Do We Have a Soul?

Some people call it a soul, but maybe that sounds religious; others refer to it as consciousness. Whatever it is, there is a part of us that is seperate from our body and mind.

It may be easy to think that we are what we are, this person, and that’s that. But there is more to it, we just don’t take the time to notice. 

We have a body that is born, grows old and dies. Are we our body?

Think about when you touch your arm; you can feel it, you are aware that you are touching your arm.
Think about when you smell a perfume: you are aware that you are smelling an odour.

Think about a time when you got cross about something, but before you get caught up in dwelling on your reaction, what was it like to be angry? Try to feel what it feels like to be angry. It has a feeling, this is what angry feels like. Maybe you feel it in your belly, maybe in your head, maybe your shoulders tense up. You are aware that you are angry.
Then consider this If you are aware that you are angry, who is ‘you’? Clearly something is considering how you feel and it is not the ‘you’ that is being angry that is doing the considering.

It may take a few times to work through this, but at some point you will get that the ‘you’ that gets angry is not the ‘you’ that notices that you are angry. This is awareness.
The ultimate aim may be to always be aware, so that whenever an emotion arises, we are aware of it and can choose our response. Perhaps not shouting when we are angry, perhaps not taking it personally when someone tries to embarrass us, perhaps taking responsibility for something we have done rather than automatically looking to blame something, or someone, for it.

But as well as this, by being aware we can realise that we are not just our feelings and emotions. There is something that is able to be aware of them - and that is our soul, or consicousness.

We will look at what it is that gets angry in the next blog on The Ego Mind.