The soul is thought to be indestructible, no matter what fate confronts the body or mind which it inhabits.
Buddhism calls the soul the "Greater Self," the lesser of which disappears at death. This greater self is the life force, or will to live, which survives successive rebirths. In accord with Eastern philosophy, the soul pushes forward, ever-evolving, growing and seeking, until meeting with stagnation. Then it may whither, but never die. Feeding on knowledge and experience it changes and expands, effortlessly or heavily, always probing, and hopefully, always growing.
In the phase of our experience we call death, in which we depart one life plane and head for another, the soul takes leave of the body. It may linger on the earth plane for a period of adjustment, before moving on and reuniting with those beings who have assisted and nurtured its' development over this, and many, many incarnations.
At the time of creation of man we were God-like. Through the use of choice, we chose to experience coming into physical bodies for our greater understanding. As we became mired in the physical and the vibrations of the earth became more dense, we lost our ability to come and go as free spirits. We could no longer leave our physical bodies at will and return to the creator. Thus the pattern of creating earth karma began; and we chose to stay more and more in the physical.
Almost 90% of the world believes in reincarnation, with nearly 30% of Americans thinking it might be possible. The purpose of reincarnating perhaps hundreds or thousands of times, is soul perfection...Godliness...growing to a state of wholeness and understanding, so that we may again become complete, and to rejoin the Creator as co-creators.
We all are co-creators to some extent, even at this stage of our evolution, because we have been given the gift of free-will. Proceeding through life, we use that free-will through our choices. As we interact with others and create new karmic situations or work out old karma, we are ever-evolving and growing toward that ideal state of perfection.
