A staple of religious thought as well as of psychology is the idea that we as individuals are made up of multiple parts. Spirit and ego; soul and id; body and mind. Is there any truth to this? Are we one thing or many things?
At the most rarified level we are simply Consciousness. Basic awareness as a manifestation of the Great Spirit.
We also hear the word “soul” thrown around but only rarely defined in a concise way. I have come to see the soul as the programming that controls our interaction with the outer world. It is a thing that is built over time. It will endure if we reinforce it. It will fade if we do not. It encompasses the emotional level that we may refer to as our heart. It is our self beyond the intellect. Revealed most dramatically in life or death situations like when a soldier throws himself onto a grenade without thinking to save his comrades at the cost of his own life. Or more subtly by the way a person acts (and more importantly reacts) in their dreams.
Another place where raw souls can be seen is in those with dementia. What is encountered is the residual “auto-pilot” that was left behind when the conscious entity began to move on to other realities.
So what happens to your soul after you die? If you are what has been described as Enlightened, the soul will dissipate with the body. If not, the soul will remain because you are still invested in an identity. This will cause your unconscious to create yet another body and another world around what you think is you.
You will lose your body. You can lose your soul.
But you can never lose your Spirit.