The personal awareness often referred to as "The Self" is composed of distinguishable, yet inseparable components: The Spirit and the Soul.
The Spirit is infinite, timeless, eternal, and infallible. The Spirit is the foundation from which reality was, is, and will always be manifested. The Spirit is one entity in all places at once, right now. The Spirit, practically speaking, is too incredible to be captured by any means of communication, yet paradoxically is truly the only thing we ever think, feel, and communicate about. The Spirit is everything!
Yet, The Spirit assumes a particular role when engaging in any particular experience within its infinite scope: To allow for a sense of individual perspective, individual choice, and individual transformation, The Spirit recognizes the passage of time. An eternal entity is not subject to time, but by recognizing its passage, The Spirit disambiguates into the sum of all parts.
The recognition of time creates causal relationships, resulting in reasons and thusly purpose. Purpose is the individual recognition of function; therein the individual is created simultaneously. With a single pivot, The Spirit goes from a single point to a point of infinite division.
Since The Spirit holds eternity as both timeless and over endless time, it serves as the source of our free will and the conclusion of all our endeavors - the answer and the question in one! The degree to which The Spirit takes an active role within one's personal experience is dynamic, unique, and senseless to contrast.
To compare, however, reveals that The Spirit does trend towards less direct supervision over time, granting greater autonomy to individuals in pursuit of deeper substance. The Spirit, through personal transformation, begins as supernatural protection from the immature will of the uninitiated, and, with meaningful individual growth, evolves into an endless well of possibilities for The Enlightened Masters of the their Domain.
Making that progress as an individual involves understanding how The Spirit materializes into personal awareness: Enter the Soul.
The Spirit is singular and unchanging, despite the perception that a pivot in awareness equates to change: The conditioned perspective sees 1 becoming 2, which is true, yet incomplete since 1 is 2 (1+1). The "pivot" of The Spirit is best understood as the redundant addition of complexity to the simple and complete. Just as 2 really just represent 1+1, The Spirit reflects upon The Spirit to give rise to The Soul. Together, The Spirit and Soul form The Self!
The Soul is the operator of The Self. The Soul's excess complexity allow The Spirit to interact "over time" without the paradox of The Spirit's timeless nature preventing activity. The "redundant reflection" allowing for this anomaly is the simulated separation of Feelings and Thoughts!
The Soul is simply made-up of Feelings and Thoughts (The Heart and Mind). Feelings are the actual and literal sensations arising from worldly stimulus, while Thoughts are the considerations and attention essential to awareness.
Feelings are caused by reality and exist independent of the individual: Feelings can be shared, can vary in intensity, and can also be solitary experiences.
Thoughts are the result of awareness and therefore are almost completely self-managed, can vary in complexity, and become clearer with training.
Feelings have become better managed through advances in society, but for the most part are out of any one person's power to control. Feelings ultimately cannot be suppressed or avoided. Feelings may unfold over an indiscriminate period of time, or may be distinctly in the moment. Feelings are ONLY the PHYSICAL sensations caused by stimuli: The actual feeling of the stubbing the toe or the sensation of butterflies in the stomach before public speaking, for example.
While The Soul is the processing center for Thoughts and Feelings, that is only half of its capability. The other half is the job of connecting Thoughts and Feelings coherently. Feelings are experienced through the senses, which are promptly followed by Thought's analysis of those feelings. Thought interprets those feelings as directed, giving meaning, assigning value, and extracting wisdom. Thought is ultimately responsible for what is gained and what is lost with every feeling encountered.
The resulting composite is Emotion. In other words, Emotion is the Mind discerning the Heart... one's Thoughts on Feelings. Emotions represent the totality of a personal experience.
Since feeling is beyond control, learning to operate The Mind is crucial to exercising free will. Using the mind to thoroughly explore feelings will free The Soul from being trapped in a cycle of overwhelming feelings and ineffective thinking that simply reacting to stimuli does.
As a result, Emotional well-being is indicative of great balance within The Soul.
The Soul is a byproduct of The Spirit recognizing the passage of time and therefore makes great use of time! Patiently exploring the Heart with the Mind reveals the connection in all things from the perspective of Self: Being emotionally honest results in Spiritual Satisfaction.
Resolving the artificial separation between Feelings and Thoughts is actually a structural task. For the Spirit, such things are indistinguishable. Bridging the Heart and Mind finds great difficulty as both Thoughts and Feelings seem to believe that the answer lies within each prospective realm, respectively: A true, yet incomplete statement.
Thoughts and Feelings are complete in-an-of themselves, so seeking to square that circle calls for reduction: The Heart and Mind were separated at the creation of the Soul which would suppose that, like the Soul itself, Thoughts and Feelings are unnecessary “complications of a simple and complete thing.” That is, ironically, a very complicated way of saying that instead of thinking of the Heart and Mind as whole and complete parts of the Soul, instead see the Soul as two parts; half Heart and half Mind. This “pivot” of definition is actually greater than it appears!
If the whole of individual reality is captured via The Soul, and The Soul is equal parts Heart and Mind, then neither one is capable of conveying the Truth alone, and in fact, both Heart and Mind must be operating at their highest capacity and greatest efficiency (simultaneously!) just to begin to understand the Truth!
Over reliance on intuition or intellect has built in limits: Blind faith is contrasted with logical skepticism; while radical self-reliance is counterbalanced with enabled dependency.
All suffer from the same foundational ailment: any imbalance necessarily means that The Soul is being underpowered – 100% of 50% is still only 50% in Total. Both must work at full capacity and simultaneously.