What Spirit is? How you would shortly define Spirit?
I am running this "survey" as to answer to myself one of the hundreds obsessive questions that tortures me.Please if you could give your definition as short as possible.Imagine you talk with a stranger sitting on the bence and he asks you that.What is the first answer you would give him?
My closest guess that hasnt even tottaly convinced me either (but is closer at least) is that:
Spirit is the "way",the "path" that Soul "communicates" with human mind (at least the consious part of the mind that people have awareness of).Like the line that connects these two dots(soul and mind)
The above requires of course that someone believes in soul existance (as i do).So whats your short answer to define Spirit?? Thanks for your time
My closest guess that hasnt even tottaly convinced me either (but is closer at least) is that:
Spirit is the "way",the "path" that Soul "communicates" with human mind (at least the consious part of the mind that people have awareness of).Like the line that connects these two dots(soul and mind)
The above requires of course that someone believes in soul existance (as i do).So whats your short answer to define Spirit?? Thanks for your time
Comments (71)
Spark.
Mind-stuff.
Mind stuff you mean like it's an mind illusion and Spirit doesn't exist? Or like you call all minds functions Spirit?
I simply meant to say that whatever spirit is, falls under the category of mind. Spirit is another aspect of what we broadly consider the mental.
And no, I do not think mind is an illusion at all. Mind is the most immediately known feature of existence we have as sentient creatures.
Ok thanks
No rebuttal? :joke:
Sure thing. Hope you find a satisfying answer.
Well do you actually believe in soul existence? And if yes is there a way that mind and soul communicate? By the way give me your definition of soul also if you believe in it. I know I bombed you with question but you asked for it man. Sorry. Hahaha
My answer may not help because you are asking for the briefest possible answer to the idea of spirit and I have started reading a book on the meaning of spirit, by Joel Kovel, 'History and Spirit' (1999). It surveys the use of the word ranging from its use by Hegel, its use within religion, the occult and in psychoanalysis. I have only just started the book, so I am unable to explain it fully at present.
When I have read the book, which may take a while, because I have several on the go, I may write on your thread or create my own thread with my own questions. However, the thing which I am puzzled about is why do you want the briefest definition when it is such a complex topic?
I'm no biologist, but it's my understanding the firing of a synapse involves electricity, and that the body has electrical impulses firing all the time, in the heart and whatever. I don't know when this starts, at conception, or even before. But I can imagine the creation of everything absent a spark, in which case we have a meat bag.
How, why, when, what, I don't know, but I think we get a jump start and then POW! there you have life. I think that spark is eternal and it doesn't go away before or after death. It may change forms, it may flip to matter and back again, or not. But I think it comes into us, branching off but connected, and then flows back into the whole when we die. From death's perspective, we never left, we were never separate, we where always part of it, like a finger to a hand, a hand to an arm, and arm to a torso, a torso to a human, a human to All, and everything else. Sometimes All will stare at it's finger and say "This is good." And it is. Except when it's not.
It may be total BS, but I like the visual of a mass of enzymes and whatnot floating around as a glob in an ancient sea and then BAM! a lighting bolt comes down out of a storm cloud and the rest is history.
I just saw a video on LinkIn of a chick picking up a snake and moving it from an urban walkway over to a water body and some reeds, while other people freaked. The caption: "Any fool can do something complex; it takes a genius to do something simple." (Pete Seeger) Spark! I'm a genius! LOL!
That's why we're here and not some other place, to ask questions and argue about stuff! :cool:
I think we use words such as "soul", "spirit" and the like to attempt to highlight one or another aspect of the mental. Thus you can say "that got to my soul", "that's a spiritual experience", etc. I don't think "soul", "spirit" and so on pick out independent aspects of the world.
If I had to make up a definition of soul, it would be something like the emotive aspect of something touching my experience in a specific way. So I'd say a song reaches my soul, because it interacts with me in a very specific way. I would not say that a song reached my mind. While strictly true, it's a strange statement to make.
But, I could be quite wrong about all of this.
I think that the simple and complex come together in a strange way. Life provides simple solutions but explaining how it works is far more intricate. But, there are probably different angles and levels of analysis, and some more useful at various times, and according to the needs of the person asking the questions.
:sparkle:
:100:
When you read the book just write what is the idea you got for what spirit is If you want of course. The reason I want the simplest answer is cause exactly since it is such a complex issue with so many aspects still I havent found a definition that is clear without huge analysis. Cause even in great thinkers and philosophers books they might use Spirit many times and in many cases they use to describe different things. Using and thinking of Spirt like a geeeeneral term that includes everything isn't enough for me. Of course it's a huge matter. But what is the meaning you give to it?You can't use terms like spirit and soul referring to different issues without giving a definition of what exactly is that you believe spirit is. And by you I don't mean you of course I mean anyone who use these terms.
So as you said the emotive aspect of an experience you have like the song you mentioned. But How it interacts with your emotions. The process that the song through your mind "creates" that emotionally energy around you isn't a indication of soul existence? Or you believe that even the way it interacts to you emotions is a pure job of mind? Well for me the shortest definition for soul is :That Soul is the universal energy inside human. And that kind of energy has some to do with the soul system of human. In a way it is the Aura that covers the person. That energy that interacts with human feelings in unconscious way. But as you said it might be totally wrong.. Lol
Yes, I thought that my answer may not be the one you are looking for, so I will save my own reading for anything which I write. Personally, I use the word spirit with caution because I see it as a rather fuzzy term which can be used to describe one's internalised experiences of reality to that of ghosts. Saying that, the notion of soul is equally ambiguous, especially as many query the existence of an actual soul. However, my own working definition of spirit would probably be along the lines of: the aspect of oneself which appears to be subtley different from the domain of the physical body, and probably arising from the animating lifeforce.
We don't understand how we move a finger. We just move it.
So if you now go "up" to things as complicated as emotions and music, our understanding is almost zero. We have no clue.
It's not clear how emotions interact with a mind like ours. You can say that about the soul if you want, but it amounts to saying something like "This phenomenon S, is energy for this thing we have mind".
I don't know what that means.
I think you'll need a more clear definition or idea of what a soul could be, and how such a thing could possibly be energy for the mind.
More: fire.
[i][url=https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2LvieybuRcI]"And to see you're really only very small
And life flows on within you and without you"[/url][/i] ...
Yet more than imaginary, "spiritual" means ecstatic (i.e. self sans ego (how unbounded immanence feels)). :death: :flower:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d8QzACfFGlw :fire:
Anything further just muddies the picture.
Spirit is that within and above us that illumines our mind from within and provides us with awareness of ourselves and of other things.
From a philosophical perspective I think one of the ways of investigating the question is in respect of the 'transcendental unity of apperception'. In this sense,'spirit' is like the unifying principle which binds the disparate elements of experience, judgement, and sensation into a unity. It's impossible to discern or identify what that function is, as it is never the object of experience, but (pace Kant, Hegel and Schopenhaur) always the subject of experience - which is close in meaning to the Hindu 'atman'.
But the inevitable tendency is to then try and know or 'objectify' it, which of course can never be done, as it is never the object of perception (to ourselves, anyway).
So anything that breathes has Spirit? It's not only human's "privillege"?
Nice definition. So that illumination in your opinion it happens in a something energetic level or it's pure mind's process?
I also see Spirit as the process behind breath as you mentioned. For me breath is just the biological effect that is required for Spirit's existance
So as I asked Banno. You believe Spirit is only in humans or all animals has Spirit too?
I believe soul transcends spirit, capitalized or not. Of course, I may be incorrect in my understanding, as may you. I believe the human form has a capacity for spirit that animals may inherently not, of course, beliefs are a dime a dozen these days. Not to tout this as an absolute net positive, there are many bad spirits among us.
So you think that this principle exists like a rule in universe in general and it is something that humans can't interfere with? Or humans mind play its role too in the way of how all these stuff go united? For you Spirit is like a principle that happens to all humans in a same way? Or each human has its own unique way of how all these things gets combined together?
So give me your short definition for soul also
It might be true also indeed
Let us open our religious books of olde and read from start to finish. Perhaps somewhere therein lies the answer. Something new, something old. Something forged, something formed by whatever forces may be. It all depends. Many things breathe. Few have the desire to use this breath to help that which does not immediately or inevitably help oneself. This is the essence of compassion and true love, the antithesis of which is indifference, which distinguishes man from the animal. Usually.
I think Meister Eckhardt said ‘God is your being, but you are not his’. It’s like that. We think what is real is what we can conceptualise and comprehend, but the source of being comprehends us, without us comprehending it. You have to learn the way of unknowing to see that.
The word for “consciousness” in Greek, Latin and Sanskrit is:
Greek: ?????????? suneidesis < sun + eidesis
Latin: conscius < con + scio
Sanskrit: ?????? samvid < sam + vid
Apparently, the original meaning in each case was “knowledge with (someone)” and by extension ”knowledge with or of oneself”/”self-knowledge” > “self-awareness” > “consciousness” > “conscience”, etc.
So, spirit is not a mind process. It is a form of "self-aware intelligent energy" of which mental processes such as thinking are mere functions.
For example, we have thoughts, like "this is a tree". But we also have an awareness of those thoughts that is necessarily higher that the thoughts themselves. That within us, that on a lower level has the awareness of our thoughts, and on a higher level has awareness of itself as itself, that is, as pure "self-aware intelligent energy" that has no other object of experience than itself, is the spirit. I would call it "nous" or "pneuma" in Platonic terminology.
It seems that you are separating spirit from the mind, emotions and body, which seems to be a bit abstract. I think that this is one perspective, but is too slanted because when I engaged with the post writer s/he appeared not to be looking for a complex philosophical understanding of the topic and, various viewpoints, but a more simple working definition of the term.
That's one aspect but too narrow if taken as comprehensive: think Zeitgeist as one meaning that "breath" is not adequate too. One aspect of the idea of spirit is ongoing life in the sense of breath, and another is change in the fiery sense of death and renewal. 'Mind' is the most adequate synonym it seems.
I don’t think breath is required for spirit’s existence - but awareness does give us confidence in this existence. ‘Spirit’ is commonly reserved for a relation to the flow of energy through a system we understand to be living. This relation can be actual, potential or possible. As such, it naturally extends beyond the structure of a living system, relating to chi, or the potential for energy to flow through ALL existence, regardless whether the observable effect is ‘breath’.
Breath is just the most obvious way that energy flows through a living system. It has connotations of an immaterial, essential, involuntary and cyclical process, that is nevertheless altered by thought, emotion and perception.
So, while it is a useful metaphor, it’s just one outcome of this process to which ‘spirit’ refers. But to reify spirit, to use the term in reference to an actual thing, then I would agree with @Banno in that “anything further just muddies the picture”. There is no actual thing other than breath that can be termed ‘spirit’. I think we need to be clear on this.
Spirit refers to an idea, which starts with the observation of breath: that energy flow (chi) through a living structure is not only essential to maintaining that structure, but also alters and is altered by it. In this sense, the logical and qualitative structure of life is inseparable as such from how energy flows through it.
Energy in classical physics is a quantity of effort, typically isolated from its qualitative or electromagnetic ‘flow’. But modern physics demonstrates that the way energy flows alters and is altered by all of existence, down to its most fundamental elements. Energy at the level of potentiality consists of quantitative effort inseparable from qualitative attention. Our most accurate accounts of reality are currently formulated as a prediction on how energy flows through a system, or as instructions for a system-wide temporal distribution of both attention and effort: a wavefunction, as it were.
For me, then, energy flow through any system (chi) is essential to maintaining that system as such, and both alters and is altered by it. So this notion of ‘spirit’ refers to a capacity for awareness of chi (starting with breath). What we do with that capacity is something else entirely.
Yes, etymology provides a feast for understanding the way concepts move and change over time. Check out https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=ghost
Quoting Wayfarer
...whatever is that? It seems to be the process of sorting what we believe so that it is consistent, but Kant verges on equating this with the self; it always looks to me like a mashup.
"The breath of our times"... works for me.
"Spirit" is breath taken as metaphor then... re-reified... so as to produce myth.
I can get that...perhaps my conception of breath was too narrow. Breath can be dry or moist, fiery or icy, so yeah.
And if Spirit is breath? What about plants then? Since they breath too we can say that they also have Spirit?
It seems to me that by Spirit you consider life then. Since we think alive everything that breaths. Existance of life is Spirit for you then
So what is life for you then since you separate breath from it?
Here's my thesis, a myth rather than an argument: Folk noticed that breathing was absent in the dead; it's one of the necessary characteristics of a corps. They supposed a causal link, but in the wrong direction - that the lack of breathing was the cause, not the result, of death; that the breath had left the body.
The word they used for breath was not unlike "spirit"...
And over time spirit took on its present sense.
So the notion of spirit is an over-investment in a misguided description of death.
The point is that I haven't realized what you meant till now. So Spirit isnt existing at all for you. It's just another name for breath. Or like the "mythological" transformation of breath through years in history
So I guess you don't believe in Soul either right?
I wouldn't guess that.More like classical music I would bet my money on
I think the English words "God" and "soul" are very important, although I don't believe in God. I think the words are key to understanding spirituality, as Kant talked about. The word "spirit" is the action of the soul in society and culture, the breathing of the soul. That's how I see it
So for you Spirit is the impact of Soul in human actions? How Soul express itself through it in a way that can be "seen" in how people act with others, with themselves and with society in general? Did I get it right or you mean something else? And if yes in what way you believe this soul expression takes place? Through mind maybe?
Mind is not necessarily a spiritual word. Soul is. "Soul" refers to the state of your soul is terms of ethics. For me "spirit" refers to the action of soul in doing good in the situations one finds himself. Spirit makes soul and then soul expresses itself in its culture by spirit in return. Soul is like a fountain and spirit is the running of the water
Sorry but I think I got it all wrong in what you mean. I don't understand still. So you believe there is Soul and when soul is in "good mode" then spirit occurs?so spirit for you is as Banno says another name for good actions?
Pneuma is the exact word indeed
I see soul as the substance of the person and spirit as the good action of the soul
Ok got it now