– Photo by Jan Ketchel
The body self is a finite creature; it will die. The spirit self, the energy body, houses the infinite part of ourselves, that which separates forever from the earthy host, the physical body, at the time of its death.
The relationship between the host (the physical body) and the guest (the energy body) during our lifetime is our most important and challenging relationship. The physical body knows its days are numbered and seeks fulfillment of its instinctive nature in the physical world during life. Fulfillment in physical terms is connected to security, sex, and power in the material world of people and things.
The energy body enters its host, the physical body, with its intention to sow its karmic seeds through the drama of human life by which it has the opportunity to advance its ongoing journey in infinity at the death of the physical. The truth is, the body is not that interested in soul work. The body, like all animals, is here and now, in its instinctive life, which it so covets. Enjoying and experiencing the joys, pleasures, and triumphs of this life is the sole intent of the physical body; there is nothing more.
The energy body, in contrast, is far more expansive. The energy body is comprised of mind and feeling, and though both become active in the physical brain and heart, they are, in spirit form, of a far more ethereal nature, capable of a far greater expansiveness and abstraction way beyond human boundaries. For instance, love, at the energy body level, can expand to include all interconnected life. At the level of the physical body, however, “love” does not extend beyond me and mine.
At this point, I nearly abandoned this blog. I had drawn a blank as how to illustrate the challenge of the conflicting intent of the physical and spirit selves. I went to sleep and awoke from the following vivid dream experience:
A gangster had seriously threatened a woman. He came to my home to discuss it. I let him in with four of his cronies. I directly confronted him. “You have to go to her and make it right; begin by apologizing,” I said. Then I noticed over my right shoulder that one of his men was holding a bungie cord, awaiting the signal from the gangster boss to strangle me.
– Photo by Jan Ketchel
I looked into the gangster boss’s eye and said, “So, you’re going to kill me.” A moment before I had seen an expression on his face that was acknowledging the wrong he had done, a glint in his eye. I thought there was a genuine moment of redemption, but now I saw he was really lazy. It was easier to simply snuff out any possible threat to his operation, rather than risk change.
Oddly, I wasn’t afraid of the confrontation, more observant of the true predicament. I somehow knew I would subdue the group of them, though at the moment I wasn’t sure how. It wasn’t the threat that consumed me, it was the disappointment in his refusal to acquiesce to the light of the truth that shone in our encounter. He was choosing to remain cold-bloodedly instinctual, snuffing out the light of spirit, change, and growth.
Awakening from the above dream, I thanked my unconscious for the dream. The dream typifies the inner drama we all must confront with our physical, instinctive body host who remains governed by the archetypes of power and self-centered survival. This is the body self that wants survival, food, sex, and power at a purely instinctual level. This self will cold-bloodedly execute any spirit that asks it to transmute its own instincts in service of a higher cause.
On the other hand, the spirit self, with its own agenda for life in this world, can be a completely ungracious guest, treating its body host like a slave and servant, completely in bondage to the proclivities of the spirit. I defer to Arianna Huffington’s commencement speech at Vassar College, linked HERE, to expand upon abuse of spirit power inflicted not only on the body, but also on the world body that now finds itself in mass revolt at the misguided governorship of humankind.
The symbiotic relationship of spirit and body self while the spirit resides in human form requires responsible leadership based on right action. Right action flows from love centered in the heart chakra. The body is a conservative host to a liberal spirit guest whose quest is evolutionary advancement.
As my dream points out, the body, in its conservatism, would kill off any attempt to elevate its spirit above its instinctive rigidity. On the other hand, a spirit guest that exploits its body host for its desirous intrigues is a leader that breeds revolution and assassination.
– Photo by Jan Ketchel
Spirit self must acquiesce, from the heart center, to leadership in accordance with truth—that which is all-inclusive love. Spirit that acts from this place offers a path of evolutionary advancement to its body host, who in turn can acquiesce with support to fair leadership from its guest. A tenuous balance indeed, but not unachievable.
The challenge is to become the gracious guest who leads its willing servant to new heights so that, in the end, guest and host dissolve their apparent distinctions and join in consciousness, as optional expressions of the same oneness, e.g., as body and energy body, spirit and matter, sun and moon, particle and wave.
And so, the journey continues,
Chuck
