Spirit soul body higher self. Soul and spirit. What is the difference between these concepts? Spiritual man - the image of God

Masculinity, will and personal vertical. The spirit makes the soul high, spiritualizes the mind and body. The spirit is often understood as the will (“gathered up the spirit”), but the will only helps a person not to bend, but directs it upwards - the spirit.

Interaction of soul, body, mind and spirit in human life

In everyday life, for most people, the spirit usually sleeps, the mind serves soul impulses, and the soul is guided by their body. It seems that 90% of people live primarily with their bodies. The body is their master, the soul and mind are their servants, we remember the spirit only when we are reminded, and then out of fear.

Joan of Arc lived in spirit. Sofia Kovalevskaya - mind. Educated girls live with their souls, completely ill-bred girls live with their bodies.

When an ordinary, average girl talks about her soul, she is actually talking about her body. "I want variety in my life" - sort of like about her spiritual aspirations, in fact - about the habits of her body. Those who live by their sensations and feelings - live by their soul, that is, the free life of the body, the higher life of the body. Congenital and acquired fears, natural biological instincts (sexual, reproduction) and reflexes (reflex of novelty) - this is the lower life of the body, there is little or almost no soul.

According to the concept of personality, the spirit should be at the head, guiding the mind, soul and body. In a strong person, the mind and soul are the helpers of the spirit, and the body is the child they raise. More?

I look at yogurt during breakfast: it seems delicious, the soul asks. I opened it, started to eat - I feel that it is no longer going, I overeat, the body protests. The mind makes a decision: enough is enough, we will save the yogurt for lunch. Gathering his courage, he got up from the table.

Very often, when a person begins his knowledge, he is faced with such concepts as , and, unfortunately, not everyone can explain what it is and how he understands it.

Spirit – it is simply pure light that pours (is born) from the Source. It does not have any form and contains all the knowledge of the universe.

The level at which the spirit exists is very subtle, it has neither energy nor ethereal density, it completely lacks energy vibrations. Something like endless silence.

The question will be natural, why does it appear at all? Spirit? It has at least two functions:
1. To become one more Universe himself, through the practical application of the knowledge about the Universe that he has.
2. Return everything that has become dense to pure light.

How are these functions implemented?

In order to understand how the Universe consists and “works”, the Spirit needs to go through all the stages of incarnation. These incarnations begin with the fact that pure light must somehow turn into matter. Naturally, such a dense matter as the human body cannot be immediately obtained from the light. This process proceeds gradually.

Spirit expandable(transition from a dense state into pure light) and shrink (form matter from pure light), and in this expansion and contraction of the spiritual essence, it is necessary to make matter again thin, to return it to its source. This process can be expressed as follows “Bring heaven to earth and bring light back to heaven” . This phrase includes everything we live by and why we are here on this planet.

Thus, the Spirit needs to understand how everything happens in the Universe in order to become another Universe itself. AND Spiritis born in order to incarnate in the dense body of a person, and then bring this body into pure light.

When pure light Spirit) spreads throughout the universe, it condenses and becomes a molecule, such a compact bundle of energy. And when these molecules begin to condense, some kind of matter is formed. This Matter creates itself from the Universal Chaos - the "movement" of the Spirits.

Soul – it is dense energy. She serves as the first incarnation for the Spirit. It is made up of various energies, so it is dense because it is not exclusively pure light. Soul created in the cells of what we call God, and it is an "etheric storage" that is able to vibrate with the same frequencies as matter. This allows pure light to penetrate matter. This evolutionary process makes the individual Spirit, regardless of the extent to which it belongs to the whole - so that develop and understand the essence of existence in the universe… to be able to become another universe.

There are different kinds of implementations. We know that human is one of the best. But, in fact, various incarnations begin at energy levels.

The Primal Spirit should be practiced energetically and incarnate into what is known as Soul. The Spirit adapts to the properties of the Soul and learns to control what is the Essence of the Soul.

After that, he begins the practice of incarnations into the molecule and into the gaseous level. As Spirits, we must first practice on the least dense incarnations, and this is an adaptation to the Soul.

Condensation of objects allows us to understand the fluidity of physical things inside dense worlds. Maximum density allows us to know how matter feels and recognize our limitations in the physical world.

Plants allow us to understand how the Divine light spreads and how it is fixed on the Earth. For this to happen, we must practice the process of photosynthesis for a long time and assimilate it day by day.

Existing as animals allows us to learn how to move and control our body, make decisions, instincts, interact with other Beings and communicate.

Existing as sentient animals allows us to practice spirituality, meditation through leisure, culture and family values.

existence as Human: after this moment, after about 70 lives, we learn the unity of heaven and earth, taking into account everything that we have learned before. This is the last physical level, along with extraterrestrial.

Time – it is an entity that exists to destroy matter, so it only exists in the physical world. This experience can last for years or millennia, depending on what each soul and the spirit as a whole must learn.

Evolution has a rich history that can be found in the soul and that can be used by Spiritual Beings to practice in the physical world.

After the destruction of matter and the living of all possible experiences in physical existence Spirit moves to another level - Angels and Essences from the seventh dimension.

At this level, evolution changes. Here they work, serving the physical worlds, using their experience as a guide that guides through physical density.

After the 7th dimension, another type of evolution begins, which is more ethereal. This means that the Beings who have already passed through the physical levels begin to incarnate on the ethereal level, since they were able to illuminate their materiality and rise above matter.

When there is an ascension above matter, a new process of evolution begins. because their body has already become light itself. Now, their task is to help those who are lower on the step, to inform them about it in some way, to make them understand the process of enlightenment of matter, like those we know as Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad and many others who were born and did not so well known in our society.

Many doctors argue that the human body and soul must be treated and treated as one. From our own experience, we know that difficult emotional experiences can lead to illness. Meanwhile, we perceive many physical disorders as a payment for a stressful lifestyle that harms our body. We do not “hear” our own body, we do not feel how such conflicts and loads act on it. Without making any effort, we believe that the only way to get well is with the help of modern medicine or psychotherapy. Various psychological states cause physical reactions, for example, the excitement caused by the fear of speaking in front of an audience is accompanied by a disturbance in the activity of the stomach, diarrhea; a quarrel with loved ones often ends in a headache. If such situations and conditions occur regularly, this can lead to ailments such as skin rashes, asthma, hypertension.

Why does stress cause illness?

Psychoimmunology deals with the study of the influence of emotional stress on the body's defenses. Scientists are trying to find out under what conditions a person's resistance to disease sharply decreases. Hans Selye, who studied stress for 40 years, proved that the “general adaptation syndrome” after suffering an emotional or physical trauma has three phases. First, the sympathetic nervous system is activated, shock sets in, cardiac activity and blood flow to the muscles increase, and the body's defenses are mobilized. Then body temperature rises, blood pressure rises, breathing quickens, hormone levels rise. The third stage is exhaustion. The forces of the body are exhausted, resulting in a collapse - a life-threatening condition. The main discovery in this area was that stress does not cause disease in those people who are able to control it. Uncontrolled stress weakens the body's defense system, making it more prone to disease. Currently, there is more and more evidence that the body's resistance to diseases, including cancer, also depends on the response to stress.

What is psychosomatics?

Psychosomatic disorders are somatic diseases caused by psycho-emotional stress. A person's feelings and what happens in his body are closely interconnected: a person cries when he is sad; blushes when ashamed; trembles when scared.

The emergence of psychosomatic diseases

Psychosomatic illnesses can be caused by stressful situations - catastrophes, everyday problems and troubles. Psychosomatic diseases arise under the influence of a constant psycho-emotional load, due to which the autonomic nervous system is in an excited state for a long time. In this case, the body does not receive the necessary discharge. The excited state of the autonomic nervous system is a consequence of internal mental conflicts. Usually this excitement subsides quickly. However, in somatic disease, these changes persist for a longer time and cause irreversible damage to tissues and internal organs.

Medications and psychotherapy

Somatic diseases are manifested by physical ailments, so they are treated with medicines. Along with drug treatment, psychotherapy is used, its goal is to reduce fear. Behavioral therapy is used to correct the behavior of patients. The use of various methods allows the patient to relax, overcome stress, control certain functions of the autonomic nervous system.

Soul and body

Some people are only a little nervous about the disease, while others begin to panic. Someone from fear has a dry mouth, a voice “disappears” or breathing becomes difficult. This indicates the relationship of emotional experiences and somatic reactions. It has been established that some of the internal organs of a person also change due to a violation of the activity of the cerebral cortex.

Human intellect and emotions

In modern society, too much importance is given to the intellect of a person, while almost no one pays attention to emotions. However, if a person did not have emotions, then he would become a soulless creature, it is possible that then all people would be similar to each other. For the normal development of the personality, the harmony between the intellect and emotions is very important, they must be equally stimulated.

The influence of the spirit on the body and soul

Our behavior is very much dependent on how we perceive and evaluate this or that adverse event. Our attitude to it can not only predetermine behavior, but also have a negative impact on the body and soul of a person. Failures do not always cause depression and a feeling of hopelessness - after all, every person wonders why it happened this way and not otherwise. The future state of a person, for example, the degree of depression, depends on the answer to this question and the ability to justify it. The reasons for failure can be very different. Each person perceives them in their own way, often it depends on the character. With this in mind, the causes of adverse events that depend and do not depend on our will are determined; we look for them in ourselves or in others. The attitude of people to a particular problem is associated with the functioning of the immune system. During a study of people prone to depression, it was found that their blood contains an excessive amount of suppressors - cells that suppress the functions of the immune system. It is assumed that these cells weaken the protective functions of the body. Therefore, the mental and physical state of a person are interconnected. Optimistic people live longer on average than those who are pessimistic about life.

The interaction of the body, spirit and soul can be seen after analyzing the characteristics of the character of patients who have had a myocardial infarction. The development of the disease may be due to predisposition to it, as well as living conditions. The people most susceptible to myocardial infarction are long and persistently striving for success, the intended goal. They crave fame, self-realization and recognition. They always try to be active, strive to make a career.

Education of the spirit and sickness of the body

Myocardial infarction occurs more often in those men who in childhood received a strict upbringing, who were constantly under pressure, from whom absolute obedience was required. They were forbidden to be themselves, they had to suppress their inner desires, hide them from others. They were ashamed to show their feelings, emotions, and especially sensitivity and weakness, as in the family it was considered a shame for a real man.

According to modern psychological research, impulsive, impatient, aggressive and angry people are especially prone to diseases of the cardiovascular system. The risk group also includes smokers and people suffering from chronic insomnia. At a normal pace of life, they adequately respond to what is happening, but when serious problems arise, they become mentally reactive. During stress, the secretion of hormones increases in their body, blood pressure and cholesterol levels in the blood rise, which contributes to the development of atherosclerosis. The opposite of this group are people who know how to relax. However, such people are prone to depression, they often have negative emotions, which contributes to the development of diseases of the internal organs.

Depression

Some people develop depression due to personality traits. The most common reason is wrong thinking. Any negative event seems to them a real disaster. For some, everyday failures are just a small nuisance that causes certain inconveniences; for people prone to depression, it is a real tragedy.

Foreword

For several decades of our century, the Russian Church lived under the pressure of the most severe persecution. One of the many aspects of these persecutions was moral-intellectual terror. Having monopolized all branches of culture, the atheistic power proclaimed in the name of science that there is no God. How many of those of little faith have these obsessive declarations made even more of little faith! But even those who were firm in faith, but little knowing (and great knowledge has always been and will always be the lot of a minority) did not know what to object when the final verdict of religion was brought to them from the godless world by their own children or grandchildren. Here, undoubtedly, is one of the main reasons for the suppression of the continuity of faith in most Russian families.

The persecutors paid special attention to making the Church silent in the face of the most violent and shameless attacks against her. The famous Stalinist Constitution understood “freedom of conscience” as “freedom of religious worship and anti-religious propaganda”, obviously (which was repeatedly stated by various “officials”) denying the Church the right to “religious propaganda”. The condition for a "quiet and serene life" for a priest and for every Christian was the refusal to preach. In many churches, the sermon ceased to sound altogether, in others it was limited to "gospel topics", often in accentuated archaeological coverage. Apologetics (the defense of the faith against atheism) was completely banned, and even in theological seminaries and academies, when they were revived after a quarter-century break, there was no course with that name.

The book before you is a work on apologetics. Its author, Archbishop Luke (Voyno-Yasenetsky), was a wonderful doctor, and could carry out this service to suffering humanity until the end of his life with a completely clear conscience. But he felt a call to an even higher service, and in the most terrible years for the Church, he takes the priesthood, and soon the episcopal rank. After a short stay in the departments that changed at the will of others, there were many years of imprisonment. Then came the years of the fragile and ambiguous “Stalinist concordat”, when, under the influence of military events, a revival of church life took place, within a rather narrow framework. The overwhelming majority of priests who returned from prisons and camps had one feeling: “well, now we can serve,” Vladyka Luka wanted not only to serve, but also to fight for the souls of those who were far from the Church. This is how this book appeared, one of the remarkable works of church "samizdat", which by the way, to say, existed even in the most dangerous years, when there was no trace of intellectual literary samizdat, not to mention political.

In his book, Archbishop Luke examines the theory of higher nervous activity of Academician I. Pavlov, which in the USSR was declared the highest achievement of materialism, and shows that the only philosophical doctrine that allows one to include Pavlov's theory is the most anti-materialistic of all that philosophy has given in our century, the teachings of A. Bergson. When a laureate of the Stalin Prize in Medicine comes up with this kind of apologetic theory, it is much more weighty than if it were developed even by a great theologian, but less experienced in the natural sciences.

When evaluating the book of the ever-memorable Vladyka Luke, we must always keep in mind the goals that the author set for himself. This book is not a treatise on dogmatic theology or anthropology. For example, the distinction between spirit and soul here is not at all a metaphysical assertion. And these concepts themselves, in the exposition of the eminent author, are to a large extent dynamic: recognizing the influence of the bodily side of a person on the spiritual, the author sees the reverse influence of the spirit on the body, and “spirit” calls the sphere where the spiritual side prevails and dominates, and “soul” - that a sphere where the spiritual is closely connected with the corporeal and depends on it.

A wonderful book by a man who served God all his life and defended the faith and the Church in deed, word and writing, will continue to help many and many in gaining faith, joy in the Lord and in overcoming "anti-religious prejudices."

Archpriest VALENTIN ASMUS

Chapter first

What conclusions can we draw from the current state of natural science

For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword: it penetrates to the division of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Heb. 4:12)

And may your spirit and soul and body be preserved without blemish at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Thess. 5:23)

Let's start our reasoning about the relationship between the body, soul and spirit from afar. Until the end of the 19th century, the system of exact sciences was striking in the clarity and accuracy of everything that they treat. Until recently, unconditional faith in the basic tenets of science reigned, and only a select few minds saw cracks in the majestic edifice of classical natural science. And so the great scientific discoveries at the very end of the past and at the beginning of this century unexpectedly shook the very foundations of this edifice and forced us to reconsider the basic ideas of physics and mechanics. Principles that seemed to have the most reliable mathematical basis are now being challenged by scientists. Books like Henri Poincaré's profound Science and Hypothesis provide proof of this on every page. This famous mathematician showed that even mathematics lives by many hypotheses and conventions. One of his most prominent colleagues at the Institute of Mathematics, Emil Picker, in one of his works shows how incoherent the principles of classical mechanics are, this basic science that claims to formulate the general laws of the Universe.

Ernst Mach, in his History of Mechanics, expresses a similar opinion: The fundamentals of mechanics, apparently the simplest, are in fact extremely complex; they are based on experiments that cannot be carried out, and in no case can they be considered as mathematical truths. The physicist Lucien Poincaré writes: There are no more great theories, universally recognized, about which there would still be unanimous agreement among researchers; a certain anarchy reigns in the realm of the natural sciences, no law seems to be truly necessary. We are present at the breaking of old concepts, and not at the completion of scientific work. The ideas that seemed to the predecessors the most solidly justified are being revised. The idea that all phenomena can be explained mechanically is now abandoned. The very foundations of mechanics are disputed; new facts undermine faith in the absolute significance of the laws that were considered basic.

But if 30-40 years ago it was possible to say that physics (and mechanics) plunged into a state of anarchy, now this is no longer true. The revolutionary breakdown of the basic physical principles and ideas led to the creation of new concepts, deeper and more accurate than the previous ones. Moreover, these concepts do not just reject the old classical mechanics, but consider it as an approximate theory that has its own well-defined limits of applicability. So, for example, it turned out that in the world of the smallest objects known to us - molecules, atoms, electrons, etc. - classical mechanics ceases to be fair and must give way to a more accurate, although at the same time more complex and more abstract theory - quantum mechanics. At the same time, quantum mechanics is not something completely contradictory to classical mechanics: it includes the latter as an approximation suitable when considering objects with a sufficiently large mass. On the other hand, for processes characterized by high speeds of movement, approaching the speed of light, classical mechanics also ceases to be valid and must be replaced by a more rigorous theory - relativistic mechanics, based on Einstein's theory of relativity.

The laws of the immutability of elements no longer exist, for the transformation of some elements into others has been indisputably proven.

It has been established that there are elements with the same atomic weights, but different chemical properties. A similar phenomenon a few years ago would have caused ridicule among chemists (T. Svedberg).

There are hopes of proof of the complex nature of atoms; therefore, there is no longer any doubt that heavy atoms are built from lighter ones. It is even probable that all elements are ultimately built from hydrogen. The helium atom, according to this hypothesis, consists of four very closely spaced hydrogen atoms. In turn, the hydrogen atom consists of two particles - an electron and a proton.

The atom has ceased to be the primary unit of matter, for it has been established that its structure is very complex. The smallest particles of matter currently known are electrons and positrons. Both have exactly the same mass, but differ in electrical charges: the electron is negatively charged, and the positron is positively charged.

In addition to these particles, there are heavier particles - protons and neutrons that are part of the nuclei. Their mass is also about the same (1840 times the mass of an electron), but while the proton is charged with positive electricity, the neutron does not carry any charge.

Recently, in the composition of cosmic rays entering our atmosphere from interstellar space, a whole series of new particles has been discovered, the mass of which varies within very large limits (from 100 to 30,000 electron masses). These particles have various names: mesons (or mesatrons), varitrons, etc. It has also been established that all these particles are not absolutely unchanged. Protons can turn into neutrons and vice versa; electrons, connecting with positrons, can cease to exist in the form of particles, turning into electromagnetic radiation. On the other hand, under certain conditions, an electromagnetic field can "generate" an electron-positron pair. Particles found in cosmic rays in the process of interaction with the atoms of the atmosphere can greatly change their mass.

In modern physical literature, the transformation of an electron-positron pair into radiation is often called the "annihilation" (destruction) of matter; the reverse process is called "materialization".

Consistent materialists consider such terminology only conditionally acceptable, but idealistically distorting the actual state of things. They say that there is no transformation of energy into mass and vice versa, since mass and energy belong to some reality - matter, and emerging particles have energy, and energy - mass.

This last assertion is completely new for us, brought up on the old physical concepts. However, we are very far from celebrating victory over materialism.

We have neither the right nor the incentive to object to the very important achievements of modern physics. From the fact that particles can change their mass, as it has recently been established with respect to particles new to science discovered in cosmic rays, or simply cease to exist in the form of particles, turning into electromagnetic radiation (“annihilation” of electrons and protons), it is impossible draw conclusions about the disappearance of matter; Another form of matter is the electromagnetic field.

Both of these forms can change into one another in the same way that a liquid body can change into a solid or a gaseous one. Such transformations can, however, occur only if the laws of conservation of energy are observed. Energy cannot disappear or be created from nothing. It can only change its material shell, quantitatively remaining the same.

At present, physicists have abandoned the hypothesis of the existence of some weightless and, at the same time, absolutely elastic substance - the ether, replacing it with the concept of an electromagnetic field. The electromagnetic field is not a substance in the usual mechanical sense of the word. It does not have weight, hardness, elasticity, it does not consist of particles, etc. But it has energy and in this sense it should be considered as one of the forms of existence of matter. It is generated by the movement and interaction of elementary particles - electrons and others. On the other hand, it itself acts on these particles and, under certain conditions, can even generate them.

Instead of weight, hardness and elasticity, etc., the electromagnetic field has other characteristics that determine its properties. These characteristics are the magnitude and direction of electric and magnetic forces at different points in space. The laws governing the electromagnetic field and its interaction with electric charges are dealt with by a special area of ​​physics - electrodynamics; the laws of motion and interaction of material particles constitute the field of mechanics.

In the end, all products of dissociation of matter “leave” into the electromagnetic field. Regardless of the dissociating bodies and the method of dissociation, the products of this dissociation are always the same. Whether we are talking about the decay of the nuclei of radioactive substances, about the release from any metal under the influence of light, about the release produced by chemical reactions or combustion, etc., the products of these releases are always the same, although their quality, quantity and speed may be different. The material decays into elementary particles - neutrons, protons, mesons, electrons, positrons and others. The movement and interaction of these particles generates an electromagnetic field, magnetic and electrical vibrations of different frequencies, radio waves, infrared rays, visible rays, ultraviolet and gamma rays. Electrical phenomena underlie all chemical reactions, and they try to reduce all other forces to them.

It has been established that light is also a form of electromagnetic energy, and electricity has a corpuscular or, as some incorrectly say, atomic structure (of course, those corpuscles - electrons that make up electricity cannot be called atoms). Carefully and quite acceptable defines electricity Millikan. Here are his words: I did not try to answer the question "What is electricity?" and contented himself with establishing the proposition that, whatever it may be in essence, it always appears to us as an exact multiple of some definite electrical unit. Electricity is something more fundamental than material atoms, since it is an essential constituent of these one hundred different atoms. In the same way, it is something like matter, built up from separate individuals, but differs from matter in that all its constituent units, as far as it can be defined, are exactly the same.

This is a great achievement of theoretical physics - the corpuscular theory of electricity. But, of course, one cannot say that, due to its corpuscular structure, it ceased to be energy and became something material. Physicists do not say this either, but only assert that energy has mass, and mass belongs to some reality - matter. This, of course, is not an identification of energy with matter, and electricity, no matter how close in essence it is to matter, remains energy for us and, at the same time, the most important, main part of atomic energy.

Meanwhile, this basis of the physical life of the world became known to us only 300 years ago, since the time of Volta. For thousands of years, electricity remained unknown to people.

Only 50 years ago, science was enriched with the knowledge of new, extremely important forms of energy - radio waves, infrared rays, cathode rays, radioactivity and intra-atomic energy. This last energy, unimaginably grandiose and powerful, underlying the whole world dynamics, giving birth to the inexhaustible unfading thermal energy of the sun, became known 300 years later than electricity.

But does this give us the right to assume and even assert that there are other forms of energy unknown to us in the world, perhaps even more important for the world than intra-atomic energy?

The invisible part of the solar spectrum is 34%. And only a very small part of these 34% - infrared, ultraviolet, infrared rays - has been investigated, and the forms that underlie them have been understood. But what can be objected to the assumption, even the certainty, that many secrets are hidden behind the numerous Fraunhofer lines, forms of energy unknown to us, perhaps even more subtle than electrical energy?

From a material point of view, these as yet unknown forms of energy must be special forms of the existence of matter.

Let it be so, we have nothing to object to this, for we believe in the power of science. But if electricity cannot be called matter, but must undoubtedly be considered energy, into which particles of matter having a certain mass and physical properties can pass and be generated by it (the electric field), then do we have the right to assume that such forms of being of matter (or rather, of energy), which, by their properties, with much more reason than electricity, should be called semi-material?

And the very concept of "semi-material" contains the recognition of the existence and "non-material".

Where is the reason to deny the legitimacy of our faith and confidence in the existence of purely spiritual energy, which we consider the primary and primogenitor of all physical forms of energy, and through them of matter itself?

How do we imagine this spiritual energy?

For us it is the omnipotent Divine love. Love cannot be contained in itself, for its main property is the need to pour out on someone and on something, and this need led to the creation of the world by God.

By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the spirit of her mouth all their strength (Ps. 32:6).

The energy of love, poured out according to the all-good will of God. The Word of God gave rise to all other forms of energy, which, in turn, gave rise first to the particles of matter, and then through them the entire material world.

In another direction, the love of God poured out and created the entire spiritual world, the world of intelligent angelic beings, the human mind and the entire world of spiritual psychic phenomena (Ps. 103:4; 32:6).

If we do not know the many undoubtedly effective forms of energy, then this depends on the obvious inadequacy of our poor five senses for the knowledge of the world life and on the fact that scientific methods and reagents have not yet been found for discovering what is inaccessible to our senses.

But is it true that we have only five sense organs and there are no other organs and methods of direct perception?

Is it not possible a temporary aggravation of the ability of these organs to perceive forms of energy adequate to them?

The visual acuity of an eagle, the sense of smell of a dog, to a great extent, exceed the power of these senses in a person. Pigeons have an unknown sense of direction that guides the accuracy of their flight. The aggravation of hearing and touch of the blind is well known.

I believe that the undoubted facts of a mental order, which will be discussed further, oblige us not only to admit the possibility of sharpening our five senses, but also to add to them the heart as a special sense organ, the center of emotions and the organ of our knowledge.

Spirit, soul and body are the components of a person, and often Christians confuse soulfulness and spirituality.

A Christian who does charity work and smiles at everyone may be sincere, but at the same time he will go to hell if his essence is not filled with God's breath. Soul and spirit have different nature and differences, at the same time they are one.

What does the soul mean in Orthodoxy

The soul is the breath, the breath of God. The Creator created Adam and breathed a soul into him. (Genesis 2:7) The Creator created an incorporeal essence, He takes it away, which means that it has immortality.

The spiritual component fills the human body, into which God breathed it at conception.

But where this essence will find itself after separation from the body depends on the person. The prophet Ezekiel wrote that sinning souls die. (Ezek. 18:2)

Without a soul, a person has neither reason nor feelings. The spiritual component is devoid of form, it fills the human body into which God breathed it at conception.

Origin of the soul

The soul is created by the Creator; it does not reincarnate and does not move from body to body. She appears immediately after fertilization and, after the death of the corporeal shell, awaits the Last Judgment.

For a long time it was believed that an incorporeal spiritual creature is weightless, however, in 1906, Professor Duncan McDougall, by weighing a person at the time of death, proved that the weight of the soul is 21 grams.

The soul after the death of the bodily shell awaits the Judgment of God

The main components of the soul

The mind, will and feelings of a person depend on the state of the soul. It is very important to understand what soul forces are rational and unreasonable.

Higher forces control reasonable components, these include:

• feeling;
• will.

Unreasonable forces fill the body with vital currents, thanks to which the heart beats, the body is transformed and the ability to produce offspring is born. Our mind does not control an unreasonable substance, everything happens by itself. The heart beats, the circulatory system works, a person grows, matures, ages. All this does not depend on the human mind.

The spiritual gift of the Creator is that He fills us with feelings, emotions, desires, consciousness, gives us freedom of choice, control of conscience and fills us with the gifts of faith.

Important! Consciousness and conscience are the main components of the soul of a Christian, which distinguish him from the animal.

The mental component of the human body, unlike animals, has a reasonable power, which is characterized by the ability to speak, think and learn. Reasonable power dominates over all other components, it is given the opportunity to distinguish good from evil; choose, show the strength of desires, whom to love or hate and control the irritable force.

God fills us with feelings, emotions, desires, consciousness, gives us freedom of choice

The emotions of people are produced and controlled by the irritable force. Saint Basil the Great called this spiritual component a nerve that supplies energy, which sometimes results in passion:

• rage;
• jealousy for good and evil.

Important! The Holy Fathers emphasize that the real purpose of irritable force is to be angry with Satan.

Desirable or active power gives birth to the will, capable of choosing between good and evil.

Three forces are inherent in one life, one body and, according to Callistus and Ignatius Xanthopula, they can be controlled. Love curbs irritable power, dispassion will extinguish emotions, and prayer inspires rational power.

Only in submission to spiritual knowledge and contemplation of the Almighty, all three spiritual components are in unity. The soul is invisible, it lives regardless of the state of the body. The mental state of people equalizes everyone before God, who does not look at the body, but at His likeness, which does not depend on gender, age, skin color and place of residence.

According to St. Theophan the Recluse, it is the spiritual essence that is the source of all human manifestations, it is a person with reason and freedom of choice, it cannot be known by the organs of the body.

How does the spirit affect a person?

The soul is the temple of the Living God, in which the Holy Spirit lives. The Creator did not grant such an honor to any Angel to be called God's temple.

At baptism, the spirit of God settles in a person, which in the course of life can be forced out by other forces. This is possible only on the condition that the person himself opens the doors of evil spirits, polluting his temple.

The spiritual component is the highest side of people's lives

Despite the fact that the Lord fills a person with a spiritual component, it independently chooses spiritual filling. This is freedom of choice. The Creator does not create robots, He sculpts His own kind.

The spiritual component is the highest side of people's lives, it has been given the power to draw a person from visible things to the invisible knowledge of the grace of God, to separate the eternal from the temporal.

The spirit is that component of man, which will get rid of us from animals. Creatures created by God have no spiritual content.

The spiritual is inseparable from the spiritual, it is the highest side, the essence. There are no such feelings in a person that can cognize spiritual fulfillment. The Holy Fathers emphasize that the spirit is the human mind, from which the rational principle originates.

Important! The spirit of a person cannot be seen or comprehended, but a spiritual person filled with the Divine essence can be seen immediately by his emotions, deeds and love for the world around him.

The human spirit is filled with perfection only when united with God's Holy Spirit.

In the letter of St. Theophan the Recluse, we find that the spiritual filling is the power that the Creator breathed into the human spiritual component, as the final stage in the creation of His image.

In conjunction with the soul, the spirit raised it to a divine height above the inhuman creature. Thanks to spiritual fulfillment, a spiritual person becomes spiritualized.

Since spiritual power comes from God, it knows the Creator and seeks His presence in life.

Manifesting components of the spirit

Whom a person worships, serves, that is his god. Christians, regardless of their degree of development, know that the Creator directs everything in life.

Spiritual Filling Leads Christians to Thirst for God

He is the Judge and Savior, punishing and merciful, the symbol of the Christian faith is the Trinity, God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The fear of God is the main component of spiritual fulfillment.

Love power, money, fun parties, do everything in anger, of your own free will and desire, which means that you are not afraid of God, while the soul is controlled by satanic forces.

The guiding spiritual force is conscience, which makes a person fear the Lord, please Him in everything and follow His instructions. Conscience guides the spiritual qualities of Christians, directing them to the knowledge of holiness, grace and truth. It is only through conscience that believers can determine what is pleasing or contrary to the Lord.

Only those in whom conscience is alive can fulfill God's law. Spiritual fulfillment leads Christians to a thirst for God, when no creation of human hands can give the grace that a person acquires when communicating with the Almighty in fasting, prayers and the fulfillment of the Law.

About spiritual life:

The main differences between soul and spirit

In a person who lives in a fallen society and loves the Creator, there will always be a struggle between the soul and the spiritual, because their unity is broken by human sinfulness.

The spiritual component of God's creation makes it higher than animals, and the spiritual component - higher than angels. For which of the angels has the Lord ever said that they are His children? The Apostle Paul writes that human bodies are temples of the Living God, the Holy Spirit, and for this we must praise the Creator, there is no merit in this. (1 Cor. 6:19-20). The saint emphasized that in a Christian there is human and heavenly, visible and invisible, flesh and spirituality. Man, according to Gregory the Theologian, is a small universe inside a large cosmos.

The sayings of St. Gregory Palamas are beautiful that the body that has conquered the desires of the flesh does not become an anchor for the soul, pulling it to hell. It soars upward in spiritual and spiritual unity, turning into God's spiritual power.

Any living creature created by God has a soul, a spiritual fulfillment only in humans. The surrounding world can influence the spiritual components, the Lord controls the spiritual forces.

The soul appears at conception, spiritual strength is given to a person when he repents and accepts Jesus as his Savior, Healer, Creator and Creator. The spiritual substance parted with the body at death, with the disappearance of God's spiritual nature, a person falls into all grave sins.

Important! Only a spiritual Christian can call Jesus Christ his Master, learn God's word while reading it, a sincere one can only feel it.

Spiritual man - the image of God

One can never see the Lord in a body shell. The Creator absolutely does not care if you are poor or rich, thin or fat, with arms or without legs, beautiful from a human point of view or ugly.

The image of God lives in an invisible spiritual shell, which is controlled by spiritual power. God's soul has immortality, intelligence, free will, and pure, unselfish love.

The state of mind that passes into immortality is not controlled by Christians, but only by the Lord.

As the Creator is free, so He gave freedom to His creation. The All-Wise Creator endowed man with a mind capable of penetrating into invisible depths, knowing the nature of the Lord. Infinite is the goodness of the Creator towards His creation, which He never abandons. A spiritual person strives for unity with the Creator.

In the New Testament, there is a phrase about spiritually alive people, that is, those who have accepted Jesus as Savior into their lives.

Atheists or believers in other gods are called spiritually dead creatures.

Important! The Almighty, when creating man, provided for a hierarchy. The body submits to the soul, and that is subject to the spirit.

Initially, it was. Adam heard God's voice with his spiritual consciousness, and hurried to fulfill all the Creator's wishes with the help of his body. A spiritual person is like Adam before the fall, he learned, with the help of the Lord, to do God-pleasing deeds, to distinguish between good and evil, creating in himself the image of the Creator.

"Dialogue on Orthodoxy" about soul and spirit