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The Difference Between Soul and Spirit

Hubble galaxiesQ: Since you have Christian-oriented or Christian-based material on your website, will you explain to me what the Christians mean when they talk about a “spirit” and a “soul”? They seem to be two things.

Your situation reminds me of mine when after twenty years of “Bible believing” I woke up and wanted to know what the Bible meant, not just what it said. And the only people who could tell me were yogis, especially Brother Premamoy of Self-Realization Fellowship. If you want to really understand Christianity–the real teachings of Jesus–then you should read The Second Coming of Christ by Paramhansa Yogananda.

Although in the West “spirit” and “soul” are used interchangeably, in the New Testament and the theology of Eastern Christianity they are different. The word translated “soul” is psyche, the psychic nature which includes the mind and the intellect, the astral and causal bodies. The word translated “spirit” is pneuma, which is the pure consciousness, the spirit itself. So you can see that they are quite different.

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