Indeed, this is a fascinating discussion. No doubt one's doctrine or traditions, understanding, epistemology and personal spiritual experiences has great bearing on how he views physical/spiritual consciousness/mind/will body/soul/spirit life/death and so on.
No wonder it goes in so many directions! LOL!
Language is totally inadequate to "MERGE" this information... IMO
Even metaphorically.. might take a ("spiritual merge"-Book of Worms) to process it..
Thats quite a paragraph..