Beyond the Soul: Awakening into Oneness

What if your soul isn’t the key to your spiritual awakening—could it be an illusion holding you back? It's a scary thought, but could it be a ticket to your liberation?

Join me today on Live Like Eden: Spiritual Awakening Unraveled as we shatter the religious and New Age obsession with individuality and dive into a mind-blowing truth about oneness.

Today we will touch on: 

• Religious vs. New Age Soul Views: Explore how religion paints the soul as a unique creation to save or damn to hell, while New Age sees it learning through lifetimes via soul contracts—both which are clinging to a separate self.
• A Course in Miracles Perspective: Discover ACIM’s radical take: no individualized soul, only God’s oneness, with the mind projecting a dream world—spirit guides us home, freeing us from the ego’s illusions.

Could our real awakening lie beyond the soul? Tap your toe in the water and let go of deeply rooted beliefs, concepts, and mental structures to embrace divine oneness. 

Tune in now at www.livelikeeden.com for weekly spiritual wake-ups or book a FREE 30-minute consult to unravel your truth!

Where Are You on the Path? Find Out Now!
Just 10 questions: Get your results with a personal podcast playlist to guide your unique spiritual path!

Visit LIVE LIKE EDEN

Spiritual Guidance & Support Sessions: Struggling through your awakening and need real guidance? Book a Free Consult for 1:1 sessions—I’d love to support you with honest, judgment-free tools to navigate the chaos.

Subscribe for Podcast email reminders.

About Me: My Personal Story

Follow LIVE LIKE EDEN on Instagram!

RATE AND REVIEW
Love the show? Share your insights! Rate, review, and help others find clarity in their awakening journey. Your words shine a light on a tough topic—thank you!

Transcript

Hi, I'm Lindsay host of the live like Eden podcast What do you do when your whole life flips upside down? Are you questioning everything lost in chaos or yearning for life's deeper meaning? I've been there deep in the thick of it unraveling my own awakening mass for over 20 years Now I'm here to help you through yours I share no-nonsense weekly wake-ups cutting through the ego's illusions to wake you up to your own spiritual wisdom No mountaintop bliss needed here Just practical tools insights and real-life experience to save you time plus a much-needed laugh We're all losing it. Let's dive into this fresh new episode Welcome back to the show everybody. I hope you're doing well last week We talked about aging that fun experience of watching the body fall to the floor but how to do it from a spiritual perspective where we're just letting go of Feeling like we are a body so that we can live in this world freely and enjoy it while we're here And I mentioned something in the last episode as we were discussing the concept of predetermination is life Predetermined and I mentioned the words soul contract and as I was even mentioning them in the last episode I got this intuitive thing hitting me that is questioning the idea of a soul at all which might come as a shock to some people, but for some reason I Question things and I question the idea of having a soul having spent so much time reading A Course in Miracles It leads me to believe other things are possible in the world This show we're going to look at the possibility that there's something beyond the soul and we'll look at spiritual awakening and oneness We'll take it outside of this individual Special self or a soul as most of us that grew up in any kind of a religion That's what we're taught that we are a special soul created by God and God is responsible for the whole universe But what I want to look at today is take you down two different paths one being the religious traditions view of a soul and even into the New Age because the New Age does the same thing and Then we'll look at A Course in Miracles perspective on the soul And in fact, the book doesn't even really mention the word soul It's looked at completely differently and at the end of the show I just want to have a brief discussion about is it really necessary to cling to any particular idea? 

And if we cling to an idea or a belief, is that keeping us trapped and staying here even longer? So let's get into this today at the end having this open-ended closing of the show that leaves you Thinking and that's really what I love to do is just get in there and talk about things that you don't hear about all the Time but just get you thinking Before we get started. I want to share with you something today that I may have shared a while ago But when I was a very young child I used to sit in my bed at night getting ready for bed and looking up at the ceiling and I used to have this Thought that would just pop in and it would say what if there was nothing and I just always thought about this Even as I grew up, I would be sitting thinking about what if there was nothing and it was a hard concept, right? 

And keyword there is concept because that's what the world is full of. Our mind is full of concepts It would just be impossible to even imagine no thing at all in my experience in life I had several of them where I felt this emptying feeling that there was literally no thing 

nothing at all Which is a very surreal experience for any of you listening who've had moments like that in your own lives Why I'm bringing this up today is it's hinting at that possibility that there's not this individual unique self That that's sort of a made-up construct in our mind So keeping this in mind, I want to get into first the religious point of view on the soul Most of us know this even if you're not even religious most everybody knows the story of the Bible God created the world and he created you in his likeness as a special unique individual You're going through this world trying to earn your worthiness. I should say back into God's kingdom Many traditions believe you must take the path of Jesus Christ he must become your Lord and Savior in order for your soul to be saved and In this viewpoint the soul is the driver the whole thing going on in this world would be to save your soul That somehow you're a sinner right when you're born This is the religious viewpoint and now we need to do X Y & Z while we're here do good deeds be of service To God in order to return to his kingdom Where we live in heaven in the afterlife with all of our family members and friends and all these things that we see here Now I have a question for you Especially if you've come from a religious background when religion is speaking of heaven And if you've ever looked at like as a child and they have the children's Bible They're drawing pictures of heaven as if it's people in heaven What never added up to me was that you know, the body dies So when you're going into the afterlife you're going into heaven as a special soul identity Are you showing up as a spiritual? 

Body like a physical body like how do people see this in the afterlife? Because I personally don't see it like that I don't know what it is, but I don't see it as like a physical world like a replica of the world But maybe that is the way that it's interpreted to us because we only know What's in the world like we only relate to bodies and things like this But if your soul is being saved, are you going to show up in heaven? You know at the pearly gates in a body or is it your spiritual soul? Can you see anything? Is it intangible? Like what do you think about this? I don't know I'm just saying for me personally, I wouldn't see it as a physical world. It would be something so far beyond that I mean, we're already doing the physical here So it seems like it would be something far beyond that something greater than that But this concept of soul is a big deal. It's almost like this perfect Creation that God gave you and you're supposed to keep it whole right? You're supposed to be kind to it don't succumb to the temptations of evil because if you do so it's going to ruin your soul or Taint your soul or you know All these things that come to mind and you could potentially be casted out of the kingdom Right sent into hell a lot of people believe that that the soul is now going to suffer Now many religions do not believe in reincarnation they believe it's just you get one shot Give it a go and then you know, we'll see what happens You're either gonna return and get that invitation into everlasting peaceful loving life with God or you're gonna fry Who knows that's the story but the idea that there's a soul that there's your body There's your mind working and then there's the soul level of things now even in the New Age community There's still the belief in souls and a lot of people believe that the soul is learning lessons through Lifetimes right over and over and over again. The soul is not quite there yet Not quite ready to return home to God So you keep coming back as many times as you need to until you're in quotations lessons are learned and then you return home And throughout these repeated lives you might have a soul contract where okay Lindsay you're coming back this time that you're gonna do X Y & Z here until you learn and If you don't learn it, then 

you're gonna have to come back and do it all over again And the contract is set in stone before you even enter your life You know a lot of people believe before you even step foot in this world that there's already a contract You already know exactly what's gonna happen It's been predetermined through the Akashic Record or you know, the field of intelligence that's already there even though you forget everything We forget it because it's so traumatizing Through the soul contract you have a mission, right? There's a purpose behind your particular life I gotta be honest I don't know who's coordinating all that because there's so many people and so many things happening in one Instant that it seems to me that it would be just a world of chaos Some grand plan, but you know, what do I know? That must be a real job That in this moment in this time I'm gonna cross paths with this person and I'm gonna do my lessons and learn and Each individual soul has this very same purpose and meaning like that seems like a grand plan that is beyond anybody's capability at least human capability So in all of these theories whether it's religious or the New Age There's still the idea that God created the universe and the God created you as a soul and you're either Growing until you return home or you get that one shot Until you can return home with our Lord and Savior or whatever terminology you want to use The common theme in both of those religious perspectives or spiritual perspectives is that you're returning elsewhere We all know that the world is temporary We know that this is temporary the body does not last so that's a given Even though none of us really know for certain what's going on in the afterlife There's a million different theories and beliefs and religious perspectives Now if you're somebody who believes in the soul that it has purpose and meaning and you're doing your lessons and all that It's reassuring and comforting to know that even in the afterlife You're going to still be your individual self, right? 

The identity is still intact. You don't lose that so in that belief system the individual soul is still very much alive and will always be so as an individual separate from another individual in the New Age realm There's a lot of terminology that says oh, we're all one. We're all in oneness We're all interconnected now It seems that way in the world that there is some energetic connection to all of us But if we take it a step further and if we say there's only one essence outside of time and space That's a completely different thing Because outside of time and space if there's one essence that means there's no separation between anything else then the Individuality aspect is not present and that's a conversation that many people Aren't willing to have or it's kind of scary to think well if I'm not an individual, I'm gonna lose my identity Right, which is a scary thought Especially when we are so conditioned and so rooted in this individual soul that we have been living whether you believe it's over and over again for millennia through reincarnation or If you believe that this is just your one shot, you're still very rooted in your specialness from day one We're born as this tiny little baby who needs help and we are told immediately that we are the most blessed Precious gift that the world's ever seen it just keeps going as you get older, especially if you have parents who really love you They're doting on you. They're telling you that you're amazing and then there's people who have quite the opposite experience, right? 

The parents don't want them. It's a completely different experience So I think you get where I'm going with the religious perspective on soul It's just that God created an individual soul essence and you carry it with you and you'll return to God With that individual soul aspect or 

you're gonna be kicked out of the kingdom One or the other I think the New Age would say that's probably not true New Age would be more like no you're just gonna continue to do it until you wake up to that one conscious awareness But very few people speak from the Course in Miracles perspective Which is that none of that is true and the only truth is God and that is a completely different viewpoint It's a viewpoint. I discuss regularly mostly because it helped me in my own time of darkness it really helped me move on and realize there's something more that's guiding this whole thing and The not knowing of it or the emptying of it and that nothing experience of not needing it to be anything is Almost key to living a liberated free life So now to the contrary a Course in Miracles Does not use the word soul at least that I can find and if anybody can find it show me but literally every chapter There's no soul in the chapter name I mean none of the workbook lessons really touch on soul and the reason I think that's true is in the Course we're really just breaking up this world into two systems if this world is a Mental belief that's the Course's perspective that a mind That split off from God or at least thought it did it had a thought and that's called the tiny mad idea in the text But it had a thought and the thought was that it was separate from the whole Separate from God or separate from reality and that thought in and of itself was not a big deal But when we took the belief in the thought Legitimately, we grabbed a hold of it. Then it became a real problem And I'm not gonna get into the concepts of sin guilt and fear the way that the Course describes them Although that would be a great another episode There was basically the belief we had grabbed a hold of it and then spun off and created and projected a physical world That according to a Course in Miracles is just a dream. It is not anything that you think it is It's a complete illusion the false self or the ego thought system is responsible for this Fragmenting separation and in that is a separated individual unique self Each one of us we have our identity. I'm sitting here as Lindsay speaking to you. That's the identity I believe myself to be just like whatever your name is. That's who you believe yourself to be It's how you relate to other people. It's how people see you It's how we communicate here, but it is an individualized identity So from a Course in Miracles perspective, it would not agree with religion It would say it's not created by God your individual reality is your own doing Wow, that's a thought that religion would never entertain In fact religion says quite the opposite that God is the responsible one He's the one that created everything in the world giving us free will and all these things But he's the one that did it not me I didn't separate so immediately you see a very big distinction on these two theories Now a course will take it further and say okay Well, if the ego made up a world created your little individualized self that most people call a soul Right, that would be the soul then the answer to that error From a Course in Miracles perspective was the Holy Spirit's thought system So the Holy Spirit would be the messenger for God It's not God But it's the messenger or the communicating link the symbol that reminder that we have within us That will get us home as I mentioned There's nothing really directly speaking about the soul in A Course in Miracles but I did look in the back in the Clarification of terms for those of you that have a copy of A Course in Miracles if you look at the first section Titled mind and spirit down in the third verse. It does say this Spirit is the part that is still in contact with God through the Holy Spirit who abides in this part But sees the other part as well The term soul in quotations is not used except in direct biblical quotations because of its highly controversial nature It would, however, be an equivalent of spirit, in quotation, with the understanding that being of God, it is eternal and was never born. 

So the course's take is that soul is not going to be used because it doesn't see it the same way as the Bible, that God, in the course's view, did not birth an individual soul into a world that's made up, and that's the perspective of the course. So if you look back, if any of you are interested, you can see that in the clarification of terms in the back of the book if you're looking for a little more detail. Religion talks about the Holy Spirit, too, as being the spirit between these worlds, so they share that. But what the course is trying to differentiate from is just saying, you're just seeing this whole thing wrong, that's all. It's not good, it's not bad, you're just believing in something that isn't real. That's the only thing it's really saying. And because we believe so deeply in our identities, we believe in that separation, I mean, we see that every day. 

We see separation constantly, so the idea of this world being real is constantly being reinforced. Well, why wouldn't it be real, right? Why wouldn't it? So keeping that in mind, the course is basically saying that consciousness is really just a mind, and it's making the case that a very powerful mind created a world. So if you look at it from this angle, you could say that we are all simply a conscious awareness or a conscious mind, right? We all have our individual mind. So I'm removing the word soul for a minute here, just to get you to think and compare these theories. But if it's just that I'm believing in a mental construct, and I projected a world, I projected my own body, and I really believe that's real, in order to wake up from it, the course is leading us out of the world by listening to the Holy Spirit, which is saying, none of this is what you think it is. 

It's using non-judgment, forgiveness, nothing you see is real, and it's trying to remove all of those blocks of resistance and barriers that we have, the conditioned mind, to get us out of the body, back up into the mind where the error originally occurred. It didn't occur in a body. The body is the after effect. It occurred in a mind that there was a thought, and then the world spun off from there. That big belief we had created a physical world. Now you might be listening going, that's totally nuts. That's just crazy. I don't know what it is. I can't sit here and say, well, this is true and this isn't. It's about what resonates with you. Like where are you in your life? What has gone on in your life that makes sense to you? 

And when I continue to see atrocities in the world, I can't help but wonder, why would God do such a thing? Why? Why would we have to go through these? They're horrible, horrific things happening in the world. I mean, here in America, they're just assassinating political people for what they believe. I mean, what? You know, no matter what your beliefs are, it is a crazy world, right? Is God sitting there eating popcorn going, oh, that one's going to hell? You know, I don't know. It just sounds nutty. The whole thing sounds crazy. From the angle of A Course in Miracles, you're looking at a mental construct. Is it possible that we are reliving through our conscious mind over and over and over again? 

It's not necessarily a soul. It's that there's a mind continuing to create, continuing to separate, continuing to fragment away from the whole. That's a simpler explanation because so often in a lot of different traditions around the world, they're talking about the body, the mind, the soul, the spirit. There's all these different things. And I'm a simple 

person. I like things simplified because I do think we overcomplicate this entire world. And if we want to wake up from it and return to what we really are, then simplifying seems natural in all areas of our life, with our health, with how we treat other people, with how we look at things. You know, it can be applied all over the board for us. Simplify. 

Could it be as simple as we just believed something that wasn't true? And then voila, here we are finding ourselves in a constant state of instability like I mentioned last week. So these two things are very different. Does it really matter what we think about it? Because eventually truth with a capital T will open itself up to all of us. And if it's true that there's really a loving presence and a loving God, then all of us will return there at some point. How that happens or whether it was your soul contract or, you know, all these things, I'm not sure it matters. But what might matter is what I want to get into next, which is your mind's constant attachment to belief in itself. 

And the more and more we grab a hold of beliefs and systems and theories and all these things, are we missing our opportunity to really wake up? Are we missing our opportunity to let spirit, this overwhelming essence and presence that's around us all the time to guide us? Because we're staying in the mind. And if the course is correct, you can see how strong that mind really is. It's controlling this whole world. Before I get into this a little bit more and going into this concept of oneness, I also want to mention that there was one chapter I found in A Course in Miracles that's talking about self-concept versus the self. That's the only thing I could find that was coming close enough to maybe what they're saying as a identity or soul, and then waking up to this larger self or essence or spirit that's kind of the driver to get us home. 

But a self-concept is an identity, right? The concept is something we created in the mind. And in order to wake up from all of this, we are literally handing over concepts, theories, beliefs, all of it. All of it has to go into the dumpster and incinerated, burned into ash and deteriorated never to be seen again for us to return into that nothingness that I spoke of in the beginning. In order to get home, it seems we must let go of everything we think, of everything we think about this world or the afterlife, and just let the magic carpet ride take over to get out of our own way and feel something greater. Feel this presence that's guiding you all the time, that we're too busy in our heads thinking and thinking and thinking about what if scenarios or I need to believe in this or this is true, I know it's true. 

Why A Course in Miracles is so wonderful, and this is my opinion, is it really is asking you to let go of your opinions, to let go of your beliefs. Is anything you see here really true? Can we prove it? And I'll let you be the decider of that. So moving on in your life, if you're looking for that deeper feeling of connection with something more than a body, your spiritual essence or something more than what we see on the surface, right? Do you guys ever go out and you're in maybe a social gathering where you know people, but this is not your like closest connections in life, and you start having these conversations, very surface level? Oh, what do you do for a living? Oh, how many kids do you have? Blah, blah, blah. I can't help wonder sometimes. 

Does anybody else really care about that? We're all doing that. Everyone is going through the motions on the surface. What do you really think about all this? What do you think is going on in the world? Do you think there's more? Do you think this is anything? Do you think you have a certain destiny? I always think it'd be funny if somebody really asked me that I didn't know and just sort of dove into that discussion. If people would take the bait or walk right away and roll their eyes and be like, she's off her rocker. I don't know, if you're listening to the show, I guarantee you're somebody who likes depth, you're questioning, you're interested in the spiritual. The things that the mainstream news are not going to throw on the television every day because that is all about keeping you afraid of everything in life. 

Knowing if the soul is really a thing might frighten some people and it might also relieve some people. Depending on what your life is like, what you've been through, this will be a huge factor in your own feeling on the matter. But for those of you that have had a wonderful life and have not had too much rattle you or challenges that really took you to this horrible, dark place, that could be really frightening because you haven't seen that side yet. But for those of you that have gone through some dark period or difficulties in life and got your foot into Alice's hole a little bit, then the concept of returning to a much better reality sounds appealing. I'm not sure it matters what you believe in the world. 

I'm not sure that it matters what path that you take because all roads must lead home no matter what that looks like in form. Whether you are a traditional person, find meaning in everything you do, that every aspect of your life has some significant meaning or that every encounter you have is leading you to the next one, there's probably truth to that, right? Because everything is a little stepping stone to get us home. Or whether you look at it from another vantage point and think, well, this is just a dream. This is just something that we're stuck in and we're trying to wake up and get out of it. If you take that route, will they all lead you home? Eventually they have to. Eventually no matter how long in this particular realm of time, the time that we believe to be happening, eventually they must lead us somewhere else. 

We know that we don't stay here, so where are we going? Then unless you're an atheist who doesn't believe anything else, even the atheist, will they return? Probably so. I've seen people who didn't believe in God that had near-death experiences who had an experience as they died. So that is very telling. Maybe your beliefs don't really matter while you're here. Maybe once you cross over, there's more doors opening than we see here, taking you into other possibilities, other paths home. So is it necessary to cling to any particular idea about the soul? And for people that are very certain that there are specific soul contracts and all these things, no matter which way you look at it, is attaching to them beneficial? 

It seems to me that staying open to wherever life leads you, knowing there's much, much more than we can possibly understand or grasp, might just be the key. It might just be the ticket to stay in that feeling of nothingness, that unknowing that I don't really know. And when you do that, when you allow yourself to just empty and detach from all the things you think about the world and what you think of the afterlife and where you're headed next, is 

nothing more than the stubborn identity getting in the way, the arrogance of the ego stepping in, thinking it knows. But remaining open to the possibility that you don't know, remaining open to the fact that maybe there isn't a soul, maybe there is, but eventually if this concept of oneness that we hear over and over and over again, if it's true that there's only one perfect whole God, that God simply is, then nothing exists outside of that, that is true oneness. 

And that does not exist in a world full of individual souls. Individual identities and chaos. But could there be a reminder of that oneness? The spirit within, that Holy Spirit that moves us, that's there to wake us up. Is that leading us to the essence of oneness? Joining with each other, realizing we're all in this together because we all equally believe we're here. We're all having this experience and we all have the ability to choose to let go of all of our preconceived notions and ideas and be guided by something that's much more intelligent and graceful than ourselves. And today I will leave you with that, to walk this life letting go of anything that you think might be true or untrue and allowing yourself to be guided no matter where you are in life, no matter who you cross paths with, who you listen to, who you see, where you are in life, is all of it designed to look beyond the form and connect on a deeper level into that essence of spirit, into that oneness that will eventually lead us home. 

So whatever you think about the soul or what is really going on here is yours and yours alone. But it does seem that if we are to return to pure oneness, then we must move beyond a soul. We must move beyond an individual, special, unique self, and we do that through the process of spiritual awakening. That's it for today's show. Thanks so much for listening. If it resonated, please share, follow, and drop a review with your takeaways. It really means a lot. Visit my website at LiveLikeEden.com to subscribe for weekly reminders and blogs, or sign up for a free 30-minute consult to explore one-on-one guidance sessions if you're really struggling in awakening's darkness. Take my Awakening Quiz to get a personal podcast playlist that meets you exactly where you're at. 

See you next week for another deep dive.