The Health in Your Body

Right now - in this very moment - you are living inside an abundant source of happiness, health and healing.

Your body - in this very moment - has the innate capacity to heal itself.

This capacity is the life force that creates, sustains, and co-ordinates all of the body’s myriad complex functions.

This life force pervades every cell in every moment. It has always been there, although your attention is generally speaking elsewhere.

When you look within, shifting away from the physical appearance of your body, and away from the thoughts about it, you can learn to sense the presence of an intense aliveness. 

Importantly, this aliveness cannot be comprehended within conceptual thought - but rather, it must be felt - directly and immediately.

In their search for what creates and sustains the complex, interconnected, processes of the body, scientists have been unable to eliminate the possibility that it is something entirely non-physical.

Much to the inconvenience of the western paradigm, even the most elaborately controlled experiments can never be said to be truly objective - that is, completely free from the effects of  invisible, non-physical forces. 

This elusive variable shows up in the placebo effect - demonstrable in all clinical trials. It is impossible to isolate oneself from the presence of this animating force. And, indeed, why would one even consider such a thing?

It is curious that many of the universal forces that animate the world of physical objects and that sustain life on earth are in fact invisible and formless-  naturally occurring phenomena like gravity, nuclear forces, and electromagnetic waves. 

Yet, at present, we lack the conceptual framework to acknowledge the existence of a similar form of energy - an invisible consciousness - animating the body and its functions.

This consciousness is in fact the elusive “life-force” and “life-source” that scientists continually search for, but continually struggle to find. 

Why? Because consciousness is something all too often ‘looked through’ rather than seriously  ‘looked at’. It is as though modern science seeks to know a mirror while only ever investigating the objects reflected in it. 

And this is important because in our personal lives we all too often relate to ‘mere reflections’ as our actual identity.

One of the main things I have learned in treating thousands of patients over the past twenty five years - as well as through carefully observing my own experience in meditation - is that the more we identify with our physical body the greater our suffering becomes.

Not understanding our true identity, we innocently mistake our body as ourself, and create untold amounts of entirely mind-made - and entirely unnecessary - suffering as a result.

Biologically, we can either have a male or female body, so immediately, our identification with being a man or a woman takes up most of our sense of self. 

This gender identity is encouraged and reinforced from a very early age and comes to define our role in life. It shows up in conditioned, learned patterns of behaviour, easily becoming a mind-made trap - especially in traditional, orthodox cultures.

Strong identification with societally approved gender-defined roles, give us a whole narrative framework for what is possible and desirable in life.

Right now, in every direction, social media platforms, billboards, catwalks, and brands heavily dictate how we should look and how we should live. We should be strong, beautiful, toned, bronzed, with no fat, no vulnerability and no self-doubt. Many derive their self-worth and confidence from aligning with, or deviating from, this ideal.

And at the crux of all this suffering is one thing -  a strong identification with a mind-made idea of self.

The thought - I, me, ego, self - is attached to a mental image of the body. But the body that we inhabit is impermanent, and will ultimately decay. So if we derive our identity from this we are destined to suffer as it grows old, declines in function, and dies.

Now importantly, this does not imply that we should neglect to look after our body nor appreciate its strength, vigour and beauty. We should certainly continue to care for it and eat food that nourishes it and keeps it well.

But we need to change the way we identify ourself - tuning into our deeper, non-physical identity - so that when the body’s beauty fades, when it’s vigour declines, and when it loses its function, it will not affect our sense of self-worth or rob us of our identity.

Have you ever met people whose bodies are clearly aged and have reduced function, but there’s a light shining in their eyes? These are the folks who have relinquished, and become freed from, the tyranny of deriving their identity from the body.

And you can do this too. You can start to reclaim your deeper identity, and to strategically identity from the body, right now, by becoming aware of the animating life energy within. 

When you are present to this life force, you’re not caught up in thinking, and you’re not caught up in the body. 

You abide in greater levels of peace and are mentally and physically restored.

Because when you shift your attention from the contents of the outer world, to the feeling of life within, the body’s innate capacity to heal itself is activated.

Then you will know for yourself that right now - in this very moment - you are living inside an abundant source of happiness, health and healing.

Next Article: The Light Body meditation