The Body-Mind Dichotomy or a single Psychosomatic Entity
by sadh Saturday, Feb 12 2011, 8:17pm
international /
personal development /
article
As sentient human beings we should all be able to appreciate ourselves as physical/mental beings – this is the basis upon which I will endeavour to express a view via discourse. I am currently aware that I am thinking while I am physically typing, a functional partnership or single process of expression? We shall see.
There have been many diverse views on the relationship between ‘body-mind’ and whether or not these two apparent components are indeed separate.
Over the millennia body loathers would have us all believe that the body is subject to the ‘higher’ mind and should somehow be dominated by it. This perverse view has resulted in theological body-loathing cults which view the body as dirty, evil and an enemy! St Paul is a typical example; he refers to the body as a disgusting or loathsome thing in an epistle and reinforces that view throughout his letters. Perhaps he should have been more aware of the body’s creation/evolution than his attitude to it; all one need do to refute his stand is ingest a psychotropic substance and realise that the physical body and its reaction to physical substances has more effect on the mind than body-hating religionists would care to admit. Furthermore, rather than admit or submit to a verifiable reality/test, body-loathers/religionists revert to denial and refuse the chemical element into their myopic realities.
As can be readily seen this attitude is NO solution, it is fear based contractionism – I would introduce here, without explanation, the verifiable reality that Existence is an expanding Process and any sustained contraction opposes that expansive tendency – at huge cost to itself. I would also add that the prudish, disdainful and perverse attitude of the Christian St Paul is replicated by other leading figures in all the major religions.
To pre-empt a conclusion, it becomes evident that the body is a source of fear for this group and as such, their lives are filled with dread, horror, violence and all sorts of illnesses, dis-eases, ‘MISERY,’ as concluded by Gautama Buddha.
The body is the result of countless years of evolution or universal expression, a process which is not confined to this planet, solar system or indeed this universe.
The body is a vehicle or medium of expression for CONSCIOUSNESS, the quintessential ‘element’ of Existence. As such it effectively allows the process of creation to express itself on this material, three dimensional plane, as it manifests simultaneously in countless other dimensions/planes. Existence is therefore saturated with life, indeed existence IS LIFE and the unfolding process of Expression – for the aware, everything is alive and related.
So a view to harmonious expression would necessitate a non-antagonistic partnership of the body-mind in order to fulfil our personal existence, would it not? Fearing or opposing/abusing any part of our be-ing would be the height of folly and/or ignorance, as can readily be appreciated by the fact that the universe is Infinite therefore flawless in its operation – errors do not endure in a continuum, a lesson mankind would do well to learn.
Hopefully we are now aware of the relationship of 'body-mind' with a view to smooth operation.
Though this short discourse’s aims were not to instruct in various practices I am obliged to recommend the harmonising practice of traditional yoga and the benefits of regular meditation, ‘they’ are in fact One process.
Peace.
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