A Spirit Is a Human Without a Body

A Spirit Is a Human Without a Body

 

“The mind is the master of the body.” My mind is the master of my flesh. My flesh is the outer casing, and the master of my flesh is my mind. The mind, expressed in different terms, is the ‘mind-soul.’ ①The body is merely the servant of the mind.

 

During their lifetime, a person functions as a person through the union of the mind-soul and the flesh. In death, a person no longer possesses the flesh, yet their spirit still functions as a person.

 

What, then, is the difference between a person and a spirit?

 

②A person is ‘a human with flesh’; a spirit is ‘a human without flesh.’ Save for the lack of a physical body, a spirit is exactly like a person.

Countless people have died throughout history, and most of their bodies have long disappeared, but the spirits of the deceased live onward as people without their physical bodies. When the body expires through the process of birth, old age, sickness, and death, it eventually disappears forever. The spirit, however, does not pass away in this manner. ③Depending upon the degree of a person’s self-cultivation, their spirit may live onward for one thousand years or even ten thousand years.