One and the same are psyche, soul and mind.
The mind is but a person’s deathless soul
that dwells in breathing, sensate, mortal flesh
until its spirit leaves this life to death.
The spirit is the breath of life divine,
the spark wherein the soul retains its life.
When breath from life departs, the body dies,
for flesh is mortal, though the spirit’s not.
My body with its brain is not my self:
It’s just the vessel where I’m now constrained.
My psyche – mind or soul – is who I am:
It’s there my thoughts for words and deeds are framed.
The air sustains the brain with oxygen,
but life is more than circulating air.
While air provides the fuel for flesh and blood,
the spirit lives though breathing here has stilled.
If I depended on the air for life,
then all I spoke would be my dying words.
We breathe our dying words with final breaths,
but souls immortal never breathe their last.
Author notes
"to pneuma kai he psyche kai to soma": spirit and soul and body. 'Pneuma' is spirit and breath, while 'psyche' is mind and soul, and 'soma' is the body.
The soul will depart from the body with the spirit. The spirit and soul are never separated, however, for the spirit is the life principle to which the soul is bound. For the time it remains energized by the living spirit, the body is a temporal vessel for the immortal soul.
The soul will depart from the body with the spirit. The spirit and soul are never separated, however, for the spirit is the life principle to which the soul is bound. For the time it remains energized by the living spirit, the body is a temporal vessel for the immortal soul.
In a list
A contest entry
- Immortality... by PrabhuDayal Khattar.
300 points, ended July 23, 2008, 19 entries
Bronze trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Comments
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Very strongly painted the story of the life with a wonderful vision..I love it....Thank you so much for entering my contest..my friend...
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Your contests are a catalyst and an outlet for considerations of the spiritual aspect of being human. I appreciate your contests, but more than that I am grateful for the spirit within you which directs the creativity of your poetry and interaction with others in this way.
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You seem to be well informed, I like your Greek terminology
Well done
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The quoted phrase is from St. Paul in I Thessalonians 5:23 in which he distinguishes and invokes blessing for each aspect of his readers' trichotomous lives. The poem and notes derive from the context of Scriptural references and philosophical musings on the nature of our being.
I have had good teachers in my life; they would be pleased you consider their efforts to have not been in vain.
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