Guiding Thought

In the Light of Truth, perceptions and non-reality dissipate as fog in the sun. Only Truth is True. When you are aware of your reality in Truth, you understand how flimsy and meaningless are your perceptions. Only the Oneness of the Knowledge of Truth brings Peace.

Reflection

These contemplations are a very mental and metaphysical practice. They urge the use of your mind to connect with a Higher Mind, which is beyond material reality, beyond the senses.

Though, ironically, there are moments when this Higher Mind can be felt and experienced in the body. When such a thing happens for me, I feel a sense of expansiveness, calmness or peace, or sometimes a palpable energy that flows through and/or around me. I feel connected.

The relationship between the mind and the body, or the Higher Mind and the body, sometimes confuses me. Today is one of those days. (…and I am relating this specifically to this sentence: When you are aware of your reality in Truth, you understand how flimsy and meaningless are your perceptions.)

On the one hand, Soul-Spirit-the I AM Presence-the Divine Self, are beyond the senses. On the other hand, that Presence comes through me, as me. How do I reconcile this? How do I feel this, if my perceptions are “flimsy”?

What is the Truth in this?

How can I think (on the one hand) that my perceptions are “meaningless”, and (on the other hand), that what I might be perceiving is my Divine Self?

This to me sums up a very old “conflict”—that between spirit and body (or mind and body). People tend to accept one, and reject the other, or reject the one and accept the other.

Relying too heavily on Mind tends to make people out of touch with the material world (“reality”); being overly reliant on the body, people tend toward materialism, narcissism, egocentrism. What is the balance? Where is the integration? How do I be both a spiritual and material being?

There is a great Indian Saint and teacher, Gorakhnath, whose teachings were all about incorporating the life of Spirit into the life of the body. (recommended reading: Philosophy of Gorakhnath, with Goraksha-Vacana-Sangraha by Akshaya Kumar Banerjea).

Why is this idea so unpopular today? Why do people tend toward either mind or body?

Is it enough to simply think, “I am a spiritual being having a human experience”? or is that simply a way to make claims to Spirit, without doing the work necessary to actually experience Spirit in the life of the body? I ask this because people still get sick; people still get depressed; people still act cruelly to each other, to animals, and to the earth. If the Truth is Love, and if people Truly embody that Truth, then they would act (ah-hem in their bodies), with love, gentleness, kindness toward All. Wouldn’t they?

How do I live as the Truth?