Many people get confused when the word soul is used. The word soul is an indicator to higher truth. Different words are used for the same by different people. Buddha called it emptiness/nothingness, Sri, Sankara called is Brahman/ultimate truth, christen called it Christ consciousness/ sprit, intellectuals called consciousness, Ramana called it Self. Thus, what harm is there in using the word soul, which is mere pointer to core of the true existence, which is not physical? Because one has the soul, which knows his body and his experience of the world he is able to exist as a person and he is able to believe whatever he want to believe and reject whatever he do not want believe.
With what one knows his body and his name, and his worldly activities? It is not the body, which knows itself as the body. Without the knower which is the self, the body is insentient or dead. The one which knows itself as body, and functions itself as person, and perceives the world, is not the body, but the consciousness [self]. Therefore, thinking the body as self and trying to understand and assimilate and judging truth, will keep one in the grip of duality and makes him physical base pundit, and also makes him egoist, who thinks whatever his accumulated knowledge is truth, without bothering to verify the facts, and always judgemental and arguing on his own point of view. There is no scope of argument in pursuit of truth, because the ultimate truth is based on the formless self, and your arguments are based on the form [ego] as self. The truth is beyond physicality.
The ultimate Truth demands some thinking. Those who require mental spoon feeding, for them it is difficult to grasp. It is only possible to finger point to the reality and indicate the direction. It is not possible to make one realize the truth; it is for the seeker to verify on his own -through, deeper inquiry, analysis and reasoning and realize it. Seekers who will approach with receptiveness as they should be approached may conceivably pause at any time and say , these pointers are helping them to think on their own and assimilate the knowledge and understanding in proper and perfect way .
One who is unaware of the fact that, how the physical body is able to function itself as a person, and perceive the world and with what he is able to know himself and his experience of the world, for him it is impossible to grasp the truth. For the people who are trying to judge the truth on physicality /intellectuality the truth is distant dream.
Self is the Spirit the unchanging unlimited, immanent, and beyond the physical experience and it is the formless source of the waking/dream/deep sleep experiences. The one who become aware of the true self is the spirit, has realized his identity with spirit as true self.
Soul, which is Absolute Reality, is the true self. True Self is in the form of spirit and it eternal, genderless, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, and ultimately indescribable in human language.
Objectless awareness means, the natural state of the mind. That is in midst of the experience of diversity, knowing whatever is seen, known, and believed and experienced has erupted from single substance, which is non dual spirit. Thus, seeing all the objects as spirit, nothing but spirit is objectless awareness in spiritual sense. Objectless awareness is the nature of the self. Only through wisdom; the seeking mind can enter the state of objectless awareness.