"Do you have a soul in your body" or "are you a soul not the body"?

Question

some says "i have a soul in my body" but others says "i am a soul not the body". Where do you fall? Please justify your answer.

Answer 1

The second one, "i am a soul not the body"

Bhagavad-gita-2.12 & 13
Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be. As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. A sober person is not bewildered by such a change.

Those who are seers of the truth have concluded that of the nonexistent [the material body] there is no endurance and of the eternal [the soul] there is no change. This they have concluded by studying the nature of both. That which pervades the entire body you should know to be indestructible. No one is able to destroy that imperishable soul. Bhagavad-gita-2.16 & 17
An excerpt from the purport by A.C.Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Founder-Acharya of ISKCON,
(International Society for Krishna Consciousness).
There is no endurance of the changing body. That the body is changing every moment by the actions and reactions of the different cells is admitted by modern medical science; and thus growth and old age are taking place in the body. But the spirit soul exists permanently, remaining the same despite all changes of the body and the mind. That is the difference between matter and spirit. By nature, the body is ever changing, and the soul is eternal. This conclusion is established by all classes of seers of the truth, both impersonalist and personalist. In the Vishnu Purana (2.12.38) it is stated that Vishnu and His abodes all have self-illuminated spiritual existence (jyotimsii vishnur bhuvanani vishnuh). The words existent and nonexistent refer only to spirit and matter. That is the version of all seers of truth.

Lord Krishna gives further information in chapter two, verses 22 to 25,
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. The soul can never be cut to pieces by any weapon, nor burned by fire, nor moistened by water, nor withered by the wind. This individual soul is unbreakable and insoluble, and can be neither burned nor dried. He is everlasting, present everywhere, unchangeable, immovable and eternally the same. It is said that the soul is invisible, inconceivable and immutable. Knowing this, you should not grieve for the body.

Answer 2

The original Hebrew concept of the self was as a body animated by the breath of God. Once the breath was gone, the person was no more. During and after the Babylonian Exile, the Jews got some unavoidable exposure to foreign culture and ideas. From the Babylonians they got those cool apocalyptic images in Ezekiel and Daniel. During the Ptolemaic/Seleucid occupation, they picked up on the Greek idea of a "soul" living in a "machine" (which was handy for developing the type of afterlife that would allow for the settling of accounts).

The notion of a "soul, not a body" is dualistic nonsense. Whose body do you think it is? Why do you only hang around that body, and why does it only move around with you? It also brings up some doctrinal issues, since a general resurrection is a basic part of most Christian theologies.

Answer 3

Does a drop of water cease to exist when it drops back into the ocean? Or does it simply become a part of that great body of water? We live in a linear universe, therefore we feel everything has to have a beginning and an end. But, death and birth are simply transitions between realms. When I first started studying reincarnation and eastern philosophies as a young girl, I remember feeling "the burden of existence" heavy on me for many years. In other words, what if I didn't want to exist anymore? In my reality, that's just not a choice, and it still feels like a big responsibility sometimes.

Answer 4

Well, I think it is actually impossible to separate the two. My body isn't some shell that contains my soul, like an egg shell contains its yolk. I feel they are one in the same. We are all both physical and spiritual by nature. Which is why at one point, we can feel pain when we burn our finger. And at the same time, we can feel pain when a loved one passes away. I'm not a soul trapped in a body, nor am I a body that holds back my soul. But I'm both at one time...and that's perfectly fine with me.

Answer 5

Bhagwat Geeta Says I am a soul not the body
where as common people feel I have a soul in my body
Like Mithya and Satya
Shining Sand looks like water so you can say I have a soul in my body its mithya
But the fact is we all are soul covered by the body

Answer 6

i m just a hopeful soul in a body

Answer 7

I am soul experiencing the world with my body.

Krishna is the soul of my soul

Answer 8

ψυχή psuché pronounced as sukeh- Greek meaning for soul which is in the bible and a soul is within us. Psych is derived from soul or comfort zone, way of thinking.

Answer 9

I think it's a third option: The mind (logic), body (sensory), and soul (morals and personality) are all connected and affect each other. Like three people holding each other's arms and leaning back.
I believe this because we make desicions based off of things we're told by our body (i.e. "heat of the moment"), our mind (i.e. "It seemed like the most logical choice"), and our soul (i.e. "It felt like the right thing to do")

Answer 10

v r the soul but body is the carrier of soul and v r responsible for the actions of body through soul.................. like soul is the software and body is hardware