A lot of philosophy is based around models of existence, and naturally the various components have different names, which have to be translated across cultural barriers. One very good reason to learn Sanskrit, Ancient Greek, and so on.

Reading your story, you seem to describe “spirit” an an essence. The “carness” of a car, for example. Something that has only a conceptual existence. Something that Plato would as the “being” of a thing, rather than the “becoming” which we see in the physical world.

Not that we may discern a soul in the world around us, either. It is regarded as an individual thing, belonging to each human, rather than humanity as a whole. The only thing I can find that can reasonably be described as a soul is consciousness; something that every one of us possesses and is widely seen as a personal attribute, unshared with others.

Perhaps it would help if we were to look at the original words used. I found this reference, which describes spirit as “pneuma”, meaning breath, which is interesting, because in German the same concept is “atmen”, which of course derives from the Sanskrit “ aatman”, meaning “self”.

This doesn’t seem to be the sense that you are using.

Britni