YouTube: The Spirit-Soul Connection
Spirit and soul are words we use to describe spiritual abstractions. Both are very real, but we do not experience them through the five senses. We know them intuitively. Jesus defined God as spirit, comparing it to the wind whose effects we see, while the wind itself is invisible. He said we must worship God in spirit, which I understand as the meditative practice of stilling the intellect and opening intuitively to our spiritual source.
Spirit is universal life, love, power, and intelligence. Soul is an individualization of this universal energy, but capable of interfacing with the material world. Our consciousness is the idea-forming mechanism that enables us to interact with the world. The body, existing within time and space, is the center of most people’s identity. Our spiritual essence, our soul, is not bound or defined by time and space, but our consciousness is. When a person momentarily steps from their body, as in a near-death experience, they instantly rise out of the body-based consciousness and experience the vastness of their soul and their oneness with universal Spirit.
A metaphor I find helpful is that of the sponge in the ocean. Think of the ocean water within the sponge as the soul of the sponge. When the sponge refers to itself as “I”, it is referring to this volume of water rather than the physical sponge. Imagine squeezing out the water and tossing the sponge onto the beach. The water you squeezed out remains in the ocean and keeps its individual identity. But now it lacks a body. It is a point of consciousness fully aware of itself and its oneness with the sustaining source, the ocean. If it wishes to be seen and felt in the visible world, it must take on another sponge body.
The “I” that we are is not the body. We have a body. If we were to step out of the body, we would continue to use this personal pronoun. Describing our experience to another, we would say, “I went through a tunnel.” “I communicated with deceased relatives.” “I found myself in the middle of a beautiful meadow.” This “I” is the soul. The all-sustaining life force in which we live is Spirit, Source, God, or whatever name we wish to give it.
J Douglas Bottorff 
Hola!
Very very interesting. I liked your diagrams embedded in the video.
Long ago I became a Montessori teacher. While in training, I read all of the works and philosophy of Dr Maria Montessori (1901). She advocated that children are born as a complete soul, a clean slate. That was my first teaching of such. Later I went a bit sideways with yoga and eastern philosophy; reincarnating with past karma while working towards enlightenment.
So this begs the question: What is your philosophy on reincarnation?
Have a great week!!!
Hi Jane. Thank you for your comment. My personal philosophy on reincarnation is that it is our option. We’re not working out karma or evolving. The soul is complete, so we are here for reasons of our own choosing.