Do we have a spirit and, if so, what role does it play in our relationship with God?

[otherbrother]

I never hear the individual spirit of a person being discussed in Church, only the collective versions of Spirit. Could we get to know our individual spirit as a means of better connecting with God? I see signs of something reentering my body when about to wake up from nighttime dreams. It seems like my spirit trying to align with my physical self. Is it a personal Angel? Or just a personification of a deeper aspect of my regular self? Merely psychological? Or a metaphysical reality?

 

[Yahweh kid]

I never hear the individual spirit of a person being discussed in Church, only the collective versions of Spirit. Could we get to know our individual spirit as a means of better connecting with God? I see signs of something reentering my body when about to wake up from nighttime dreams. It seems like my spirit trying to align with my physical self. Is it a personal Angel? Or just a personification of a deeper aspect of my regular self? Merely psychological? Or a metaphysical reality?

Hi, the way I understand it is that our spirit is the life we were given by God......God "formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life(spirit); and man became a living soul" When we die the spirit go from where it came, God."(Ecclesiastes 12:7)
When we are newly created by God after we become His children through Salvation, we receive the Gift of the Holy Spirit who gives us eternal life...... without the Holy Spirit we cannot enter the kingdom of God. (John 3)

I see signs of something reentering my body

What signs?

​

 

[otherbrother]

I had an astral projection experience at a roadside park where I meditated and occasionally took a nap each weekday on way to work. As I was in waking up mode from nap I saw myself from front of car, look back at me. Then I experienced the “knitting” sensation as that ostensibly “part” of me reentered my body via my right side between hips and chest.
In dreams I reenter rooms and other enclosures, sometimes squeezing through narrow windows or other openings just before waking up. Occasionally it is experienced as a character sneaking up on me as though to penetrate. Other dream content suggests a reluctance to return. Flying content with or without smooth landings happens occasionally. Other dreams have me energetically levitating and even occasionally able to levitate whole groups in my dream. The other night I smoothly transitioned on a gentle waterfall to a lower area right as I was waking. Variations of rising, descending, and entering are frequent. These experiences coupled with my semi-waking astral projection experience lead me to believe that our spirits leave our body to take a little vacation to a more connective dimension while we are sleeping/dreaming and then return before waking. Several times my “spirit “ is looking for a key or lock combination to enter through the door or gate. Sometimes with help from a mentor. Other apparently spiritually instructive themes happen in-between the going up/out and coming back/down. I call my dreams “night school.”
I had my second solidly lucid dream several nights ago in which I was able toe reach through dream objects. Very interesting sensation similar to the knitting sensation of my astral projection experience. Seems lucid dreaming and semi-awareness of spirit movement may be closely related, but I have only had two clearly lucid dreams and MANY suggestive of astral projection while sleeping/dreaming.

 

[TheLightWithin]

Are the spirit and soul the same or different, and how clear cut is the difference if there is one?

 

[otherbrother]

My very limited educated guess is that soul is rooted on this physical “side” while an individual (or individual’s) spirit is rooted on the “ other side.” Spirit can move about , sometimes leaving the body. Soul is a dock that doesn’t leave the body. A high aura is probably a precursor to astral projection. Loving someone is also similar to astral projection as one feels his or her heart (subtle energy) go out to someone else.

 

[Yahweh kid]

I had an astral projection experience at a roadside park where I meditated and occasionally took a nap each weekday on way to work. As I was in waking up mode from nap I saw myself from front of car, look back at me. Then I experienced the “knitting” sensation as that ostensibly “part” of me reentered my body via my right side between hips and chest.
In dreams I reenter rooms and other enclosures, sometimes squeezing through narrow windows or other openings just before waking up. Occasionally it is experienced as a character sneaking up on me as though to penetrate. Other dream content suggests a reluctance to return. Flying content with or without smooth landings happens occasionally. Other dreams have me energetically levitating and even occasionally able to levitate whole groups in my dream. The other night I smoothly transitioned on a gentle waterfall to a lower area right as I was waking. Variations of rising, descending, and entering are frequent. These experiences coupled with my semi-waking astral projection experience lead me to believe that our spirits leave our body to take a little vacation to a more connective dimension while we are sleeping/dreaming and then return before waking. Several times my “spirit “ is looking for a key or lock combination to enter through the door or gate. Sometimes with help from a mentor. Other apparently spiritually instructive themes happen in-between the going up/out and coming back/down. I call my dreams “night school.”
I had my second solidly lucid dream several nights ago in which I was able toe reach through dream objects. Very interesting sensation similar to the knitting sensation of my astral projection experience. Seems lucid dreaming and semi-awareness of spirit movement may be closely related, but I have only had two clearly lucid dreams and MANY suggestive of astral projection while sleeping/dreaming.

Interesting.......is Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior, do you except the Word as the Truth? Is this what your Church teach......

Tx

 

[Tony Bristow-Stagg]

I never hear the individual spirit of a person being discussed in Church, only the collective versions of Spirit. Could we get to know our individual spirit as a means of better connecting with God? I see signs of something reentering my body when about to wake up from nighttime dreams. It seems like my spirit trying to align with my physical self. Is it a personal Angel? Or just a personification of a deeper aspect of my regular self? Merely psychological? Or a metaphysical reality?

There is a lot on this topic in the Baha'i Writings, if you are interested I am happy to share more. I offer the following.

The question asked in your post, "Could we get to know our individual spirit as a means of better connecting with God"? is to me the fundamental purpose of our existence, as knowing one's own true self, is our given task.

This link

Commentary on "He who knoweth his self hath known his Lord."​

This is a "Commentary on `He who hath known his self hath known his Lord'" (from Julian Cole website) which was written by Bahá'u'lláh in Edirne, and was addressed to Mirza Hadi Qazvini. It treats briefly a number of key questions in Islamic mysticism, including the meaning of detachment; the meaning of the Saying about knowing one's self; the meaning of Return; and the meaning of another Saying, "The believer is alive in both worlds."

There is so much on the topic of our soul, that there is many things we can share.

Dreaming is one of the bounties given of God to show us we are more than flesh, it is in fact another world of God, that is wrapped up in this world! Flying dreams are a great spiritual bounty.

Worlds of God

All the best and Regards Tony.

 

[otherbrother]

Interesting.......is Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior, do you except the Word as the Truth? Is this what your Church teach......

Tx

Yes. Christ models the optimal spiritual I hope for but will probably never fully attain. He’s my divine human inspiring me to be more like him.

 

[otherbrother]

There is a lot on this topic in the Baha'i Writings, if you are interested I am happy to share more. I offer the following.

The question asked in your post, "Could we get to know our individual spirit as a means of better connecting with God"? is to me the fundamental purpose of our existence, as knowing one's own true self, is our given task.

This link

Commentary on "He who knoweth his self hath known his Lord."​

This is a "Commentary on `He who hath known his self hath known his Lord'" (from Julian Cole website) which was written by Bahá'u'lláh in Edirne, and was addressed to Mirza Hadi Qazvini. It treats briefly a number of key questions in Islamic mysticism, including the meaning of detachment; the meaning of the Saying about knowing one's self; the meaning of Return; and the meaning of another Saying, "The believer is alive in both worlds."

There is so much on the topic of our soul, that there is many things we can share.

Dreaming is one of the bounties given of God to show us we are more than flesh, it is in fact another world of God, that is wrapped up in this world! Flying dreams are a great spiritual bounty.

Worlds of God

All the best and Regards Tony.

Read some. Liked. Will read and think about as soon as I have time. Thanks

 

[Thomas]

Hey, @Tony Bristow-Stagg – welcome back!

 

[otherbrother]

There is a lot on this topic in the Baha'i Writings, if you are interested I am happy to share more. I offer the following.

The question asked in your post, "Could we get to know our individual spirit as a means of better connecting with God"? is to me the fundamental purpose of our existence, as knowing one's own true self, is our given task.

This link

Commentary on "He who knoweth his self hath known his Lord."​

This is a "Commentary on `He who hath known his self hath known his Lord'" (from Julian Cole website) which was written by Bahá'u'lláh in Edirne, and was addressed to Mirza Hadi Qazvini. It treats briefly a number of key questions in Islamic mysticism, including the meaning of detachment; the meaning of the Saying about knowing one's self; the meaning of Return; and the meaning of another Saying, "The believer is alive in both worlds."

There is so much on the topic of our soul, that there is many things we can share.

Dreaming is one of the bounties given of God to show us we are more than flesh, it is in fact another world of God, that is wrapped up in this world! Flying dreams are a great spiritual bounty.

Worlds of God

All the best and Regards Tony.

I got to the point of discussion of “detachment.” Reminded me of my thoughts/writing (in Getting to Know One’s Connected Self) about the primacy of being (beingness as an experiential and heuristic? mode), how it seems most closely related to one’s spirit (“Connected Self”) because wholeness of being, fully being (as in Ram Dass’s Be Here Now) requires the connective capacity of a spirit and the spiritual domain in which it is rooted (ironically untethered from the simple location of things in the physical realm). And I note how Mose’s revelation by God as “I am that I am” smacks of beingness, as though God told Moses “Do likewise.” I then suggest that “doing” although necessary to be in a physical realm (specific acts to perform, physical things to do) fragments us and tends to work against connectiveness of spirit, but relating/love is a kind of antidote helping restore a sense of wholeness in a broken world. But without the peace of fully accepting one’s being (no matter how crappy the situation it finds itself in) love would end up acting like a poorly grounded electrical system and eventually dysfunction or fail altogether. Relating is important. Doing is important. But the most Godly of these three modes is Being/Beingness because it is a precondition for the other two.
In terms of “detachment,” my own metaphysical and psychological guesses are that an understanding of the primacy of fully accepting one’s being (and “assignment” on earth which comes with the package—acceptance of the gift of life) does amount to a kind of “detachment” or independence.Paul Tillich’s indentifying God as the Ground of Being is very much in line with my thoughts here, and I can see some similarities with the the shared writings in the link.

 

[otherbrother]

There is a lot on this topic in the Baha'i Writings, if you are interested I am happy to share more. I offer the following.

The question asked in your post, "Could we get to know our individual spirit as a means of better connecting with God"? is to me the fundamental purpose of our existence, as knowing one's own true self, is our given task.

This link

Commentary on "He who knoweth his self hath known his Lord."​

This is a "Commentary on `He who hath known his self hath known his Lord'" (from Julian Cole website) which was written by Bahá'u'lláh in Edirne, and was addressed to Mirza Hadi Qazvini. It treats briefly a number of key questions in Islamic mysticism, including the meaning of detachment; the meaning of the Saying about knowing one's self; the meaning of Return; and the meaning of another Saying, "The believer is alive in both worlds."

There is so much on the topic of our soul, that there is many things we can share.

Dreaming is one of the bounties given of God to show us we are more than flesh, it is in fact another world of God, that is wrapped up in this world! Flying dreams are a great spiritual bounty.

Worlds of God

All the best and Regards Tony.

Compared to our regular physical experiences, a sense of interconnectedness, quantum entanglement, translocation, quantum superposition, being in the astral plane would be like “flying.” And my levitation dreams could well be a semi-lucid awareness of spirit rising up/out of physical body.

 

[otherbrother]

Does seem to be in line with notion of an individual spirit that if we get to know and use better (thin the veil) the more Godly/spiritual will be our earthly existence.

 

[Tony Bristow-Stagg]

I got to the point of discussion of “detachment.” Reminded me of my thoughts/writing (in Getting to Know One’s Connected Self) about the primacy of being (beingness as an experiential and heuristic? mode), how it seems most closely related to one’s spirit (“Connected Self”) because wholeness of being, fully being (as in Ram Dass’s Be Here Now) requires the connective capacity of a spirit and the spiritual domain in which it is rooted (ironically untethered from the simple location of things in the physical realm). And I note how Mose’s revelation by God as “I am that I am” smacks of beingness, as though God told Moses “Do likewise.” I then suggest that “doing” although necessary to be in a physical realm (specific acts to perform, physical things to do) fragments us and tends to work against connectiveness of spirit, but relating/love is a kind of antidote helping restore a sense of wholeness in a broken world. But without the peace of fully accepting one’s being (no matter how crappy the situation it finds itself in) love would end up acting like a poorly grounded electrical system and eventually dysfunction or fail altogether. Relating is important. Doing is important. But the most Godly of these three modes is Being/Beingness because it is a precondition for the other two.
In terms of “detachment,” my own metaphysical and psychological guesses are that an understanding of the primacy of fully accepting one’s being (and “assignment” on earth which comes with the package—acceptance of the gift of life) does amount to a kind of “detachment” or independence.Paul Tillich’s indentifying God as the Ground of Being is very much in line with my thoughts here, and I can see some similarities with the the shared writings in the link.

Thank you for the follow up otherbrother.

What you have offered is a good way to see life, Accepting that it is all part of the package, part of our growth as a "spiritual being", the life yet to come.

I tend towards relating and doing as being the most important, as being is the given gift of God to us all and relating and doing are the freewill choice, the choice to pick up the cross and follow Christ.

Regards Tony

 

[Tony Bristow-Stagg]

Does seem to be in line with notion of an individual spirit that if we get to know and use better (thin the veil) the more Godly/spiritual will be our earthly existence.

I would agree with that observation.

Your reply about thinning the veil, or removing some, brought to mind a "Hidden Word" of Baha'u'llah

O SON OF MAN! Wert thou to speed through the immensity of space and traverse the expanse of heaven, yet thou wouldst find no rest save in submission to Our command and humbleness before Our Face.

Our veils hide us from that submission and humility, we try to steer away from any calamity, not knowing the bounty within.

O SON OF MAN! My calamity is My providence, outwardly it is fire and vengeance, but inwardly it is light and mercy. Hasten thereunto that thou mayest become an eternal light and an immortal spirit. This is My command unto thee, do thou observe it.

What keeps us from embracing calamity in such a light? Well Another Hidden Word may tell us why!

O SON OF BEING! Busy not thyself with this world, for with fire We test the gold, and with gold We test Our servants.

Regards Tony

 

[Thomas]

If you think about it, soul and spirit both derive, Biblically, from the Hebrew terms for 'wind' or 'breath'.

The emphasis I would put say here is movement.

One tends to see the soul as a concrete thing, as 'the essence of me' – we say 'save our souls' and we traditionally count the number of travellers on a journey as 'souls'. When a ship sinks, it does so at the loss of some or all souls on board ... that kind of thing.

Whereas spirit is much more fluid and dynamic. We speak of the spirit of an occasion, or the spirit of place, the spirit within me that move me from one to place to another, from one feeling to another.

The term that speaks most of the individual spirit to me is μετάνοια metanoia.

Commonly and traditionally translated as 'repentance', a more literal meaning is a 'change of mind', 'of thinking', 'of intention', or 'of the heart'.

Metanoia implies, in the New Testament, a change in the disposition toward God. And equally a positive change towards life, or knowledge. Neither change of mind nor change of heart carries quite the force or vigour of the Greek word. And in this instance, 'heart' should be understood as it was in the classical sense: as the seat of both the intellect and the passions.

Could we get to know our individual spirit as a means of better connecting with God?

Short answer – yes – but I can only answer in a Catholic context.

As an example of a standing spiritual disposition is that of the Centurion in Matthew 8:8:
"Lord, I am not worthy that you should come in under my roof; but only declare it by a word and my servant will be healed."

The kind of metanoia we are more usually thinking of is the more dynamic – the apprehension of the real in the face of experience, as evidenced by Peter in Mark 8:29: "Thou art the Christ" and Thomas in John 20:28: "My Lord and my God."

But the calling to us is different, we are not faced with Christ in the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, nor with the Risen saviour in the Upper Room. Ours is a much more subtle and nuanced calling:

Jesus perpetually says:
"But whom do you say that I am?" (Mark 8:29, Matthew 16:15, Luke 9:20) and when we plead ignorance, He says:
"If you had known me you would also have recognised my Father. From this moment you know and have seen him." Philip says to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and for us that suffices." Jesus says to him, "I am with you for such a long time, Philip, and you have not known me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?" (John 14:7-10).

Metanoia is not conversion is the face of personal some epiphany. Metanoia is a personal and conscious decision to open the mind and the heart to the possibility. Epiphany comes later.

 

[otherbrother]

Thank you for the follow up otherbrother.

What you have offered is a good way to see life, Accepting that it is all part of the package, part of our growth as a "spiritual being", the life yet to come.

I tend towards relating and doing as being the most important, as being is the given gift of God to us all and relating and doing are the freewill choice, the choice to pick up the cross and follow Christ.

Regards Tony

I tend to see integration and wholeness as being from another domain/dimension. Although I often attribute it to an innate natural “potential” that is positively projected onto “God.” I nonetheless believe that the potential itself is from a deeper realm of overall reality, which is at base (and “ultimately”) more like Mind than matter. When our mind prays it connects with the Larger Mind, often referred to as “God.” This Base of Being (BOB!) is also The Completely Connected One (the CCO of the universe) because the finest of all stuff permeates all grosser stuff. An individual spirit is of finer stuff than the physical attributes of a person. It can slip in through the gaps of gross matter and serves the emergence of integration and wholeness into this physical realm.
I think that puts me more in agreement with the Independent God believers, even though I think spiritual potential and potential for integration and wholeness is baked into physical reality, Creation.

 

[otherbrother]

By “being “ I mean graciously accepting the gift of being, and along with it the “assignment” to bring more wholeness into a broken world, in whatever way an individual spirit can best utilize and assist a person.

 

[otherbrother]

By “being “ I mean graciously accepting the gift of being, and along with it the “assignment” to bring more wholeness into a broken world, in whatever way an individual spirit can best utilize and assist a person.

And by accepting I mean relaxing into it so you can operate from it as a base. Using your self as a as whole is a way to give priority to humanity instead of specific achievements, goals, or titles/labels. A humanity that God included in his assessment of creation at the end of the 6th day, as being “very good.” If we operate from being itself, unexpected potential is more likely to flow. Specific things we do squelch out much of our potential because it requires a focusing on what potentials may be relevant to that task.