends that only pure awareness exists and everything else is just a meaningless illusion, they might have a hard time opening up to other possibilities. I know that some sources also say that bliss exists, but as I stated before, a quality such as bliss came to be only after God and his creative aspect of being got around to creating it.

There is another way to look at this matter that is similar, but different enough to speak about. Pure awareness all by itself can’t understand anything. In order for something to be understood, there has to be something to understand. The relationship between two or more things needs to be determined, so an understanding can come to be. This principle might be hard to comprehend if we allow a limiting belief system to get in the way. We need to allow ourselves to tune into what universal mind has to tell us; universal mind is the totality of what God and many wise souls have figured out. An experience such as my night in heaven experience is an example of when I understood some of the things universal mind had figured out. Even though I was aware of my previous beliefs, I stood outside of my beliefs sufficiently enough, so I could understand according to how universal mind understands.

Despite what some people suggest, it isn’t noble to want to negate ourselves. It is noble to have the courage, fortitude, wisdom and heart that enables us to find a way to make our existence absolutely wonderful for all of eternity.

Despite what some people contend, it isn’t a sense-of-self that prevents us from experiencing the oneness. I figure that even God has a sense-of-self. What prevents us from experiencing oneness is self-centeredness, which is quite a different thing than having a sense-of-self. If there weren’t beings who have a sense-of-self, who would love and oneness be shared by? If a person opens himself up to another person because he is inspired by love to do so, he willingly shares his sense-of-self with the sense-of-self of another person. When this happens, the energy of love is shared—not self-centeredness.

If you want, at this moment become aware of how you exist. The fact of how you can come to such a recognition shows that you exist. Whey you come to such a recognition, the parcel of consciousness and creative energy you are comes to this recognition, not the consciousness and creative energy that belongs to somebody else. It is okay for you to make use of your mind when you come to this recognition, because your mind is a part of yourself. First you'll feel the energy of your existence, and then you'll think about what you experienced (by "feel" I don't mean the sense of touch). It is rather simple and perhaps ordinary to recognize this. You don't have to be some sort of supposed spiritual superstar/rocket scientist to recognize this.

So it’s up to you. Do you want to allow some nihilistic non-dualist to lead you to believe that you don’t have an eternal soul, or do you want to give authority back to yourself, and find out for yourself?  Don’t let the floor show some gurus put on fool you. Not unless you want to do as many people have done and learn the hard way.

Alan:

My feeling is that we can experience as much of reality as we want to experience. The question is, do many souls end up experiencing what there is to experience, or does just one being do it all by itself? As indicated by my post, I believe the former is true. Would love ever allow a multiplicity of souls to be negated?

Alan:

I agree that we are all parts of God. However, I believe that God started as one, and then he (not really he) used his own being to creat all of us. Since he used his own being, it isn't possible for us to be different than him, except for perhaps when we define ourselves in odd ways, and even then, it's a part of him defining himself in an odd way.

My post is quite long, I don't expect than many people will want to read a post this long. Your posts also tend to be long.

I figure that most people who visit this forum believe that they have a soul, so chances are that they don't need to read what I posted. However, just in case somebody has been convinced by whoever that they don't exist as an individual being, I posted what I posted.

Kathy:

What you wrote made me think of cases when two people read the same paragraph and come up with different interpretations.





Lights of Love wrote on Aug 14^th, 2009 at 4:10pm:

I'm undecided between the two possibilities:
1. The eternal existence of  "me" in the meaning that here's a "me" and there is something which is not me,
and
2. the final meld of me with the All, meaning that there might still be a "me", but nothing anymore that is not me.

I don't think that this can be ever decided by intellectual arguments and attempts to prove one or the other. I guess we just don't know- until, maybe, we experience something which just puts us in a state that we say we know. These are personal experiences, and I've read reports of such experiences which led to these knowings- but both possibilities I've mentioned above are claimed by different persons to be "known".

Spooky

Since not both possibilities can be true, either one is true and the other false, or both are false in the way they don't really match what is the case. This could very well be due to limitations of our human thinking.

Spooky