What is Soul?

Soul is the experience of personal depth, of personal experience, of personal power and limitations, of personal imagination, feelings, thoughts, sensations, and intuitions. The mythical movement is in and down. It is connection with history, persons, places, objects and life enhancing processes (i.e. work, play). We have connection to our bodies but they are seen mainly as expressions of inner selves (i.e. we smile, we wear certain clothes). We may be "spiritual" but that is done because it involves a community and has a feeling of inwardness.

Contrasting Soul and Spirit
Spirit is the experience of attraction to transpersonal experience. The focus is moved away from the personal towards insights about consciousness or life itself. The mythical movement is up and away. It is movement towards divinity or the cosmos, freedom from the hold of our emotions, history, persons, places, objects, and processes which bind us to the everyday world. It is also dramatic movement away from that which holds us physically---our bodies.

Differs From Most Religious and Philosophic Views
The above definition includes no comment on the existence of the Soul as something that precedes the body or survives the body. It says nothing about whether the Soul is eternal or mortal. Nor does it comment on its origin. Instead, it stays close to how we can experience the Soul. As Thomas Moore says: "Soul is not a thing, but a quality or a dimension of experiencing life and ourselves."

Definitions that give Soul transpersonal existence or divine origins are really definitions under the influence of Spirit. Following this Spirit laden approach moves us away from experiencing the Soul here and now, through our heart and guts. Instead, Soul is explained in terms of the past (i.e. reincarnation of the soul) and future (e.g. transmigration of the soul). That approach teaches more about Spirit than it does about Soul and moves us to a life berift of Soul.