I've been thinking about this lately myself too and here's some of my present thoughts:
I am a body-soul ... a uniquely integrated manifestation here and now. This isn't something that "I" "possess" like on object. We tend to (for clarity's sake in language) refer to parts of ourselves as "my feet" or "my heart" or "my soul" as if they were things that we possess (which then implies some sort of separation between "me" and what is owned) ... but if anything, the "me" that is using language to express itself is far more likely to be a product of and "owned" by all the other parts, not the other way around, ie this "me" we are identifying with is the little mind or the ego. We forget that the ego and our thinking, self-reflective awareness are only single facets and cannot be the entirety. Without a body-soul, the ego and our ability to be self-conscious and self-reflective would not even exist.
In that sense, a lot of people seem to think that our sense of self is connected to our consciousness, and that consciousness solely refers to the thinking mind. From an Eastern perspective, there are a lot of misconceptions in that though. It is dualistic, body versus soul, earth versus heaven, flesh versus spirit, which sets us as war with our own selves. A holistic understanding of the entire self is blatantly absent in the Western world.
I don't see my soul and my body as separate entities, but co-created
and creative as a whole. It might even be helpful to view them as two ends of the same spectrum, and the Self happens as a result.
In one sense the body-soul is eternal. Although its substance changes form, shape, molecules, etc, it is still present and manifests throughout the entire width and breadth of the cosmos. On another level, the body-soul is also finite and breath-takingly unique. There will never be another Jenn like me ever in the stories of the universe. At the same time, the Jenn I was a second ago is slightly different from the Jenn I am now. Eternal impermanence then?
Writer Bill Plotkin defines the soul as -- our "ultimate place in the world" -- comparing it to an ecological niche. In fact, depending on how you view the body-soul relationship will also affect your understanding of the earth itself. Is there a material world versus a spiritual world? And if you can disassociate from the earth, then it's a whole lot easier to view it as something to be conquered, manipulated and utilized rather than as a living interconnected organism of which we are but a small part.
In fact, this is probably one of the most important perennial issues that everyone should try to resolve for themselves, especially considering our present global situations.
At the same time, really I'm just quibbling over symantics, lol
I'm not even going to get into all the questions this brings up then over re-incarnation, or anything else. That would just be opening a can of worms!
