Happy Sunday!
From my early lessons from ‘A Course in Miracles’ (ACIM) came the challenge to fully grasp that “I am not a body, I am free”.
Jesus’ lesson asks that we move back toward the identification of ourselves with our eternal beingness instead with the limited body. I, like every other living thing I’ve come to know, identifies with the physical body as the most significant experiences surrounding us come to our awareness from our sensory organs. We take no notice of the subtle stuff therefore the physical identity gets reinforced as we age.
These early lessons in spirituality caused my mind to judge my body as a problem like the ego mind. My ego mind was trouble due to its incessant interpreting of everything based on my own limited experience and knowledge. And, my body was troublesome because it locked my spirit in. I heard others tell of how their spirits broke free to soar – I wanted that.
Just as I have come to find some understanding and appreciation for my ego, I have also come to appreciation and awe for this body.
As I have moved away from identification of my Self with my body I have come to understand it much better. Yoga is great tool for paying attention to what is going on. I’ve learned the way it can move so I better understand when it is not functioning well how to return to full mobility.
Illnesses, such as my bouts with ulcerative colitis and severe allergies, also cause me to seek to understand what is out of balance so I can heal it. Illness does not bring on so much fear in me that I immediately turn to others to be responsible for my healing. By paying attention to what my body tells me I learn what I have done to cause the illness or how I can improve conditions to bring balance back.
I know that well-being is the basic state for my body. I know my body will heal itself, all cells return to the state of well-being, when I change the situation that has caused the imbalance.
I have learned that my body has its own wisdom. It doesn’t need me on board to be well. Sex has never been better since I learned to keep my mind and Self out of it and just let nature do what it wants.
That is the big thing to understand. My body is a part of nature. When left alone it will grow and thrive like any animal or flower. It knows how to be in this world without my mind over thinking things and getting in the way of the natural processes.
Many times I have heard Sadhguru say when he has been asked the big questions about enlightenment, God, or the nature of existence that we should seek to understand what is here, within ourselves. We live within a body that is the most complex of all living things and yet we understand nothing of what Life is while existing within it.
I seek to understand more. I know so little but even the little bits I start to grasp bring such wonder and awe.
This body is an example of Nature, a piece of Life, a mini Cosmos that I get to play around in. It is a true blessing and a gift from God.
My reflections go down this path today because of the following quote I received from my Sufi teacher Hazrat Khan.
“’The one whom I have called God, whose personality I have recognized, and whose pleasure or displeasure I have sought, has been seeing His life through my eyes, has been hearing through my ears. It was His breath that came through my breathing, His impulse which I felt, and therefore I know that this body which I had thought to be my own is really the true temple of God. I did not realize that this body was the shrine of God.’ Not knowing that God experiences this life through man, one is seeking for Him somewhere else, in some person aloof and apart from the world, whereas all the time He is in oneself.” ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan, Bowl of Saki, Feb. 16, 2016
This quote moved me deeply within my heart. It must be the greatest blessing in all of Isness-ess to be chosen to occupy this magnificent bit of Life that God created and allow me to represent Him!
And, if my wonderment was not expanded enough, Yogananda added another piece for me to contemplate. He said that we cannot fathom the vastness of our body, that each cell is a manifested piece of Cosmic Consciousness.
Wow! Oh Wow!
If I am a driver and my body a car, I now recognize that God gave me a Ferrari. I did not know how to manage and care for it because I thought it was less. I also did not know the power it was capable of expressing. God has honored me with best so now I do so I can start driving it properly.
This car analogy is nice but it is not quite accurate. As I wrote earlier, the body holds within it the intelligence and wisdom of Nature therefore it needs no driver to reach perfection.
The body reflects what is happening in the mind. When we are reckless or constricting this is reflected in the health of the body. I have seen the body heal when the mind is clear.
The question is what is the state of the mind that causes the body to elevate above the Natural? And how does this serve God?
Big questions! More to learn! More fun to come!
Thank you Lord for the blessings of Life!
Amen.
“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?  For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.” ~ 1 Corinthians 6:20