Do souls have a gender

[anjaq]

Ok, this is a bit personal telling about some things I learned in my journeys but lets see. I do something I call mind journeys - i think others may call it "shamanic journeys" though I dont consider myself a shaman. I did meet some guides there and felt a unity with them as if they are me and I am or was or will be them. One is a androgynous monk-like person, the others are a young and an old female. I do have a belief in something that may be called rebirth and think that while in some sense "we are all one" but in another we are all parts of that one that are experiencing some separation to live in this world. Now as it seems to me that there are souls that can be reborn and that keep a connection to the lives of the others - do souls have a gender? I feel that on one hand I think I do have a female soul, meeting the guides-that-are-me and most of them clearly being female, but at the same time I somehow feel that in the world beyond ours where the souls meet, there is no gender (represented by the androgynous monk that never speaks). What do you think and how can it be that sould do have a gender and then they don't? If you get what I am seeing there.

[anjaq]

Interesting way to describe it. I was thinking a similar thing with the guides who are more distant, more in the realm where souls just are as souls and that was an androgynous spiritual person that does not even speak. The more worldly guides are female though. So if a soul comes back to be again in the physical realm, will it tend to choose a particular gender? Or will it just find it easier to connect with others in the otherworld that have experienced or will experience the same gendered existence?
I know that the interpretations of all this is up to a personal view. The way i describe it is that every one is looking at what is though a little window shaped in the way ones own mind and soul is shaped by the life in this world. And we all look through our own windoes at what really is from different angles and with different parts not visible. Some things are just visible for most of us, others look just different from different angles and others are simply invisible to some. But I think that what is there is there and not subject to what we as individuals believe.

[Emma Morgaine]

This is all up to personal belief, thus there is no one "right" answer, or at least one that we'll never know.

I believe in the "napkin ring" theory, I am just part of a universal ethereal fabric that has been gathered into a bunch and pulled into my present form through a "napkin ring" of sorts.  The napkin ring has a gender, my soul does not.  Gender is just significant in this physical realm, I'll leave it behind when my napkin ring fails to hold me here any longer, and return to being just another part of the fabric that I have always belonged to.

i love this. I agree.

[VeryGnawty]

It seems unlikely that souls have a gender, and much more likely that they have a "preferred gender"

That is, the soul could take on different forms, but prefers some over others.

[Jessica Merriman]

I personally feel my soul is female thus the journey into transition. Something I can't explain inside me just says female. I think the soul is what drives me to do this. 

[anjaq]

Well, if it is just a preference, how to explain the pain and utter wrongness when the body does not fit to the expectations of the self, if the self is reflective of the soul. I mean - I did not really just prefer being a girl when I was little or in puberty, I had that deep longing for a female body and did not really make it into adulthood without eventuelly doing what I could to get it. Puberty was so painful - I guess something inside me was just very clear about how my body and gender should be - if not the soul, what then?
Maybe it is a preferrence , but the expectation still is there that the preferrence will be met and that is fixed then? I dont know.
I asked some people about being born again and got two different replies. The question was, if you had the chance to be reborn, what would you wish for. Some people said they would want a female body fitting to their female self. Others basically said that their most wish was to be born cis - no matter what body they would get as long as their self would then fit to that. I found this interesting that for some, the soul, their self would be fixed and forever demand a female body, while for others their self was not that fixed, their souls were according to their thoughts not gendered (or gendered male maybe?) and they just wished for a life without discrepancy.

[Ms Grace]

I would be inclined to say the soul doesn't have a gender, but it doesn't explain why one might not feel comfortable in the gender of their physical body, unless of course the perception of gender is neural wiring in the brain separate from from XX/XY/etc chromosomes and reproductive/hormonal systems.

I have a complex, non religious spiritual approach to life, while my mind/ego doesn't always agree with the path in life my soul has chosen for this existence it has certainly proved challenging but rewarding experience.

[Carrie Liz]

My pagan friend Heidi tells me that while souls themselves don't necessarily have a gender, there usually is a preferred gender that they tend to reincarnate in more often, and that gender-switching between lives isn't the norm.

So yeah, you could kind of say that souls have a preferred gender, but at the same time, they don't, there's nothing that expressly keeps them from incarnating in male or female form.

[Jess42]

Reading through past life regressions, studying reincarnation and different belief systems and so on. Just from what I have read and so on and my personal opinion is yes the Soul has genders, both aspects but not in a genetalia way or sexual way but more in the way of consciousness in emotions, thinking and so on. Through reincarnation many times we grow really comfortable exhibiting one or the other aspects, male or female and choose to incarnate in that physical gender over and over again. But due to having to learn different experiences in all different possiblilities we have to sometimes choose to incarnate into our non preferred gender. Just for a learning experience. Doing this supposedly leads us to far greater possibilities and tries to bring internal harmony and comfort with both gender aspects to our Spirit.

Disclaimer: This is just my personal belief brought about by reading about past life regressions, the human Soul and so on. No religion involved other than a general Spirituality that is not affiliated with any established religion.

[peky]

In my faith some believe that as G-d breaths life (Nefesh) into a new born creature, a part of G-d (the Ruah) enter to dwell into the new creature. We also (at least some of us do) believe that as you develop your intellect and live a righteous life you develop an Spirit that forms a nexus with your Ruah... and that it is through this nexus that we achieve a communion with G-d.

We believe that Ruah is genderless but that the Spirit has a gender

[Jera]

This seems like an interesting topic to consider, but I'm having a hard time doing so. It's difficult for me to tell the difference between the concepts of "soul" and "spirit."

Is anyone willing to describe just what part of us you're thinking about, exactly?

[peky]

This seems like an interesting topic to consider, but I'm having a hard time doing so. It's difficult for me to tell the difference between the concepts of "soul" and "spirit."

Is anyone willing to describe just what part of us you're thinking about, exactly?

I believe that our Spirit is generated by the interaction of your Soul and your Mind. I believe our Soul is entirely Divine.

[peky]

of course all depends on our operational definitions of Soul and Spirt

[Ms Grace]

I believe that our Spirit is generated by the interaction of your Soul and your Mind. I believe our Soul is entirely Divine.

Yes, that is also the general tilt of the Blavatsky/Alice Bailey esoteric teachings I read many years ago, largely influenced by Eastern beliefs I think.

[Jera]

I believe that our Spirit is generated by the interaction of your Soul and your Mind. I believe our Soul is entirely Divine.

Okay, I think I can work with that.

My own belief system has its foundation in Gnosticism, which teaches that the Divine has an aspect which is male, one which is female, and one androgyne which is at the same time a fusion of both of these and neither of them. It's loosely similar to more mainstream Christianity's "Holy Trinity" concept. Also, they teach that we have an inner Self, the very essence of who we are, that is a "fragment" of this Divine, one and the same with it. To me, this all sounds like a semantic difference for the same concept. Does that sound fair?

If so, my personal thoughts on the matter are rather unhelpfully summarized as, "It could be, but it might not be," depending on whether this "Soul" (I would say "Self") is a fragment of just one aspect of the Divine (and WHICH one), or all of it.

Does that make sense?

[YinYanga]

What is the difference between souls and conciousness? I am leaning more and more to the unromantic idea that there is just nothingness after you die

[Jess42]

What is the difference between souls and conciousness? I am leaning more and more to the unromantic idea that there is just nothingness after you die

Really I haven't a clue. Conciousness is the energy and awareness that allows us to function, think and so on. We know ther are at least two levels. The conscious and subconscious. But not too long ago there is possibly another layer called the superconcsiouness, where the soul possibly resides within us. And now I have even heard of a Christ consciousness. Not related to any religion just a fourth layer that is possibly what Christ had access mentally to and why he could do things and knew things he did. How many layers of concsiousness there is is almost endless ut I believe enough to lead us back to the One or the Singularity or the Source or the Creator or God.

As for the Spirit and Soul. Think of it like mind and body. Your Spririt is that devine part of you that our Creator created. So it is like the ethereal mind. Your Soul is like a vessel for your Spirit in which all the lessons you learn are added to it and generates and forms you own indvidual personalities, preferences, knowledge and so on. Both are devine in nature. Neither can be seen with the eyes. But our SPirit or the Devine Breath or the Devine Spark is the Spirit. That Spirit is stilli n connection with the Creator and so on. It is still a part of the Creator. Our Souls are what aloow us to have our own uniqueness, our own personalities and so on.

So in short our Spirits are neither male nor female but both. Our Souls is where we get the comfort from one gender over the other but not limited to one or the other. Our Spirits are what was created in the beginning on the fifth day in the story of Genesis, I believe. Adam came after the day of rest.

Again this is just my own take and perceptions of the subject and in no way right or wrong.

[peky]

What is the difference between souls and conciousness? I am leaning more and more to the unromantic idea that there is just nothingness after you die

Your "consciousness can be tarnish or polish by your bad or good actions, respectively, but your souls cannot be tarnish

[YinYanga]

Your "consciousness can be tarnish or polish by your bad or good actions, respectively, but your souls cannot be tarnish

I find that hard to believe but I am not really into spirituality or esoterics anymore so I won't know that. I do like some of Buddhism's teachings

[Jess42]

I find that hard to believe but I am not really into spirituality or esoterics anymore so I won't know that. I do like some of Buddhism's teachings

Well think of it like Karma, what you put out you will get back. So if you put out negativeity, you will eventually have to experience that negativity. If you put out positivity, then you will eventually experience postivity. this can be in the next incarnation or incarnations farther down the line. But eventually you will reap what you sow. That is the Christ's take on Karma I am almost sure. Righteousness and Karma are pretty much interchangeable.