Hi
Having been on a Zen Buddhist retreat recently notions such as continuance and impermanence and the prospect of dispersing into the oneness of all upon death got me thinking.
So in the past few days I have been experimenting with letting go of something I have always thought of as absolute, steady, solid and very consoling - the notion of having a soul. The soul that is the real me, which at the moment is manifest with a physical body, but when that body is gone the soul lives on forever.
In letting go the soul, not just intellectually but also in a meditative state, I suddenly realised a great freedom. The freedom that when by body is gone “I” will disperse into nothingness or “emptiness” or “all that is”.
The next day I was sitting in a cafe watching the people go by and instead, as I often would, look at these people as beautiful souls walking around in physical bodies, I was seeing them as bodies that upon death would virtually disappear into the ether and become one with everything.
This experience brought me into a very clear sense of the present moment, like a oneness with these people where “this is it right now” as if everything else outside of this absolute moment is pure empty space.
That evening when doing walking meditation I had the experience of being pure empty space and I was also walking on pure empty space. Everything around me was also pure empty space and yet it was all solid, could be felt and seen etc.
So for the first time I have really experienced the notion that “form is emptiness and emptiness is form” as depicted in the Buddhist Heart Sutra.
Nothing else changed, I didn’t feel any surges of love or conductivity or anything like that, but it is a wonderful freeing experience.
I would be interested in hearing what people have to say about any of this and in particular in giving up the notion of having a soul.
I would also be interested in parallels with the yoga tradition. 
Louis
The question for me would be then: Do I have a soul,
or do I not have a soul ? So far my belief is,
that I continue to exist after my physical body dies.
How I continue to exist I do not know,
and I believe that my existance depends on the
level of my consciousness, which I can now develop.
Giving up the notion of having a soul might be possible
if I were able to clearly define what the soul is.
Giving up the notion of existance would be hard
and it brings me back to the question of “Who am I”
And as long as I am questioning who I am, I am still
existing. I think and I feel, therefore I am.
Well, it starts to get very philosophical …
A bit of meditating on “I AM” will probably help 
regards
Wolfgang
Hi All:
Reminds me of the old saying:
“Oh God! if there is a God,
Please save my soul! if I have a soul.”
What you are bringing up here relates to the vedanta/advaita (non-dual) branch of Indian philosophy, which technically is not the system of yoga – well, jnana yoga crosses over, not to mention actual experiences that arise from yoga practices.
Advaita is similar to the Buddhist view of everything being spun as illusion from one thing, or no-thing. On the other hand, yoga-style practices (and even tantra) exist in Buddhism (though maybe not in Zen). It is not only intellectual in any particular system, yet the intellect has an important role to play. By a variety of means it is doing leading to non-doing in doing, if that makes sense. And the more non-doing there is, the more doing there may be – divine doing, which is the ultimate non-doing!
So, among friends, an integration of methods can’t hurt. In fact, it is essential. Each practice leads to the others, and vise versa, and eventually to the final result. That is the beauty of it all. Then we know the answers to the questions raised in the two-liner above. The reality is within us, everywhere and nowhere, in stillness.
The guru is in you.
Hi Yogani,
Is there a “final result” as in an ending of the process of expansion in body and awareness?
To elaborate, I could see how just “being” could be a final result, but isn’t there an endless unfolding of the energies in the body as it opens up to the divine or is there a final culmination of this process of some kind? Do you perceive there to be an infinite process of increasing awareness too or does it end with perceiving the “oneness” of it all?
Anthem11
In letting go the soul, not just intellectually but also in a meditative state, I suddenly realised a great freedom.
Hi Sparkle,
I have ocassionally experienced something akin to what you speak about. The ‘letting go’ in the meditative state has sometimes crossed over to active life, and this non attributable emptyness comes on sometimes. But I also lose it easily. The awareness of it lingering there somewhere remains, though.
That’s a good point Wolfgang, when I think about it what I let go was my notion or concept of what I perceived my soul to be. The sense I have in this experience now is that I continue to exist.
The notion of a soul to me has been in the form of a “light being” with a definable form. This seemed to be blocking my awareness because when I let this notion go, and just went with not have any notion of what might be there I suddenly found myself unhindered and expanding into empty space.
Hi Yogani
[quote]
What you are bringing up here relates to the vedanta/advaita (non-dual) branch of Indian philosophy, which technically is not the system of yoga – well, jnana yoga crosses over, not to mention actual experiences that arise from yoga practices.
[/quote]To me it is the experiences that are everything, and I find it facinating to try and integrate experience within different systems.
I have been trying hard to integrate the AYP system with the Zen Buddhist system of mindfulness I have been used to. To my surprise I am not finding it straightforward.
What I am finding is that the AYP system is very clear and easy to understand. I find people raising questions in the Zen Sangha I attend which are easily answered in the AYP system. It would not be considered polite for me to start promoting AYP within that group so it has to be done in an integrative way.
I am however more openly promoting it in the healing group I attend and have distributed some AYP books there, with some success.
Yogani you also said: [quote]
So, among friends, an integration of methods can’t hurt. In fact, it is essential. Each practice leads to the others, and vise versa, and eventually to the final result. That is the beauty of it all. Then we know the answers to the questions raised in the two-liner above. The reality is within us, everywhere and nowhere, in stillness.
[/quote]At the Zen Retreat I was on I was delighted to hear Thich Nhat Hanh say exactly the same thing. In fact I think you and he would get on very well. He also stressed great importance in the use of the term “I don’t know” and being able to recognise, for him also, when we “don’t know” - this should please David immensley.
Hi Sadhak
[quote]
But I also lose it easily. The awareness of it lingering there somewhere remains, though.
[/quote]This of course remains to be seen, I have had glimpses of it before but nothing like this. If it is like the majority of my other experiences it will last a few weeks and then fade away or just vanish with some event, we’ll see.
Anthem, I seem to remember you saying that you feel the love and not the emptiness, well at the moment its the other way around for me 
maybe we can get together and do a merge .
To put things into perspective. Yesterday at work I was standing in a private place and brought my awareness into my body, in particular to my left knee. My whole body filled with a beautiful energy, which seemed to be more static than flowing. I stayed like this for about 10 minutes and then continued work. After about half an hour I was extreemly hot and driping sweat from my forhead - this was in an air conditioned building. I also felt shakey and fortunately was able to take an early lunch break. I felt I had to eat lots to somehow control or push down what was happening and the had a lie down. I was ok after that but was reminded of the power of this stuff and of all the purification I have to do.
Also, I am onto chin pump now and find it very powerful, I am having to regulate it because it can get out of hand very easily.
So the AYP practice go on and the purification goes on and on and on
I also have to acknowledge the samyama healing I got last Sunday, with all that has been going on its difficult to know what’s what. I would also like to thank Katrine for her wonderful post Stay home http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1489
It seemed like this carried an energy with it and have no doubt contributed to my experience also.
So thank you all from the heart
Louis
[quote=“Anthem11”]
quote: [/quote]Andrew said: Is there a "final result" as in an ending of the process of expansion in body and awareness? To elaborate, I could see how just "being" could be a final result, but isn't there an endless unfolding of the energies in the body as it opens up to the divine or is there a final culmination of this process of some kind? Do you perceive there to be an infinite process of increasing awareness too or does it end with perceiving the "oneness" of it all?Hi Andrew: The "final result" is beyond human reckoning, and beyond anyone's ability to explain. As long as we are in human form, who knows where it ends? Yet, so many make the attempt to both reckon and explain. And why not? It is our nature. It is also our nature to be going somewhere. So let's go wherever "That" is... Obviously, something profound is happening inside us. By "final result," I mean the unknowable end of the process, which is "being." Oddly enough, knowing isn't being, and being isn't knowing. It is like deep meditation, which most of us here can easily relate to. Who can say, "Now I am immersed in inner silence." No one. We can only say it after, in past tense. Yet, we can live stillness in action, becoming consciously "That" in this world -- a paradox. We can observe and explain what it is like. Yet, being does not see itself, just as the eye cannot see itself -- not without a mirror, that is. And therein lies a clue. We can see being in the actions of being, as reflecting in the mirror of the world. We are That -- an unending becoming expressed in the unending evolution of all that is manifest. We can also know That as being -- with nothing happening in the midst of it all. Everything is both. Btw, Andrew, all of this is just a longer way of saying what you already said above. :sunglasses: How are we doing here with the Zen, Louis? :clown_face: The guru is in you.
Yogani said:[quote]
The “final result” is beyond human reckoning, and beyond anyone’s ability to explain. As long as we are in human form, who knows where it ends? Yet, so many make the attempt to both reckon and explain. And why not? It is our nature. It is also our nature to be going somewhere. So let’s go wherever “That” is…
Obviously, something profound is happening inside us. By “final result,” I mean the unknowable end of the process, which is “being.” Oddly enough, knowing isn’t being, and being isn’t knowing. It is like deep meditation, which most of us here can easily relate to. Who can say, “Now I am immersed in inner silence.” No one. We can only say it after, in past tense. Yet, we can live stillness in action, becoming consciously “That” in this world – a paradox. We can observe and explain what it is like. Yet, being does not see itself, just as the eye cannot see itself – not without a mirror, that is. And therein lies a clue. We can see being in the actions of being, as reflecting in the mirror of the world. We are That – an unending becoming expressed in the unending evolution of all that is manifest. We can also know That as being – with nothing happening in the midst of it all. Everything is both.
Btw, Andrew, all of this is just a longer way of saying what you already said above.
How are we doing here with the Zen, Louis?
[/quote]
Sounds pretty zen to me Yogani 
mmmmmhh that must be what they mean by mirror mind in Buddhism - thanks
BTY I’m not proposing that “giving up the soul” or some variation of it is Buddhist or zen. This was just my own idea and the insight and experience I got from it.
If it helped me break a little more out of my Catholic upbringing, it might help someone else.
Louis
Hari Om
How to let go if I have not realized the soul, jiva, Atman, Self?
what is there to let go?
Isn’t it a cruel thing that people like me try yoga attempting attracted by its promises of delivering an infinite bliss and BEING, and now and then we come across people who declare THERE AIN’T NOTHING.
Well Maximus, a good advice for you might be:
let people who try to pursue NOTHING
pursue whatever they want to pursue,
and you pursue your own search (as I do mine).
Remember: the guru is in you
Everyone has his/her own perception of truth,
and if I feel inclined to grasp somebody elses truth,
then it is my choice (as it is yours) to try to understand them.
But by all means, there is no obligation to try to understand.
It would however be cruel if you absolutely HAVE TO bend your mind …
Love and Light
Wolfgang
The great and profound image for me, is that of the waves and the ocean. If I’m identified with my wave nature, suffering is inevitable, because all waves get old, get sick, die, loose the other waves they love, etc, while if I’m identified with my nature as one with the ocean, it’s something else.
Only the wave can really have a thought like “I either have a soul or I’m nothing.”
People on both sides of the atman/no atman debate use that image: both Yogananda and Thich Nhat Hahn, for example, have spoken of the discovery of our ocean nature as key step to end suffering.
Strangely enough, I had a first big experiental taste of that in a Christian meditation context. It seems that contemplatives of all varieties tend in that direction, regardless of doctrine, even though I think the popular Christian afterlife image (individual egos surviving into eternity) is a recipe for Hell rather than Heaven.
Hi all
Having googled soul and Buddhism this came up http://www.buddhanet.net/nutshell09.htm
In a nutshell the final paragraph say a lot for me:
“Buddhism does not totally deny the existence of a personality in an empirical sense. It only attempts to show that it does not exist in an ultimate sense. The Buddhist philosophical term for an individual is santana, i.e., a flux or a continuity. It includes the mental and physical elements as well. The kammic force of each individual binds the elements together. This uninterrupted flux or continuity of psycho-physical phenomenon, which is conditioned by kamma, and not limited only to the present life, but having its source in the beginningless past and its continuation in the future — is the Buddhist substitute for the permanent ego or the immortal soul of other religions.”
Frank said [quote]
How to let go if I have not realized the soul, jiva, Atman, Self?
what is there to let go?
[/quote]The way you said that Frank implies to me that the realisation of the soul may in fact be the same as not having an individual or immortal soul, in which case it might be just a case of different languages saying the same thing but often looking totally different.
Yogani said: [quote]
well, jnana yoga crosses over, not to mention actual experiences that arise from yoga practices.
[/quote]
This might imply the same as comment to Frank, as the actual experiencing seems to be the same. [quote]
It is not only intellectual in any particular system, yet the intellect has an important role to play. By a variety of means it is doing leading to non-doing in doing, if that makes sense. And the more non-doing there is, the more doing there may be – divine doing, which is the ultimate non-doing!
[/quote]. This makes a lot of sense to me now Yogani, when I read it first it past over my head a little. Like maybe the Intellect - the Insight - the Integration - the Intellect… All founded on good solid practice, not to mention a bit of service thrown in for good measure
Ranger said [quote]
The great and profound image for me, is that of the waves and the ocean. If I’m identified with my wave nature, suffering is inevitable, because all waves get old, get sick, die, loose the other waves they love, etc, while if I’m identified with my nature as one with the ocean, it’s something else.
Only the wave can really have a thought like “I either have a soul or I’m nothing.”
People on both sides of the atman/no atman debate use that image: both Yogananda and Thich Nhat Hahn, for example, have spoken of the discovery of our ocean nature as key step to end suffering.
Strangely enough, I had a first big experiental taste of that in a Christian meditation context. It seems that contemplatives of all varieties tend in that direction, regardless of doctrine, even though I think the popular Christian afterlife image (individual egos surviving into eternity) is a recipe for Hell rather than Heaven.
[/quote]Thanks Ranger, that about sums it up, the core experience is the same in all religions/traditions/ways, it just the language cloaks it in different ways.
Maximus, I think the advice Wolfgang gave is great. What’s going on here is someone elses truth - your truth is your own and can only be accessed by you through, in my opinion, stillness.
The AYP system is as good as any for this and in fact, the best I’ve seen (that’s just my view).
Thanks all for your contributions
Louis
Hi Sparkle
I read the link you posted. I have read similar articles before which say that soul is not eternal but just a series of processes. Every time I read such article it fills my heart with profound grief. Because I like the immortal soul theory according to which there is some entity identifiable between one birth and the next rebirth.
According to the article link, what I was in the previous second is not entirely identifiable with what I am in the present second. Birth and death happen every moment in this continuous ‘process’ that we call soul. It says when what we call death arrives then the ‘Kammic energy’ simply takes another form; there is no ‘entity’ such as soul that takes birth but just a process.
This explanation causes me grief for a number of reasons:
- It means that life itself is an illusion. I possibly means that there is an eternal end to life. I have always hated this idea. I appreciate existence and life.
- Although the article doesn’t say so, since there is no entity that maintains an existence, it implies that this ‘process’ that we call soul might even split into many or merge into one. This thought is very painful for me. I hope this is not true but my intellect says it must be true, because it does not agree with my hope that there is a constant number of souls is reasonable.
- In alignment with the immortal soul theory I have enjoyed the idea that since we existed in another body before our birth, past life memories are not physically impossible though it might be very difficult. The idea of immortal soul and the deinal of physically impossibility of past life go together in comradeship and reinforce each other. But the Buddhist theory of life as ‘just a process flow’ to me implies that past life memory is physically impossible, and we remember things in present life time only because of a storage device called brain and once dead it is lost forever. However I have one evidence that to my slight relief contradicts Buddhist theory about life - Ghosts. ‘A Haunting’ program in Discovery channel has shown without any room for doubt that ghosts remember things in their life and that psychics are able to read them. This might stand in support of the immortal soul theory as long as someone doesn’t prove that these ghosts lose their memory forever once they take another birth.
Hi Maximus
I too wrestle with this. I imagine we all do. It is difficult to accept that everything is just a memory and holds no permanence in the here and now. So what was I? A lie? No, but maybe my memories are a clue that I have always been here and always will be. Just not in a fixed expression. The fear of the loss of a fixed expression is a holding onto a thought form which is limiting and incomplete. So the future too is unknown. I will be as I am, in the present moment. There is the comfort for me. When all is said, here I am now. I’m guessing that the now never ends, it just becomes more pronounced. When I realize absolute dissolution in the infinite I will still be, the infinite.
just my thoughts. Peace, alan
‘now’ makes sense to me only in the immortal soul theory. I can’t make that sense in the Buddhist theory about soul-lessness which fearfully appears more rational. I further think that only one of them can be true because of their inherent incompatibility, though I wish that people had more choice to choose what truth they want.
Hi all
The experience of spaciousness and oneness I described above has waned. What I am left with is a very clear memory of it and somehow in this memory there is the experience.
I’m not explaining this well but because of the experience and now the memory of it I know it is there and in the knowing I have access to insights when I read texts, sutras or whatever. When I re-read some of the lessons and posts here they have a different meaning because of it.
So it is interesting to me that although these peak experiences come and go the effects can remain and have a lasting benefit.
The other thing I noticed was, that although there was no pronounced feeling of love associated with the experience, the after effects in how I was relating to people and how people perceived me had changed. I was softer and other people were correspondingly softer with me - there was a love in the air.
As I continue working with this a general feeling of love is deepening in me. This is different from heart openings I have had where there would be hugh beautiful surges of love for everyone.
As far as the soul/no-soul thing goes, it was just my experience of dropping the particular “concept” of the soul that freed me a little.
When I think of the profound experiences I had when my sister died at the age of forty I would not want to come to any definate opinion about it.
Presenting the notion of not having a soul to a persosn who is close to death when they have been brought up in a culture believing in a soul could be very cruel.
Ram Dass did a lot of work with the dying and one of his main convictions to the person was that they were simply shedding the physical body. This belief brings a lot of peace to people when they are dying.
So Maximus, I was wondering if you or someone close to you, is close to death ?
Louis
Louis, I appreciate your reply. No I wasn’t close to death neither someone close to me. But I have been and am in very deep and painful personal struggles and almost all my life has been and is being spent on overcoming them. The main inspiration for the courage required for such long struggles has been that we have an ever living soul and therefore it is ok to keep fighting to rejoice victory one day either in this life or after. If I had believed in soullessness, I would have thought ‘Ok, this life is the only chance I have to enjoy. I have been born as a species and that too as a human by pure coincidence so let us give up our assumed duties and principles and just enjoy life, for nothing matters in the end’.
In fact it appears to me that the entire Bhagwat Gita will fall apart if soullessness were the case. It won’t be easy to place emphasis on morals or duty for in that theory we are already dead eternally.
Hi Maximus
My beliefs confuse me. God, no god. Soul, no soul etc. What helps pacify and untangle those things is daily practice. My slow awakening of myself helps put such things in perspective. Do you meditate daily or have some kind of daily deep practice?
peace, alan
Really beautiful post Sparkle, makes sense.