More handpicked essays just for you.
Introduction on personal development
Summary of a primer of personal development
Promote personal development
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
I believe our physical bodies are vessels for something greater than what can be seen or explored. The essence of who we truly are is within us, and I think this is what is frequently referred to as the soul. So to answer the question, I do not believe you have a soul because I believe we are our soul. The soul can be thought of as the essence of the human being. It is something that is beyond our senses so we cannot touch it, smell it, hear it, see it, or even taste it. To explain the soul is quite difficult because we cannot scientifically prove that it is real or that it is embedded into us humans. I believe in the concept of the soul and that our body serves as its temple. Some people have dark souls, while others have lively souls. To reiterate, the soul is our true essence, our true being. Every time we are hurting, so is the soul. Every time we feel joy, so does the soul. Again, to claim that the soul is real and that it lies inside of you is controversial because there aren’t any systematic efforts to prove otherwise. Regardless, it is something that I accept as true.
When it comes to the human body, there are certain components that make us who we are. It starts with the mind, the soul, the heart, and then our physical composure. Stating this undeniably goes against what we have learned in our many science classes like Anatomy and Physiology. So before I go on, I would like to state that I am well aware that we are made of atoms, cells, tissues, organs, and etcetera. When I say that certain components like the mind, the soul, the heart, and physical body are what make us who we are, I am speaking from a spiritual perspective.
From my understanding, the soul is our truest nature and though it lies inside of us, it is com...
... middle of paper ...
...can see that to nourish the soul is not a difficult task. There is no need to make a trip to a Buddhist temple, drown yourself with the calming mediation music found on YouTube or convert into a particular religion. It’s all about engaging and releasing, but of course if you wanted to do these things, you are more than welcome.
Once more, the reason we should nourish the soul is because it is who we are. Our lives go from finite to infinite when the soul is awakened and expressed. By identifying with the ego, we are identifying with a social concealment, our desire to prove ourselves worthy, jealousy, past experiences, and even materialism. By identifying with our soul, we identify with our unmistakable worth. The quality of life when resonating with the true self increases and grows more plump, deeper and all-encompassing. When we love the soul we love ourselves.
“ The self's struggle for authenticity and definition will never end unless it's connected to its creator -- to you and to me. And that can happen with awareness -- awareness of the reality of oneness and the projection of self-hood. For a start, we can think about all the times when we do lose ourselves.”
reasoning than desire. So we see two distinct parts of the soul. The first is
The only logical conclusion to derive from this observation is that what we consider to be ourselves is not our bodies. As a result, an individual’s personal identity cannot be rooted in just his or her body, unlike what body theorists would like to
Yes I believe there is such thing as soul how else would you explain heaven and hell. It survives outside the body because our bodies are not yet dead. Just like when you go to bed at night and have a dream about a dead relative that you two are fishing. It’s like your spirit meeting with that person just like if you went to visit a friend.
If, as Epicurus claims, everything is either body or void, the soul must also be one of these two things. It cannot be void, as the void is nothing and can consist only of nothing, so therefore it must be a body or compound of bodies (Letter to Herodotus 63). He believes that the soul is most responsible for sense-perception, and that it must be enclosed within the body to facilitate this (Letter to Herodotus 63-64). If this is the case, it must therefore be acknowledged that the soul must exist...
In everyday life it appears that the body is overlooked in its relation to the mind. This notion of body and mind separation is not something that necessarily sits well with people. The debate can sit on either scientific knowledge or religious beliefs. Currently this is what we deal with when this sort of debate occurs. With the various belief structures prevalent in humans we can’t assume argument is stronger than another.
The soul cannot be completely defined or described, but it is the only thing we can be absolutely sure of, since all other facts are temporary. Being ourselves allows us to obtain many more answers and to understand our unconscious intentions. Humans may exceed their limited ideas by realizing that God exists and that in Him, we will find many answers if we open ourselves to Him. The soul is the creative essence, while all creation, including art which is human unity with natural things, is said to be Nature. In Nature the soul sees the picture of its own pure essence manifest, seeing beauty, truth, and justice in its laws.
When reading On The Soul, I found myself asking what role the soul and body play as a combination. This question came about because Aristotle’s notion differs from the usual concept of a soul acting as a sort of substance simply occupying a body, but existing distinctly separate, and eternally. Such is the notion that I choose to believe, due to the death of my brother. The truth is that the soul is an enigma to mankind, and we may never fully understand it, as no rational explanation exists to date. To Aristotle, the soul is the essence of a living being. The soul is what makes a person a person by actualizing its potential for life, and for its capacity for activities that are essential to the specific being.
The soul can be defined as a perennial enigma that one may never understand. But many people rose to the challenge of effectively explaining just what the soul is about, along with outlining its desires. Three of these people are Plato, Aristotle, and Augustine. Even though all three had distinctive views, the similarities between their views are strikingly vivid. The soul indeed is an enigma to mankind and the only rational explanation of its being is yet to come and may never arrive.
The soul lives on after the death of its physical body. There is much more to living beings than just having a physical body. This is made evident through Plato’s idea of reincarnation. This idea is made when Socrates introduces the Argument from Opposites. Plato claims, “Everything that comes to be so of anything comes to be in this way and no other – opposites from opposites…” (Phaedo 70e). For instance, for an object to become bigger, it must have been first been smaller, and has become bigger out of this smallness. If everything is born of its opposite; then surely the soul is alive after death. This then leads the argument that dead things come from living things, and vice versa, that living things must come from dead things. Socrates also points out that if this were not the case, soon the world would be dead. The soul is immortal, it never dies. Instead, it just transfers out of the body when the body dies and then rejoins the body at
These mental sensations of the soul cannot be explained by any simplistic illustration, as can be readily evidenced through modern technology. Machinery can be programmed to perform several of the basic physical tasks that humans can perform (Nagel). A baby doll, for instance, can respond to stimuli and cry or perhaps verbalize a simple phrase. Yet, while this baby doll behaves similarly to a human, it is not truly responding to a complex environment; instead, it is restricted by its programming (Nagel). The baby doll will never learn a new phrase to say, and it will not always cry when the same event occurs. In fact, it may cry for no real reason at all. This distinguishes humans from such technology. People have “conscious [experiences]” (Nagel) that are unique to each individual’s soul, reinforcing the division between mind and
It is apparent that we are personified entities, but also, that we embrace “more” than just our bodies. “Human persons are physical, embodied beings and an important feature of God’s intended design for human life” (Cortez, 70). But, “human persons have an ‘inner’ dimension that is just as important as the ‘outer’ embodiment” (Cortez, 71). The “inner” element cannot be wholly explained by the “outer” embodiment, but it does give rise to inimitable facets of the human mental life such as human dignity and personal identity.
Truth of oneself makes it visible when faced with absurd events in life where all ethical issues fade away. One cannot always pinpoint to a specific trait or what the core essence they discover, but it is often described as “finding one’s self”. In religious context, the essential self would be regarded as soul. Whereas, for some there is no such concept as self that exists since they believe that humans are just animals caught in the mechanistic world. However, modern philosophy sheds a positive light and tries to prove the existence of a self. Modern philosophers, Descartes and Hume in particular, draw upon the notion of the transcendental self, thinking self, and the empirical self, self of public life. Hume’s bundle theory serves as a distinction between these two notions here and even when both of these conception in their distinction make valid points, neither of them is more accurate.
The body and the mind are seen as the two driving points in the development of a self. The “body” in the development of the self refers to the physiological body that is conscious and can make decisions. This part of the self is the physical self, and it experiences everything in the physical world. The “mind” is the area of the self that takes the information that is presented to it by the body, analyzes it, and reacts and changes the self accordingly. They both act in unison, but the mind cannot exist without the body, because the body is how the mind receives its information. The body also cannot exist without the mind though, because the mind is what develops the self and the ideas based on what the body presents to the mind and then the
According to Hutchison (2015), “religion is symbolic patterns that consists of values, beliefs, behaviors and experiences” (p. 184). I personal conceptualize spirituality as a vital role in my life that helps me during a time of sickness, forgiveness, and needed guidance. Spirituality helps guide me throughout life during the difficult times I have encountered. Spirituality impacts my life in positive ways that influence and regulate my behavior and health. Health is very important to me; I believe the spirit can heal a person from their sickness. It seems that the spirit heals me every time I pray to be healed from sickness. The spirit gives me strength at a time of weakness. When I feel at my lowest point in life I call on the spirit to pick