Self

The self is a living organism that constitutes a field of perception and action. This is what we call “soul.” Fundamentally it is an organism of consciousness, a field of awareness capable of what we call experience – experience of the world and of self-reflective awareness of itself. Soul and self are used somewhat interchangeably. (The Point of Existence, pg 13)

As our discussion progresses we will sometimes use self and soul in slightly different ways. We will predominately use the word self, however, because its connotation can include many aspects of the total self, including its structures. We will use the word soul more to connote the dynamic, alive presence of the self as distinguished from the structures of the self which pattern this presence. It is important to allow a slight ambiguity in the use of these words in order for our understanding to be faithful to the deeper perspective. The soul, as an alive conscious presence, is ultimately not separate from the structures which form the ego. It is when they are taken as the self’s identity that these structures alienate the soul’s experience from awareness of its true nature. (The Point of Existence, pg 14)

What is conventionally known as the psyche is part of this self. The mind is part of the self, manifesting the capacity to remember, to think, to imagine, to construct and integrate images, to discriminate, analyze, synthesize and so on. The feelings are part of the self: the capacity to desire, to choose, to value to love. (The Point of Existence, pg 14)

In addition to the realms of mental, emotional and physical experience, the self has access to the realm of Being, that is, it can experience directly rather than indirectly, its own Presence as existence. (The Point of Existence, pg 14)

Self, entity, individuality, identity

We have now differentiated four categories of self-experience: self (or soul), entity, individuality, and identity. Soul is the totality of the human being, primordially a wholeness. In self-realization we recognize it as the experiencing consciousness. In the dimension of conventional experience the soul experiences itself as an entity. This sense of entity is the basis of the self experiencing itself as an individuality. The self, as an individuality, can recognize itself directly because it possesses an identity, which it experiences as the feeling of identity. These concepts are the basic and most general patterns of the experience of the self in the dimension of conventional experience. (The Point of Existence, pg 97)