The human soul is a weaver, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá once told a gathering, a life is the cloth it weaves, and the body with its brain is the loom. Picture after picture makes the same turn away from appearance: the shell matters little beside the pearl, the lamp-chimney beside the light, the body beside the spirit that rules it unseen. The reality of a person is thought and spirit, the meeting-place between man and God, the centre where every human virtue gathers, and if no reformation happens there, nothing else in a life comes to much. Asked whether it is the spirit or the subconscious mind that answers a question, He replied that one reality in us bears different names according to what it does: mind when it discovers, spirit when it gives life. Aristotle, calling the soul the form and actuality of a living body and illustrating it with the eye and its sight, offers a more exact way of thinking about life and embodiment, without being the same account [1]. From here the way leads to the soul as a mirror of divine light, to its immateriality, to its relationship with the body, and to the hope that outlasts the body’s dissolution.
Hear then, my children: the human soul is to be compared to a weaver, but human life to a woven fabric; the human body, and foremost the brain, is the implement, the organ, through which the weaving is done.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words spoken at the Shrine of the Bab in Mar 1910 -- ABU0453)
02
The spirit is important. The shell is not so important, but the pearl inside the shell is of great importance. The glass or chimney is not so important, but the light itself is every important. These is no importance in outer words, but the importance is in the significances.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words to Wilson, Engelhorn, Stewart, Brittingham, spoken around 1909-Oct-23 -- ABU1893)
03
In the world of existence there is nothing so important as spirit, nothing so essential as the spirit of man. The spirit of man is the most noble of phenomena. The spirit of man is the meeting between man and God. The spirit of man is the animus of human life and the collective center of all human virtues.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Public address given at Theosophical Society on 1912-Jul-24 -- ABU0096)
04
For the essential reality is the spirit, the foundation is the spirit, the life of man is due to the spirit; the happiness, the animus, the radiance, the glory of man -- all are due to the spirit; and if in the spirit no reformation takes place, there will be no result to human existence.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Public address given at New Thought Forum on 1912-Aug-25 -- ABU0079)
05
The reality of man is his thought, not his material body.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words spoken on 1911-Oct-18 in Paris -- ABU1414)
06
The power which perceives in the realm of mind, which penetrates to the essence of all things, is the intellectual power, the perceiving soul.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words to Myron Phelps and Madame Canavarro in Dec. 1902 -- ABU0780)
07
The sublime reality latent in man is given different names. When it discovers realities it is called the mind or intellect. When it is the cause of life it is called the spirit. It is the same agency functioning in different degrees. When it answers analytical questions it is called the subconscious mind, because it discloses truths. When it is the cause of comfort and life it is called spirit.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words spoken at Theosophical Society in San Francisco, 1912-Oct-11 -- ABU2422)
08
Miss B.: What is the difference between soul and spirit?
Abdul Baha: They mean the same. It is one reality. The names are different.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words to Fugeta et al, spoken on 1920-Jan-01 -- ABU2940)
09
For man is human through his spirit and soul, not through bodies and physical forms.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, to Husayn Khan brother of Taqi Khan et al -- AB05657)
10
This is a proof that the spirit of man differentiates and distinguishes him above all the lower kingdoms. It is this spirit to which the verse in the Old Testament refers when it states, "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." The spirit of man alone penetrates the realities of God and partakes of the divine bounties.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Public address given on 1912-Aug-16 -- ABU0004)
11
The superiority of man over the rest of the created world is seen again in this, that man has a soul in which dwells the divine spirit; the souls of the lower creatures are inferior in their essence.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words spoken at Dreyfus home in Paris, 1911-Oct-20 -- ABU0061)
12
The spirit and intelligence of man is essential, and that is the manifestation of divine virtues, the merciful bestowals of God, the eternal life and baptism through the Holy Spirit.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Address to NAACP convention, Handel Hall in Chicago, 1912-Apr-30 -- ABU0573)
13
The soul is the Sanctuary of God; Reason is His Throne.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words to Julia Grundy spoken around Jan. 1905 -- ABU3609)
14
Question: "If the spirit is free from place, then what is in us which receives the Light?"
Answer: "The Bounty of God is within the heart; it receives the Light."
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words spoken in Feb. 1910 -- ABU3088)
15
This essence or soul of man, because of its innate purity, and its connection with the unseen Ancient Entity, is old as regards time, but new as regard individuality. This connection is similar to that of the ray to the sun -- the effect to the primal Cause.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words to Laura Dreyfus-Barney, Feb. 1914 -- ABU0185)
16
In truth, this is the mystery of life and its essence. They have attributed a spirit to the body and called it the soul - that spirit grows cold at the sight of Azrael, but this spirit endures until the trumpet of Israfil, nay until whatsoever God willeth.
(Bahá’u’lláh, 1302-08-05 [1885-May-20], to Ibn-i-Abhar -- BH02414)
17
Only the spirit is real; everything else is as shadow. All bodies are disintegrated in the end; only reality subsists.
For the body of man is accidental; it is of no importance. The time of its disintegration will inevitably come. But the spirit of man is essential and, therefore, eternal.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Public address given at Theosophical Society on 1912-Apr-25 -- ABU0262)
19
Man's real glory lies in the spiritual or material life of his soul, and not in the conservation of his physical body.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words to Mr. Remey, spoken near the Washington Monument on 1912-Apr-20 -- ABU2923)
20
Man is not human by virtue of his body; man is human by virtue of his spirit. For in physical matters, man shares attributes with animals, but through the spirit he is distinguished from them. Consider how the rays of the sun illuminate the earth; likewise does the spirit illuminate bodies. It is the spirit that makes man heavenly; it is the spirit that makes man recipient of the Holy Spirit's breaths; it is the spirit that discovers the realities of things; it is the spirit that has produced all these effects; it is the spirit that has established all sciences; it is the spirit that bestows eternal life; it is the spirit that unites different nations; it is the spirit that brings together East and West; it is the spirit that makes the human world divine.
… Although man's body is perceptible, his spirit is hidden yet rules over the body.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words spoken in Paris, 1911-Nov-09 -- ABU0114)
21
The rational soul---the human spirit---did not descend into this body or subsist through it to begin with, that it should require some substance to depend upon after the constituent parts of the body have decomposed. On the contrary, the rational soul is the substance upon which the body depends. The rational soul is endowed from the beginning with individuality; it does not acquire it through the intermediary of the body.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Chapter 66, The Subsistence of the Rational Soul after the Death of the Body, 1904 ca. -- AB01631)
22
Consider, for instance, the rational soul which is a divine trust deposited within human beings. Observe within thyself how movement and rest, will and purpose, and all else above and below these, as well as hearing, sight, smell, speech, and other outward and inward senses, all exist through its existence.
(Bahá’u’lláh, Lawh-i-Hadi - On He who knoweth himself knoweth His Lord, to Mirza Hadi -- BH00210)
Further quotations · supplied wording and references
23
"The reality of human nature in this physical body is the soul which is the source of life and movement."
Humanity consists of the spiritual reality and that reality is penetrative in all things, and it is that reality which discovers the invisible mysteries, and through that reality all sciences, arts and inventions become known and manifest. Whatever thou beholdest of the works of man is but a faint ray of that reality. It encircles all things and comprehends all things. The human spirit is the discoverer of things, the seer of things and comprehends all things... As the spirit of man environs all things, therefore he has discovered them and brought them from the unknown world into the arena of manifestation.
SW v02#14 p007 (Daily Lessons Received at Akka, p. 88, From a Tablet to Ella Cooper)