Self = Soul With A Body ≠ Body With Soul Posted in: The Self Divine

You are a soul with a body. Immediately I heard this idea, it made perfect sense, resonated as truth, and changed everything for me. But when I shared this – what was for me a profound revelation – I was surprised that most people rejected it out of hand. 40+ years later I still find this to be the case. Why does this explanation of self not appeal to so many?

And most people who do believe in the existence of a soul seem to think of it along the lines of something you keep in your pocket. And only humans have souls. But this not at all the way the soul is talked about in the Bhagavad-gita ….

vāsāṁsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya
navāni gṛhṇāti naro ’parāṇi
tathā śarīrāṇi vihāya jīrṇāny
anyāni saṁyāti navāni dehī

As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, the soul similarly accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones.
Bhagavad-gita chapter 2, verse 22

It all seems so clear.

Recently I’ve started wondering if one of the reasons (at least) that people tend to reject this idea of self is they intuitively sense that it pulls the rug from under the feet of much of what they hold dear? Dear in terms of identity and cherished relationships with others etc … after all, if you listen to someone who has newly embraced the concept – they can’t half bang on about the soul having nothing to do with bodily family relations. In their zeal, than can be harshly dismissive of anything and everything born of identifying self with body. They will say it’s all illusion. Embarrassingly, I count my younger self amongst such people.

These days (my body aged 65 years) I see that dis-identification with body does not need to lead to one being dismissive of bodily relations. All relations are really soul to soul after all. I am a father of two wonderful sons. I feel blessed. Better to think of bodily outer dress as facilitating particular flavours of soul to soul relating, and far from minimising, the temporary illusory aspect of identifying with bodily roles actually positively creates a necessary platform. Perhaps one should therefore cultivate wonder at how and why, and simply celebrate the coming together of souls as they relate, exchange and connect in myriad ways. A sort of divine role-play. And far from rejecting, given the broader scheme of things, and the soul-level choices made that bring us together, one will come to a bigging-up of all our interactions here. Perhaps if one talks to others about being a soul with a body from this mindset-position, one will find they are less averse?

As Shakespeare writes

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players …

Are you a soul with a body, or a body with a soul? Or, if neither, how do you identify your self?