the soul
Definitions, Beliefs, Proofs

Webster's Third International Dictionary:
1. the immaterial essence or substance animating principle or actuating cause of life or of the individual life.
2. the psychical or spiritual principle in general shared by or embodied in individual human beings or all beings having a rational and spiritual nature.
3. the immortal part of man having permanent individual existence.
4. a person's total self ....sometimes distinguished from spirit....

The Self-Revealed Knowledge ..by Roy E. Davis:
"An individualized ray of God's consciousness reflected from the field of primordial nature that mistakenly presumes itself to be independent of God. The soul's illusional state of consciousness has to be purified and transcended to have its awareness restored to wholeness."

Encyclopaedia Britannica 15th edition:
Soul: an immaterial principle or aspect that, with the body, constitutes the human person. The soul has also been conceived as the very essence of a thing and not a mere aspect or part. Although now closely associated with such terms as mind, spirit, or self, with which it has become almost synonymous, the basic connotation of soul in ancient and primitive societies was life. Soul is the life of the body. ... At death the soul leaves the body, and all bodily processes cease.

K.W.B. (Author of Awareness - The Center of Being):
The soul is individualized awareness. At this stage, pure Awareness loses its purity and gets involved with mental creations. It is then called the ego. Therefore, the experience of pure Awareness lies in becoming again pure Awareness, a condition of pure Beingness, which is totally void of thoughts and thinking. Awareness is self-energetic and it is this energy that animates the body and gives it its life-force. The Spirit, the Self, and Awareness are synonym.

Common beliefs:

Most people and all religions share the conviction that the Soul as man's essential nature is able to survive the body since it is in essence immaterial consciousness or awareness. The one exception to this rule are the Jehovah Witnesses, who believe that the body is the soul and there is no soul beyond the body. For them there is no spiritual advancement into heaven because they, and only they, will live forever on earth in their material body. In that sense, they are truly the most materialistic religious organization on this globe. They see the origin of the teaching that tells of the immortal soul in "pagan" Greek philosophy, even so the origin of that teaching goes back to Indian philosophy where the soul is called the jiva. They also quote religious scriptures and theologians, including even Jewish and Catholic publications. The following questions come up:
If there is no soul why invent such a word and for what purpose?   If the body is the soul, how can anyone be dead if the body is intact and no soul has left?   Where is awareness coming from?  Is it the result of thinking or the result of the body?  Again, if it is the result of brain and body, then it should still be there when we look at a dead body.  Can you picture a person who: has no soul, is fully aware, but completely dead at the same time?

Where can we find any proof for a soul and life after death?

1. In contemplating the origin of Awareness.

2. In the experience of pure Awareness.

3. In contemplating the experience of the real witnesses, the Saints and Sages who experienced pure Awareness.

4. In the investigation of Reincarnation.
    Read the books by Dr. Ian Stevenson, a professor of psychiatry, who has for more than 30 years collected and 
    analyzed thousands of cases, all strongly supporting the notion of reincarnation.

6. In the overwhelming agreement and matching description of all philosophies and religions with one known exception.

In response to this article, Paul Katz submitted the following references which are part of Plato's proof for the existence of the Soul, both before birth and after death, using logic and inference:

Plato's Phaedo
"The 'Cycle of Opposites' Argument  69E-72E
The Argument from 'Recollection' 72E-78B
The Argument from 'Affinity' 78B-84B
The Theory of Forms proves the Soul Indestructible 102A-107A
also one occurs in tenth book of the Republic, also one occurs in the
Phaedrus, and is amplified in the tenth book of the Laws."
(Submitted by Paul Katz with references to Plato's Phaedo by R. S. Bluck, Bobbs-Merrill)

He then compares life and death in the same manner and finds death generated from life and life generated from death. Hence our Soul must be from beyond, because "the souls of the dead must be in some place out of which they come again."

If, on the other hand, death would be the only exception of the rule, then, life would move in one way in a straight line. This is contrary to the observation that everything else circles and, as a consequence, nothing would in the end remain that could create new life. Everything would move from a pool of existence into nothingness which also raises the question where it could have come from if not from existence itself.

Plato concludes: " I am confident in the belief that there truly is such a thing as living again, and that the living spring from the dead, and that the souls of the dead are in existence."

Note to "Recollection Argument":

In his "Recollection Argument" Plato observes that we compare things with ideals of which we could have no other knowledge of than from the faint memory from before we were born. Whenever we judge about abstract concept ideas like beauty, equality, goodness, truth, and so on, we compare these concepts with ultimate absolute ideas. This proves that we must have some knowledge of these absolute ideas from before we were born. (This faint memory is also the reason for our spiritual and religious endeavors. If we would not somehow already at a deeper level know that survival is possible, we would not put that much hope in our spiritual searches. This could be compared with someone who seeks healing: Would this person seek healing if he would not have a memory of a healthy condition and his knowledge that healing is indeed possible?)

Plato goes further and finally identifies absolute beauty, goodness, and essence in general to be the true previous condition of our being to which we still refer when we compare and classify our sensations.  Plato goes on: "If these absolute ideas existed before we were born, then our souls must have existed before we were born." And, if the soul existed before birth, the soul must continue to exist after death, "since she has to be born again."

Note to the "Affinity Argument":

After more excellent reasoning, Plato finally identifies the soul as unchanging and resembling the divine while the body resembles the mortal: "The soul is in the very likeness of the divine, and immortal, and intelligible, and uniform, and indissoluble, and unchangeable; and the body is in the very likeness of the human, and mortal, and unintelligible, and multiform, and dissoluble, and changeable." The body is destined for dissolution while the soul remains indissoluble.