Do we all have a soul? What is it? Where is it? Why do I care?

Locating the soul is like a game of hide and seek. Maybe no one can find it because it’s not a separate part of a person, maybe we don’t have souls, or maybe we are souls?

@paulocoelho said, ‘’I’m not a body with a soul, I’m a soul that has a visible part called the body.’’

Ancient Greeks were the first to separate soul from body, influencing the thought of most western religion even to this day. Outside of religion people have been interchanging soul with mind and consciousness. This is an imperative step in the process of collective consciousness. 

People often think of the soul as something that’s added to a person at conception and leaves them at death. Then there’s the comical belief called “Frisbeetarianism” 

Frisbeetarianism ~ June 26, 2008 Urban Dictionary Word of the Day
The philosophy that when you die, your soul goes up on a roof and gets stuck. (George Carlin)
"I don't believe in reincarnation I am a strong Frisbeetarianist."

Like a Frisbee on the roof, the soul has proven itself hard to find. There is talk, it has even been argued that our soul is located near the center of the brain in the pineal gland. The evidence for this theory is about as wobbly as a poorly thrown Frisbee.

In Hebrew it is thought, the soul was the whole of a person, their life force. I’m guessing George Lucas was aware if this. It wasn’t one thing isolated from the body, but the body itself in complete harmony. ‘’ May the force be with you?’’

The closest thing to evidence for a soul is the experience of near death, where some sort of memory sensation seems to carry on after the brain stops functioning. People report some common experiences of outer light and inner peace. If we could strip away all the layers while living would we experience the same light and peace? This could be the ultimate goal of meditation. 

I'm guessing that the soul does not leave the body when one passes. I’m thinking the soul is all that’s left when you strip away everything that is non-essential. Maybe the soul isn’t added to a person at birth. I see soul as another word for the essence of who you are. Waking up to this essence is when we really come alive.

We spend so much energy in life doing and being things we thing we are supposed to be, not being true to ourselves. Often, the essence of who we are gets buried under layers of pretense and protection, like layers of an onion. 
Maybe death is the final stripping away of these layers, of all the pretense. After all the words, there is just breath - after the breath, there is just silence - nothing to prove and nothing to fear – only love left to our own self – finally.

I think the soul is all that’s left once you have stripped away all that is changing, temporal and finite. So, why wait for death? Start stripping away the layers NOW. Start removing the pretense NOW! Start living the essence of who you are NOW! At your essence, everything is whole, peaceful and soulful. What could be more satisfying than to live this essence? To be pure love, why wouldn’t you? 

From an Irish poem a possible definition of awakening/enlightenment …
Once the soul awakens, the search begins and you can never go back. From then on, you are inflamed with a special longing that will never again let you linger in the lowlands of complacency and partial fulfillment. The eternal makes you urgent. You are loath to let compromise or the threat of danger hold you back from striving toward the summit of fulfillment.

A lotus for you all,

Namaste