Mind, Body, Spirit and Soul: What’s the Difference?

Dude, you are so spot on!

That’s an interesting perspective, though I can’t say it’s my own experience.

From what I understand in your explanation, I think your perception of the Soul closely resembles the organized religion idea of it; where our soul is this separate ‘self’ within us that leaves our bodies once we die toward an afterlife of some sort.

Sensations come from the physical bodies sensory receptors. Emotions and feelings are the closely connected to the mind. For example: If you’ve been raised a vegetarian and are presented with meat to it, you will FEEL disgust toward it. You might even have the EMOTION of anger toward the person who served you it if they knew you were a vegetarian. You see, what we like, dislike, love, hate, get jealous about all have to do with our mental experiences.

The traumas you have, the beliefs you hold (a person who believes themselves to be Christian will get angry if you insult their beliefs), the food you like, even the people you are attracted to are all connected to your mental experiences, the social conditioning of your upbringing. The Soul is not responsible for their creation.

The Soul instead is the space in which these emotions, feelings, thoughts and senses arise in. Mystical schools throughout time have given you one key tip: our Souls (consciousness) are the mirrors of existence (or Spirit), it is in your power to polish and clean all the Dust from them (this ‘dust’ is all your mental/emotional baggage which filters your clarity when perceiving existence.)

Pure Consciousness is free from all knowledge, morals, values and ideas (all that is of the mind, because they are all taught to us, we are not born with them but we are born with pure consciousness.)

But most don’t experience pure Consciousness, we experience some form of filtered consciousness (either filtered by our minds/emotions as described above or filtered by whatever ‘residual information’ is left behind from previous lives.) This is why I prefer using the word Soul as opposed to Consciousness.

Your analogy does sound pretty close to my experience, the only difference being that unlike material data of a computer, human consciousness is a fluid and living energy which means the data information in this case is stored in the energy itself that is feeding the computer (Soul).

It’s my pleasure to share my experience with you appunto and contribute to the growth of our readers with such interesting conversations.

I’m happy you make the distinction between being spiritual and being religious; too often they are used interexchagibly when in many regards they are almost the opposite.

Eckart Tolle’s remarks are Eastern teaching (particularly Buddhist) par excellence. While carrying obvious merit, such teachings do not necessarily apply readily and absolutely for Westerners, in part due to the Eastern emphasis on depersonalizing. The problem with Tolle is that although he is wonderfully eloquent, he is basically like the man who won the lottery and is trying to teach you about financial advice; he never did anything to earn his ‘gift’. A few months ago during one of our seminars I heard one of his students tell me he was now studying under a Zen master to be able to learn the ‘practical’ side of his teachings.

From my own experience I feel the idea of the mind/ego is limited for Westerners as our Ego’s are much stronger than the Easterners have, applying Eastern methods is too limiting. I wrote about this in another article: https://lonerwolf.com/psychospiritual/ . We need a much more catharthic approach.

I can only speak from my own taste of this, but I feel the lessons of consciousness are left behind in a layer of information that stays in this realm when our Spirits return back to their source. The expansion of consciousness occurs at the same time as the ‘intensifying’ of our Spirit; this consciousness expansion and intensity of Spirit is what could vaguely be called our ‘Souls’. In a way I guess you could say we are moving from a state of neglect before the expansion, a state of ‘sleep’.

I should make more time to read, I’ve heard much about Neale Donald Walsch but haven’t had the pleasure of any of his works.

The best approach to all this is to experience it more so than try to understand it mentally. They’ll be dozens of theories, dozens of ideas but as you well said; the moon and the finger are the trap of living in a state of duality. The less we label it the better, ironically, it is necessary to label it at the beginning to speaking the language of the mind others live in, and attract them to your message.

I would love to meet you and other of our readers some day, Switzerland is definitely on my list of countries to visit next.

Much warmth!

I believe Eckart Tolle’s ideas have much merit, he is wonderfully eloquent , and as you said; draws awareness toward these ancient teachings that are so valuable.

However, many of the students that have come to me have done so from other of these masters. The reason is that these masters present everything in terms ‘enlightenment’, the moon, and by doing so they give birth to the ‘seeker’. Before this message there was only people wanting to find ways to be free from inner conflict, now there are people free from one conflict and replacing it with another which is ‘seeking’ the awakening. This presents an easy way to enter the biggest pitfall of all, which is ‘spiritual bypassing’.

That however is not really so much the problem as is what happens after. Because all these Eastern teachings focus on an ‘ego death’ and ripening of our spiritual side, they create an imbalance. We are just as much spiritual as we are ego-based beings, ignoring the maturation of one side of ourselves by exercising the other will bring troubles.

For example; I’ve come across at least a dozen people who after years of practicing Kundalini/yoga/meditation exercises they entered moments of Samadhi. But because they hadn’t dealt with past memories and traumas, when the ‘ego’ is quieted which is what is holding all these memories locked in the unconscious; all this turbulence came afloat within the Samadhi experience, turning it into a hellish experience that took them months to recover from.

It’s the same as Shamanism done by amateurs with no guidance. Opening the doors of your ‘ego’ can released some of the most terrifying altered states of consciousness you can think of. I’ve experienced this myself.

For Westerners, approaches like Neo-Platonism, Alchemy, Kabbalah, even Shamanism are much more suitable as they involve rituals which are cathartic for our feeble ego’s while still entering moments of communion with the divine.

Tolle thanks to his fame can now make people aware that there is a place of inner stillness as he shares with you his experience, that’s what this ‘awakening’ is for people like Jim Carrey or Oprah. He has become the biggest sign post, the longest finger for everyone to see which is wonderful. But his advice can only do that, make you aware there is a moon. To be able to teach people to transition from the finger to the moon requires a whole different set of tools.

It’s been the same with all prominent Eastern teaching masters; think of Krishnamurti, Ramana Maharshi, Ramakrishna, Tolle, Osho, Adyashanti, Chögyam Trungpa, Nisargadatta Maharaj, Maharishi Mahesh. How many of their collective millions of readers/students can directly say they’ve reached a similar level of ‘awakening’ to any of these masters? None of them had masters themselves, they happen upon it by “Grace” to use the Christian expression.

Some people will find comfort and richness in their words, but I feel others with the modern mind that is much different from the mind of thousands of years ago will struggle with these amazing teachings. Instead of approaching the message the same way so many others are doing, why not approach it in a new way?

I think once you taste the 42 degree dry heat we have here at the moment you’ll begin to miss Switzerland :)

God first.
Live altruistically.
God forgives you.

The idea of a 7th step WOULD make sense, in terms of sacred numbers. Perhaps it might be seen as the level of Self-Realization, as in the realization (i.e. the embodiment) of the Self as Creator, which seems to me to be the next logical step or “need.”

I really like the Idea of using a circle (Medicine Wheel ;) ) to represent a hierarchy of “Spiritual Needs.” Most appropriate.

Ah, right. This is where I lose it. I don’t have the well defined ego and psychological clarity to process what’s inside. It’s similar to the feeling when you understand someone speaking other language, you know what to respond to it, but you don’t know how to put it together.
It’s like the energy accumulated can’t be channeled properly, like a swelling, it’s straining and sore. It gives me fever and blurs my perception. Well, this sure sounds weird, but this is the closest to how I feel.
I’m sorry if this is irrelevant, it just feels really good to be able to put it into words.