Spirit, Mind, Soul, Body? Part 4

Spirit and Body?

That which makes alive is spirit. 

First, beings are either spirited and alive or not spirited and dead.

Some spirited beings are visible and others are invisible to us. Put differently, some are within our perceptual capacity while others are too small, too far away, or too subtle for us to perceive.  

That we can perceive some and not other spirited beings says more about the range of our perception than the nature of other beings themselves.

We generally speak of spirited beings that we can perceive as having a body. In my view, we do not have a body, we are bodies. All that means is that we register in the perceptual range of humans and other beings.

From our human perspective, a body is either alive or dead. When a body is alive it is spirited. When it is dead it is no longer spirited. Once it was spirited, now it isn't. The body is a carcass. This is true of all plants and animals, including us humans.

Secondly, the spiritedness of beings varies. We can be more or less spirited. Our spirit can be high, low, or in between. Our spirit can strong or weak. It can be large or small, broadly influential or of no consequence at all. It can be hot or cold, mean or sweet. It can also be sick, wounded, and broken. Our spirit is as variable as the wind.

Our body expresses the variations of our spirit. 

Thirdly, bodies are spirited for a limited time. Generally speaking the spiritedness of embodied beings follows a pattern: conception, gestation, birth, growth to maturity, decline, and death. The duration of this pattern varies across species.

Fourth and finally for now, we do not know what happens with spirit at or after death. Does the mind remain spirited and live on or not? If not, what becomes of the spirit and mind? Do they dissipate like the body decomposes? If minds can remain spirited and live on, do all live on or only some? What do they do? Are they ever re-embodied?

There is much to wonder about and explore when it comes to the relationship of spirit and body. So many unanswered questions.