Being the Body

[Guest guest]

P: It's funny that it never occurs to these

people who keep repeating: " I'm notthe body. " that the

nonexisting part of the proposition is the " I am. " Existance

exist undefined and unpossessed by any pronoun.

 

 

Dan: Trying not to be the body is a good way to dissociate

and avoid being alive.

 

And the teaching " you are consciousness alone, " if misused

and misunderstood, certainly

can be used to aid dissociation. The teaching becomes

a subtle clinging to thought, so the people involved

in that approach have to constantly try to remind themselves

that they are pure consciousness. It's a thought addiction,

not being aware.

 

How often do we hear that on these lists - " you are consciousness,

I am consciousness " over and over, and quotes taken out of

context from teachers who have said that?

 

As if repeating that mantra over and

over is going to solve everything, make everything okay.

Instead of being truly alive and aware, the person gets subtly

addicted to perpetuating a way of thinking and repeating the mantra

internally (a kind of self-help formula) and assists their own

dissociation.

 

How much of the so-called " nondual movement " is involved

in this kind of dynamic? And nothing is truly or deeply changed,

just a new " cult " to become part of, a new way to think

repetitiously, books to read and reread, to keep that way of

thinking going.

 

And there has always been a powerful tendency in religion

and spiritual practices to aid dissociation - to

take feelings of being disembodied as evidence that you

are something else, to encourage practices that deny the

body or force you to dissociate from the body - and

if enough endorphins then kick in, you

may have an experience like you are light or a spiritual being

divorced from the body.

 

Then those experiences are misunderstood as if some kind of

" special knowing " or " spiritual state. "

 

It's a fear of the body and

a fear of death -- and a desire to reassure oneself that

one won't really die -- so the idea gets repeated and repeated -

who is one trying to convince?

 

If one knows first hand what this " consciousness " is -- one doesn't

have to repeat the idea " I am consciousness " -- indeed, one

sees through the idea and undersands its inadequacy.

 

" What is " isn't based in an idea,

it's first-hand knowing, and it certainly doesn't exclude

the body, nor any body.

 

I don't particularly like the language and teaching such as " I am

Consciousness " -- because it's very abstract and intangible, and

gets people into their heads, trying to separate from their feelings

and bodily experience.

 

The here-and-now is quite tangible, trying to escape into

the abstract has always been a tendency in religion,

spirituality, psychology, and philosophy.

 

The language about not being the body used by, say,

Nisargadatta, can be heard as the message that he isn't

contained in the body, doesn't have a separate

location, isn't separated from everything

else like the body is usually understood to be.

 

But people who aren't able to hear the whole message, misunderstand,

think it means they are something else other than the body,

and the body exists separately from who they really are.

 

Not so!

 

On the other hand, people who think " I am the body, " usually

separate the body from everything else, and think they

are encapsulated by it, or have a separate existence

that belongs to them because they are this particular

body.

 

-- Dan