Do I Have a Soul?

My mom died fifteen days ago. Or maybe it was fourteen. Some would say her soul is still around, but I that doesn’t mean anything to me. To make sense of it, I’d have to know what a soul is. I just can’t picture my mom floating around in a caftan, playing a lyre, but maybe that’s only if she’s an angel. No doubt there was and is more to whom she was and is than her physical body, but I can’t see what that could be. Her personality was a function of the things she did and felt, but now, she doesn’t do or feel anything. It’s tough to be a charming and garrulous know-it-all without a body. Maybe if she came to me in a séance, I’d have a clearer picture of what her soul is supposed to be, but would it really be her if she couldn’t smoke or hold a detective novel?

The problem is I don’t know that I have or am a soul. When I look within, I see a bundle of thoughts and feelings and desires, all of which are dependent upon my physical self. If my body wasn’t here, then neither would any of these states.

Now, lots of people, lots of whom are way smarter than me believe in souls. Ram Das says he “sees souls” when he looks at people. When I look at people, I can see the person behind the person, but it’s still a person.

Maybe I’m just hung up on vocabulary. A soul by any other name would be as light.

But I still don’t get the soul persisting after death. I’m perfectly willing to accept that the concentrated energy which manifests itself as me goes on in some form, but it’s very hard to imagine that it coheres as this person, this soul.

My mom is surely out there in some form, but whatever that form is, can it be my mom?