The Role of the Body

[Thomas]

Whilst it is obvious that the soul or spirit should be the object of attention on a Board that calls itself Comparative Religion, I thought it might be useful to discuss the body, that unsung hero that keeps us propped in front of the keyboard, popping keys.

The view of the body, across the world's spiritual traditions, is so wide and various that to start from any one perspective seems to assume certain a priori axioms that might not necessarily be the case, so I suggest, in this discussion, we approach from the standpoint of philosophy, or rather metaphysics, and whilst religions and doctrines might be alluded to, fuller discussions should be continued a sub-threads in their relevant forums.

To some, the body is utterly disposable, nothing but a vehicle for the soul which is, in effect, a separate entity inhabiting, for reasons either pedagogic or punitive, the material realm. To others the body is a necessary mode of being but is of itself inconsequential and again, disposable – such a view covers the ideas of reincarnation in its transmigrational modes. To others again, the body exists in a conjoined hierarchical psychodynamism with the soul, and manifests and symbolises the soul in the material domain, in which each is intimately and indivisibly joined to the other, each subject to degrees of contingency and limitation according to its essential nature.

To begin, I would like to quote from the French metaphysician, Jean Borella:
"We will get a clear idea of it if we only consider the role played by our bodies as the instruments of our presence in the world. It is in fact through the body that we are present in a world of bodies. However, this presence, of which we believe ourselves to be the masters since it is somehow identified with us, is in reality a passive and involuntary presence."

In this context I believe we can assume the 'reality' of the world as given as it does not seriously impact the debate. Whether the world is real or not, within it the body is relative to it, so the body is ordered to that same degree – if the world is real, the body is real, if the world is illusionary, the body is nonetheless a real aspect of that illusion.

According to the French existential philosopher and phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty, perception has an active dimension, in that it is a primordial openness to the 'life world' (the Lebenswelt). This primordial openness is at the heart of his thesis of the primacy of perception. Merleau-Ponty develops the thesis according to which "all consciousness is perceptual consciousness".

What that consciousness perceives, then, is bodies.

(Later, I would like to open the idea of 'body' to address modes of being or existence other than the physical – to propose that the notion of 'presence', in any aspect other than the Absolute, which transcends all modes of manifestation, is inescapably tied to the concept of 'body'. Without a body, without a form, there is no identifiable 'presence', even an idea, in this context, comprises a 'body' in the sense that an idea comprises a content which necessarily excludes all other content.)

Borella went on to say:
Maurice Merleau-Ponty said, in The Phenomenology of Perception, that to see an object is "to be able to make a tour of it". And how is it possible to make a tour of it, if not because the object imparts itself indefinitely and inexhaustibly to the surveying gaze, because it can do nothing but offer itself to our gaze, it can do nothing but be seen. To be seen, and to be corporeally present, is all one. My corporeal presence is my visibility, but my visibility is not my own; it belongs to every gaze, unbeknownst to me and without being able to do anything about it – an ignorance and impotence constituting the every essence of my visibility. Thus, no one is master of his corporeal presence, and, even more, to be corporeally present is not to be master of this presence."

Taking Christianity as, perhaps, the advocate of a profound and radical position with regard to the body (following from and founded on Hebraic holism), I would like to offer a view of what the idea of 'resurrection' means in metaphysical terms:

Borella again:
"Christ's body is still the instrument of presence in the world of bodies, but, by a total change, it is no longer passive and involuntary. The soul which inhabits this instrument is entirely master of it and makes use of it at will. Christ can actualize the corporeal mode of His presence according to His own decision and as He judges good. The relationship that He entertains with the corporeal medium of His presence has been completely transformed. Christ is no longer seen, He causes Himself to be seen.

Simply put, He is no longer subject to the conditions of this corporeal world. His bodily presentification becomes, then, a simple prolongation of its spiritual reality, entirely dependent upon this reality – whereas in the state of fallen nature, it is the person's spiritual reality which extrinsically dependent upon its bodily presence."
Borella quoted from an essay on The Veil

Thomas

[China Cat Sunflower]

Wow! This is a totally new idea to me. I'm trying to consider the ramifications...

"Christ's body is still the instrument of presence in the world of bodies, but, by a total change, it is no longer passive and involuntary. The soul which inhabits this instrument is entirely master of it and makes use of it at will. Christ can actualize the corporeal mode of His presence according to His own decision and as He judges good. The relationship that He entertains with the corporeal medium of His presence has been completely transformed. Christ is no longer seen, He causes Himself to be seen.

Considering the Logos concept: pre-incarnation, and post incarnation with the interim period of manifestation in a human body...I mean, that's really interesting to consider. So, I'm asking myself what changed due to his actions during the manifestation that now allows us to become, potentially, masters of the body as he is. And what, exactly, does that mean?

I'm going to read your link, Thomas, and google Borella and Merleau-Ponty. I'll get back to you.

Absolutely fascinating, though, and yet another example of the detail that gets lost with universalism.

Chris

[Prober]

Originally Posted by Thomas

Borella again:
"Christ's body is still the instrument of presence in the world of bodies, but, by a total change, it is no longer passive and involuntary. The soul which inhabits this instrument is entirely master of it and makes use of it at will. Christ can actualize the corporeal mode of His presence according to His own decision and as He judges good. The relationship that He entertains with the corporeal medium of His presence has been completely transformed. Christ is no longer seen, He causes Himself to be seen.

Simply put, He is no longer subject to the conditions of this corporeal world. His bodily presentification becomes, then, a simple prolongation of its spiritual reality, entirely dependent upon this reality – whereas in the state of fallen nature, it is the person's spiritual reality which extrinsically dependent upon its bodily presence."
Borella quoted from an essay on The Veil

Thomas

Wow is right!

"Glorify G-d in your bodies", "This corruptable shall put on incorruption", etc.

And what does this do to our thinking of communion?

Okay, okay...keep going...

[wil]

Namaste Thomas,

Found it interesting in a Lenten reading the morning after your OP from 'Keep a True Lent' by Charles Fillmore...

But Jesus at the Ascension broke His physical organism into its primal electrons or ions of substance and life, which He sowed as a body seed for all those who follow Him in the regeneration. Thousands have appropriated these seeds if the new Christ body in the past nineteen hundred years and are now in the process of unfolding a redeemed organism. No one has fully developed the Christ body as it will appear when mortal life has been replaced by immortality

And then again from yesterday's reading...

I am a child of the Father, and my inheritance is from Him. I AM is the Christ within me, the true spiritual being, whom G-d made in His image and likeness. Through the I AM (the Christ), I link myself with the Father, with Spirit, with life, wisdom, love, peace, strength, power and Truth.

synchronicity is a wonderful thing.

[Thomas]

Hi Prober –

Well, if we stay within the bounds of philosophy – albeit an Hellenic intuition illumined by the data of Revelation, then 'communion' takes on a whole new and more profound import.

The Hellenic (and Hebraic) idea regards the Great Chain of Being as a strictly delineated procession of subsistence by emanation, 'subsistence' in that the lower is dependent on the higher for its being – and the higher is always subject to the lower in the lower's domain, so that the higher can only manifest itself a lower-than-itself, and thus not the totality of its essence. Each successive mode of manifestation is thus 'removed' by one degree from its immediate higher.

Christian philosophy agrees substantially with the above, but in addition holds that the Logos, which is 'existence that does not subsist' or the Cause that is not Itself caused, can manifest Itself as Itself in any domain It chooses, and can manifest Its essence whole and entire, in any mode of manifestation, according to Its will, precisely because the Logos is the ontological source of all that is, and holds the 'pattern' of everything in itself.

Thus any given mode of manifestation remains wholly and substantially itself, whilst simultaneously (and miraculously – for this is what a miracle is), is wholly and unconditionally the Logos, precisely because the Logos is above and not limited nor conditioned by essence or substance, but holds the essence and substance of all things in Itself. So the Logos identifies Itself with a mode of manifestation of Itself, and this is 'kenosis' or the 'emptying of self' – the Supreme Gift of Love – so that the Logos is present, for example, 'as' a man in the Incarnation, and not simply 'in' a man.

Thus God entered fully into communion with man, by becoming man, so that man might enter into communion with God, by becoming God (to paraphrase Irenaeus) – by the grace of the identification of self with the Logos by filiation or adoption (theosis) – 'filiation or adoption' signifying that the subsistent being – the person – becomes one with the Logos whilst retaining its own existence or 'isness'.

Divine Union, or which communion is a foreshadowing, implies the uniting of two into one indivisibly, not two becoming one by the cessation or anihilation of the other.

This is the Mystery of Sacrifice ... from the verb 'sacare' - 'to set aside' – a thing becomes 'sacred' when the essence of the Logos is present in the object, and this Presence signifies the acceptance of the sacrifice.

Thomas

[Thomas]

Pax Wil!

But Jesus at the Ascension broke His physical organism into its primal electrons or ions of substance and life, which He sowed as a body seed for all those who follow Him in the regeneration...
That's pushing the material analogy perhaps a bit far for Catholic tastes, but the essence is there ...

... Thousands have appropriated these seeds if the new Christ body in the past nineteen hundred years and are now in the process of unfolding a redeemed organism...
Ooh, this is getting very Greek now ... think of Dionysius torn apart by the Titans, and the fragments scattered and seeded in individual souls ... We would be cautious of suggesting that the Logos is thus parcelled out, divided or distributed, as the Logos is always and ever entire unto Itself ... furthermore we would frown at the suggestion of selectivity ... the Logos is the 'light that lights all men' so is not, in that sense 'appropriated' ... I would suggest that the author has become too closely attached to the biochemical organism?

(He did think he was going to live forever, did he not? he got the idea right, but the science wrong?)

No one has fully developed the Christ body as it will appear when mortal life has been replaced by immortality
But, purely as an aside, do we read the Stigmata as a sign of that Body? For Christ is risen, but Christ stills bears the wounds of the Cross ... how can the Higher bear the mark of the lower, unless He so chooses ...

I AM is the Christ within me,
I know this is close to your thinking Wil, but I think a Catholic will always have issue with this ... is there not a trace of the ego at work here, of appropriation of the higher by the lower? Is there not a risk of self-glorification? (I am not accusing you of this, btw). To us ... or is it me ... it's a matter of priority, so I would rather say "me in Christ", for 'in him we live and move and have our being' not 'in me' ...

Through the I AM (the Christ), I link myself with the Father, with Spirit, with life, wisdom, love, peace, strength, power and Truth.

That's more like it!

synchronicity is a wonderful thing.

Oh yes.

[Thomas]

Hi Chris –

Considering the Logos concept: pre-incarnation, and post incarnation with the interim period of manifestation in a human body...

Well, just to muck around with your head even more, Catholics do not believe that the Logos exists in Eternity, but then stepped down for a bit to become man, then stepped back up again ... or put another way, the Trinity never became a Duality for thirty odd years whilst one of the Three Persons took a sabattical, or undertook a covert mission, or surrendered his Divine State ... the Trinity is Trinity eternally ...

Thomas

[wil]

Originally Posted by Thomas

...(He did think he was going to live forever, did he not? he got the idea right, but the science wrong?)

I AM is the Christ within me,
I know this is close to your thinking Wil, but I think a Catholic will always have issue with this ... is there not a trace of the ego at work here, of appropriation of the higher by the lower? Is there not a risk of self-glorification? (I am not accusing you of this, btw). To us ... or is it me ... it's a matter of priority, so I would rather say "me in Christ", for 'in him we live and move and have our being' not 'in me' ...

Through the I AM (the Christ), I link myself with the Father, with Spirit, with life, wisdom, love, peace, strength, power and Truth.

That's more like it!

Namaste Thomas,

Yes, I believe there was a time when he thought if we connected completely eternity on earth was ours...

I see the concept of Christ much like a hug...no matter how many you give it to you cannot give it away. The Christ (material, intellectual, spiritual) is unilimited and undeminishable nothing is lost from the original by everyone having the Christ within.

Could be ego, but in truth the concept to me eliminates ego. It is more of an understanding of oneness with G-d and all creation. I am nothing, source is everything. That last line to me simply indicates the modem (Christ) is in me, that is my connection to all that is.

[Jaiket]

The body as a 'mere' vehical is not an idea exclusive to religion or spirituality. In science, the body as the protective and responsive shield for the genes is an outlook championed by Dawkins, and some great biologists before him. Also I think the philosophical implications are arguably as large for such ideas as 'self' in the gene-centered view of life. What we think of as 'we' is radically different from traditional views.

[Prober]

Originally Posted by Thomas

So the Logos identifies Itself with a mode of manifestation of Itself, and this is 'kenosis' or the 'emptying of self' – the Supreme Gift of Love – so that the Logos is present, for example, 'as' a man in the Incarnation, and not simply 'in' a man.

Thus God entered fully into communion with man, by becoming man, so that man might enter into communion with God, by becoming God (to paraphrase Irenaeus) – by the grace of the identification of self with the Logos by filiation or adoption (theosis) – 'filiation or adoption' signifying that the subsistent being – the person – becomes one with the Logos whilst retaining its own existence or 'isness'.

Thomas

So G-d becomes a man and is not a "walk-in" as I asserted elsewhere?

[China Cat Sunflower]

Thus any given mode of manifestation remains wholly and substantially itself, whilst simultaneously (and miraculously – for this is what a miracle is), is wholly and unconditionally the Logos, precisely because the Logos is above and not limited nor conditioned by essence or substance, but holds the essence and substance of all things in Itself. So the Logos identifies Itself with a mode of manifestation of Itself, and this is 'kenosis' or the 'emptying of self' – the Supreme Gift of Love – so that the Logos is present, for example, 'as' a man in the Incarnation, and not simply 'in' a man.

O.K., so...is there a Christ component of the Logos before the Jesus incarnation, or did the Christ thing start with the resurrection?

How has the fallen nature of nature and man improved since then? If Christ frees the world from its fallen nature, well, what is the evidence that that's working? Is it a corporeal change, metaphysical, strictly philosophical...can we experience it in fact, or...?

Who is able to identify with Christ so that his spiritual self becomes the master of the body, as implied by Borella? Is anyone actually doing this, or does one have to wait until after death to be so transformed? How does that work?

I'm still trying to understand this. The ramifications are immense, but it's hard to see a practical application.

Chris

[chakraman]

hi thomas...interesting thread and ideas,
i see the role of the body as follows - being part of nature it has all the properties associated with it; fire - digestion, humour etc; wind - breathing and movement etc; matter - pyhsical bodily substance, grounding; water - blood, lymph fluid etc. the spirit or soul must learn how these elements interplay and the body is like the classroom for this - enlightenment or liberation or what anyone chooses to call it may occur only when the soul has mastered the interplay of these elements as well i'm sure of other factors...only then can it become a creator to? the earth if considered as a being could be said to beautifully understand the elements....i've sometimes wondered if we may all or some of us be destined to be planets and then solar systyems..milky ways and so on...perhaps i have trouble getting to sleep at night...

[Zagreus]

Originally Posted by chakraman

i've sometimes wondered if we may all or some of us be destined to be planets and then solar systyems..milky ways and so on...

Well chakraman (good to see you back! ), as a hylozoist and panentheist, this is exactly what I believe ... regarding our future evolutionary destiny. The earth is like the outermost vehicle - literally the body - of a great being ... one of the minor Logoi of our solar system.

Thomas, Theosophists don't regard the Logos as "descending" or leaving its post, but we do believe that the Logoi literally incarnate (via extension/reflection of their threefold spiritual Principles), just as man does. [We have been fashioned in the image of the Divine, and `As above, so below'.] The Purpose for this voluntary incarnation - relative to Humanity - is to give us these very elements of which you speak, including the other kingdoms in nature (vegetable, animal, mineral) for stewardship & example's sake. "In Him we live, and move, and have our being."

Anyway, if we look around at the rest of the solar system, we can see the other Logoi incarnate here, by virtue of observing their physical expressions - or the bodies that house their spiritual principles. Seven of these Logoic incarnations occupy an equivalent role for the Solar Logos as do the chakras in an individual human being (although the earth Logos/planet is a minor center, not one of the major Seven) ...

Just some thoughts,

~andrew

[wil]

Wonder what kind of person would futurely incarnate as titan...the moon so hot and in constant action that it continuallly turns itself inside out spewing its venom to the surface and ingesting its outer shell/body...

Anywho on our bodies the other unique thing is the duplication of body systems almost like a computer analyzer for a car...iridology, reflexology (hands and feet) ears, large intestine, tongue....I remember a cranium one once but I don't know anyone that uses that anymore...the whole life force, ley lines accupuncture connections...chakras, energy vortexes all quite interesting....

[Thomas]

As I started this thread, I want to reply to everybody, but it began with China Cat, so allow me to answer him first ... and it's now midnight, I have to work tomorrow, and I am tired (so some of the Scripture references are missing):

O.K., so...is there a Christ component of the Logos before the Jesus incarnation, or did the Christ thing start with the resurrection?

The component in question is called 'person'‚ and your question might be rephrased: does the idea of the 'person' have an ontological source and foundation in the Logos, or is it simply a by-product, a transient and ephemeral phenomena?

If the latter, then when the conditions that give rise to that phenomena change or cease, then the phenomena ceases – 'I' cease to exist, because the 'I' subsists as a phenomena, and now the cause is gone, the effect ceases to be effected. All that remains is what effect that phenomena had in turn on everything else around it ... and this, I think, is what is meant by karma.

If on the other hand we assume that 'person' has an ontology, and is founded in the Logos, then the principle of the 'person' existed in the Logos from eternity, and this principle is co-existent with the Logos Itself, because the Logos is not a multiplicity but is one – the Principle of Principles, as it were (the All-Possible is another name). We're back to the hymn of Colossians, if we were to proceed theologically.

So yes. Jesus Christ and the Logos are indissolubly one.
So Jesus Christ existed from all eternity, so that He might say, "before Abraham was, I AM" (John 8:58).

And the same applies to you: "But the very hairs of your head are all numbered." Matthew 10:36 (and before cgi, too!)
This is what St Paul realised: "As he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in his sight in charity." (Ephesians 1:4)
The BIG difference being that we subsisted in Him as an Idea, a possibility, unrealised, unmade, unexisting ... and at His word, we came into being, and by His word, we are sustained. The HUGE difference is that He sees as as 'unspotted' precisely because of His charity.

How has the fallen nature of nature and man improved since then?
The Fall was brought about by man wanting to experience himself as a self-determining and not subsisting being, (he wanted to be a god); to do so required he 'close' that interior sense – the awareness of his own subsistence; man never looked on the world through 'our' eyes - man saw the essence of all things reflected in the soul, he saw through the glass of which St Paul speaks, but with absolute crystal clarity ... no hint of shadow ... no darkness ... he saw his place in the ontological order, his source in the Logos, and through the Logos, his share in all life, all being ...

(You can actually get a sense of this if you read Genesis)

The consequence of the Fall, this severance of unity "his eyes were opened" which means the eye of the heart was shut, he saw the world differently, he saw that he was naked, and he was ashamed, he had become inverted, he was outside looking in and he did not understand. The existential or experiental reality was everything became separate, exterior, alien (man became alien even to himself) he suffers privation in every dimension ... and the ultimate privation is loss of life itself, the loss of his very existence.

What has 'improved' is that death is no longer a finality, but a transit.

If Christ frees the world from its fallen nature, well, what is the evidence that that's working? Is it a corporeal change, metaphysical, strictly philosophical...can we experience it in fact, or...?
It is a transcendant reality, which we can experience in faith or, for those who are graced, mystical union ... but I believe everybody, if they are open, gets a sense of it.

The Kabbalists say that being is like a series of concentric rings, each rotating at its own speed, each with a notch, and once in a lifetime, all the notches align, and one gets a sudden glimpse of the 'whole picture' ... but we're way off philosophy here ...

Who is able to identify with Christ so that his spiritual self becomes the master of the body, as implied by Borella? Is anyone actually doing this, or does one have to wait until after death to be so transformed? How does that work?

The identification is in faith, "my burden is lighy, my yoke is easy" and is marked by no longer the fear of dying – but no-one can do what the Logos does, for we cannot change ourselves, He changes us ... stigmata, the incorruptibility of certain saints, St Francis was known to float from the ground during meditations, light shone from the face of St Bonaventure when hearing confessions, St Pio worked wonders, and my own late uncle was such a one, even though NOT A CATHOLIC (he accompanied my aunt, who was, on a pilgrimage to see him)... The certainty of the saints ... and in other traditions, the signs are there also ...

I'm still trying to understand this.
So am I. But know that 'it surpasseth all understanding' ... Christian gnosis passes beyond the veil of knowledge, of light, into that Superessential darkness ... read John, Peter and John racing to the empty tomb, John (the illumined intellect) hesitates, Peter, (faith) enters ...

The ramifications are immense,
Yes, they are.

but it's hard to see a practical application.
Love thy neighbour for God's sake ... The rest will look after itself.

"All will be well, and all manner of things will be well" said Julian of Norwich ...

There's so much more I want to say Chris ... I hope we get round to it.

Be at peace, brother, and may His peace be upon us all ...

Thomas

Thomas