Back in the Body

This inner work series on I and Me has ranged widely, from our personality up to the Divine. Now we come full circle to where all our inner work begins: in our physical body. This is our vehicle for presence, an outstanding vehicle at that. For our body is always in this present moment. Our mind may go elsewhere in time and space and even beyond both. Our emotions are drawn into the petty and the mundane as well as the sublime and the sacred. But the common factor in all true spiritual practice is that it takes place in the Now. And though the Now has layer upon layer of depth, it is always rooted in our body. If we can be rooted in our body, we are in position to explore the spirit.

But are we not always in our body? Sadly no. We become absorbed by our thoughts, wherever they take us. We become absorbed by our emotions wherever they get hooked. We become absorbed by our external senses to the point of losing contact with our body, for example in watching video. We fall into our egoism, with its notion of controlling our body and emotions, with its appetite for accolades and acquisitions, with self-importance so great that it sucks all the air out of our inner room.

So spiritual seekers before us have discovered a powerful and effective method for staying in our body, while developing our soul and going about our ordinary activities. We use the word discovered rather than created or devised, because as you will see, this method is accessible, objective, natural, and not artificial. It taps into what is already there in and around our body, including inherent mechanisms for generating energy.

Before diving into that method, we look at mindfulness of the body to make a fundamental distinction. Body mindfulness is usually interpreted and taught as a method of becoming aware of our body, aware of the sensations in our body. Sometimes it is the sensations associated with breathing and at other times the sensations in certain parts of the body or the whole body. The focus is on the sensations. In some cases, body mindfulness is taught more subtly, with focus on awareness of the vibrating particles of energy we find throughout our body, when we pay attention to it.

This is very close to the Fourth Way practice of sensing. The difference is that with body mindfulness we aim to become aware of sensations and perhaps of the energy behind them, whereas with sensing, we do the same, but primarily focused on the energy, which we call sensitive energy. We aim to be in contact with and build up the sensitive energy in the body.

We start with our right hand. Sitting quiet and relaxed, we focus our attention inside the hand, to experience the hand from within it. We stay with that for a few minutes. Then we notice the difference in our immediate experience between the right hand and the left. The right hand may be more alive, more vivid, and full of vibrating particles of energy. We call this sensing our right hand.

Continuing the practice we focus entirely on our right foot for a few minutes, then left foot, left hand, right arm, right leg, left leg, left arm, both arms, all four limbs, then the whole body. The last is the most important because it brings wholeness and a deeper awareness we call consciousness.

When we sense our body, we sink into the sensitive energy in the body. When we stay with that, it grows stronger, because the conscious energy carried by our persistent attention blends with the energies already present in our body to generate more of the sensitive energy. Ultimately, the aim of sensing is to create our soul from the sensitive and conscious energies and live in unbroken presence.

Thus, sensing goes further than body awareness, further than awareness of the energy in our body. Sensing takes the energy behind the sensations as significant in itself and increases that energy to the point of it becoming the dominant experience within our body, as well as the foundation for what can become effectively a second body, a body of sensation. That increase in the energy can come by way of persistent attention to the body and also by drawing that same energy from the air we breathe to build up that energy in our body.

We may be attracted to the higher realms of the spirit, to the Divine nature, Love, Unity, and the higher will. Yet all of those pervade the whole universe, at every level. By working with sensing our body, we are not ignoring the higher Sacred, we are effectively letting the higher Sacred work through us to build our soul, build the foundation for greater openness and permeability to the One.

Sensing our body merges into inhabiting our body, both our outer physical and inner sensation bodies. Here there is no division, there is no one part observing another, no mind engaging our body. There is one whole. There is a merging into our body, being fully in our whole body, seeing and experiencing from our body, inner and outer. Indeed, even the divisions between inner and outer, between self and other evaporate. We are entirely here, not separate. There is one Reality encompassing our body, emotions, mind, senses, and the world around us in a singular, vivid whole.

For this week, please re-engage to raise your practice of sensing, of inhabiting your body, to a new level.

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