Yes … though transcending the ego is a prerequisite … it’s a long journey.
Seems logical … the individual ego is so small comparatively speaking … one ego vs cosmos … to awaken to the cosmos the personal ego must be shed … set aside so to speak … our preoccupation with our personal ego is like sitting in the ante -chambre … waiting to be invited into the main hall. In the ante chambre we know there is much more on the other side of the door … how to get through the door is the challenge.
So, are you saying here that “soul” is consciousness to you, Ierrellus?
Empathy and compassion come from a raised realized “consciousness” to me.
I think that psyche has more to do with the deeply-embedded human mind which can influence the body as in the mind/body relationship.
We must at times also have empathy or at least compassion toward our own selves. If we can’t, we can’t experience it anywhere else either.
Why would I say soul is mind (consciousness)? If the MBS trinity is accepted as the whole of the psyche, all parts inform each other. There can be strong bonds between mind and body as well as between soul and mind. These bonds should enable one to have charity toward the Self and the Other. Split the trinity and your energy will be devoted to only one or two aspects of what you really are. I’m for a religion in which we are “the hands and feet” of God on this Earth. I’m not into body hatred for the sake of religion or mind hatred for the same reason.
A natural religion is possible.
Emotions do exist, they are made out of energy.
The energy that goes into that is then emotional energy. And it leaves hand and footprints, by its production alone, also by the patterns of behavior it causes into being.
Emotions are reactions that cause actions.
Jakob,
“The energy that goes into that is then emotional energy.”
^Energy from where? is defined as what?
Not to jump ahead of where you are, but I’m sensing a resistance to the possibility that The Creator exists in your mind, but what about your center of gravity, your soul, Jakob? Do you deny your soul?
I have posts about my findings scattered around on various threads. If I have not asked the right questions or have been unclear about my experiential investigation, please let me know.
MM
This statement kind of has me stumped.
I think of our emotions more or less as still waters to begin with.
These still waters may be affected by our thoughts/behavior and those of others.
They then rise up and can go in different directions - both positive ones and negative ones.
But these waters, our emotions, do not have to cause negative reactions or responses if we can hold them at bey or re-direct them. Direct current then becomes alternating current. lol
There is always that psychic energy lying in wait for something - either turbulence or transcendent spirit.
Arc,
I like your still waters analogy. A lovely way to put it. Curious to know where exactly those still waters reside? 
Excuse me? 
Pretty much anywhere there are no people around.
Leads one to the conclusion that human energy fields … individual energy fields … are largely incompatible.
Emotions have to be roused; otherwise, they remain dormant. This is why I describe them as reactionary.
Some emotions rising up can be quite reactionary - reactions. But can there be some which are more balanced responses? Or do you look on all of them as reactionary?
From anywhere. Defined as ‘energy’.
Certainly ‘the Creator’ does not exist. To my mind. An absolutely prepostrous notion.
You are amusing, though.
No, I do not deny my soul. I am my soul. My soul created itself.
I could recommend you investigate where the assumption of ‘The Creator’ comes from. In general, and in you.
And then, investigate why the concept Soul is, in some sects of humankind, made conditional to that assumption.
Whatever your joy is here, it is clear that Soul relates to emotions, and The Creator relates to nothing whatsoever.
A conscious experiencer + a brain which is reading the informational context of that, then relating, and delivering feedback in a kind of loop. If you remove the physical info being delivered into the consciousness, then the experience is nil [or only of itself]. There would be no-thing being experienced.
That is, when connected to the human form. If consciousness [being in metaposition] can connect to another vehicle for info, then that would be its experience.
I can’t see how one can have an experience without an central observer, to that relates all the other info making your composition. I suppose detachment [in the Buddhist sense][not good psychologically] via gnosis is the tried and tested method.
All emotional responses are reactionary.
Define respond.
Define react.
Give me an example of both.
You curse me (example), I react/respond. Emotional reaction is possibly the primary way of addressing any such situation.
It comes when my sense of Self seems violated by any (external to the Self) thought or action.
Show me an emotional response that is not a reaction.
If I curse you lol - you will either respond or react.
Your response might be: Why did you do that to me? What did I do to you? An actual response to me is or might be at a much lower energy level than a reaction.
Now, your reaction at my having cursed you might be a slap in the face to me - that is if you’re the kind of man who likes to hit women.
A response to me is more reasonable and rational than a reaction although in a sense I can understand someone being really angry at being cursed out - it just depends on the individual. Does anger necessarily mean a reaction to it? What I mean is, behavior-wise?
The word responsability to me connotes more of an ability to act in a more reasonable, ethical way - not a violent way.
To act in a more reasonable way is still a reaction.
Well, ‘response’ is already clear enough. To call it ‘reactionary’ on top - what is a ‘reactionary response’? Besides a reaction, or a response?
As far as we are told, all actions are responses, reactions.