You said that identification with our physical form is part of the
illusion, so how can the body, the physical form, bring you to a
realization of Being?

The body that you can see and touch cannot take you into Being.
But that visible and tangible body is only an outer shell, or rather
a limited and distorted perception of a deeper reality. In your natural
state of connectedness with Being, this deeper reality can be felt every
moment as the invisible inner body, the animating presence within
you. So to "inhabit the body" is to feel the body from within, to feel
the life inside the body and thereby come to know that you are beyond
the outer form.

But, that is only the beginning of an inward journey that will take you
ever more deeply into a realm of great stillness and peace, yet also of
great power and vibrant life. At first, you may only get fleeting glimpses
of it, but through them you will begin to realize that you are not just a
meaningless fragment in an alien universe, briefly suspended between
birth and death, allowed a few short-lived pleasures followed by pain and
ultimate annihilation. Underneath your outer form, you are connected
with something so vast, so immeasurable and sacred, that it cannot be
conceived or spoken of - yet I am speaking of it now, I am speaking of
it not to give you something to believe in but to show you how you can
know it for yourself.

You are cut off from Being as long as your mind takes up all your
attention. When this happens - and it happens continuously for most
people - you are not in your body. The mind absorbs all your conscious-
ness and transforms it into mind stuff. You cannot stop thinking..
Compulsive thinking has become a collective disease. Your whole sense
of who you are is then derived from mind activity. Your identity, as it is no
longer rooted in Being, becomes a vulnerable and ever-needy mental
construct, which creates fear as the predominant underlying emotion. The
one thing that truly matters is then missing from your life: awareness of your
deeper self-your invisible and indestructible reality.

To become conscious of Being, you need to reclaim consciousness from the
mind. This is one of the most essential tasks on your spiritual journey. It will
free vast amounts of consciousness that previously had been trapped in useless
and compulsive thinking. A very effective way of doing this is simply to take
the focus of your attention away from thinking and direct it into the body,
where Being can be felt in the first instance as the invisible energy field that
gives life to what you perceive as the physical body.

CONNECTING WITH THE INNER BODY

Please try it now. You may find it helpful to close your eyes for this
practice. Later on, when "being in the body" has become natural and easy,
this will no longer be necessary. Direct your attention into the body. Feel
it from within. Is it alive? Is there life in your hands, arms, legs, and feet -
in your abdomen, your chest? Can you feel the subtle energy field that
pervades the entire body and gives vibrant life to every organ and every
cell? Can you feel it simultaneously in all parts of the body as a single
field of energy? Keep focusing on the feeling of your inner body for a few
moments. Do not start to think about it. Feel it. The more attention you
give it, the clearer and stronger this feeling will become.. It will feel as if
every cell is becoming more alive, and if you have a strong visual sense,
you may get an image of your body becoming luminous. Although such
an image can help you temporarily, pay more attention to the feeling than
to any image that may arise. An image, no matter how beautiful or
powerful, is already defined in form, so there is less scope for penetrating
more deeply.

The feeling of your inner body is formless, limitless, and unfathomable.
You can always go into it more deeply. If you cannot feel very much
at this stage, pay attention to whatever you can feel. Perhaps there is
just a slight tingling in your hands or feet. That's good enough for the
moment. Just focus on the feeling. Your body is coming alive. Later,
we will practice some more. Please open your eyes now, but keep some
attention in the inner energy field of the body even as you look around
the room. The inner body lies at the threshold between your form
identity and your essence identity, your true nature. Never lose touch
with it.

TRANSFORMATION THROUGH THE BODY

Why have most religions condemned or denied the body? It seems
that spiritual seekers have always regarded the body as a hindrance
or even as sinful.

Why have so few seekers become finders?

On the level of the body, humans are very close to animals. All the
basic bodily functions - pleasure, pain, breathing, eating, drinking,
defecating, sleeping, the drive to find a mate and procreate, and of course
birth and death - we share with animals. A long time after their fall from
a state of grace and oneness into illusion, humans suddenly woke up in
what seemed to be an animal body - and they found this very disturbing.
"Don't fool yourself. You are no more than an animal." This seemed to
be the truth that was staring them in the face. But it was too disturbing a
truth to tolerate. Adam and Even saw their animal nature set in very
quickly. The threat that they might be taken over by powerful instinctual
drives and revert back to complete unconsciousness was indeed a very
real one.hame and taboos appeared around certain parts of the body and
bodily functions, especially sexuality. The light of their consciousness
was not yet strong enough to make friends with their animal nature, to
allow it to be and even enjoy that aspect of themselves - let alone to go
deeply into it to find the divine hidden within it, the reality within the
illusion. So they did what they had to do. They began to disassociate
from their body. They now saw themselves as having a body, rather than
just being it.

When religions arose, this disassociation became even more pronounced
as the "you are not your body" belief. Countless people in East and West
throughout the ages have tried to find God, salvation, or enlightenment
through denial of the body. This took the form of denial of sense
pleasures and of sexuality in particular, fasting, and other ascetic practices.
They even inflicted pain on the body in an attempt to weaken or punish it
because they regarded it as sinful. In Christianity, this used to be called
mortification of the flesh. Others tried to escape from the body by entering
trance states or seeking out-of-the-body experiences. Many still do. Even
the Buddha is said to have practiced body denial through fasting and
extreme forms of asceticism for sex years, but he did not attain enlighten-
ment until after he had given up this practice.

The fact is that no one has ever become enlightened through denying
or fighting the body or through an out-of-the-body experience.
Although such an experience can be fascinating and can give you a glimpse
of the state of liberation from the material form, in the end you will always
have to return to the body, where the essential work of transformation
takes place. Transformation is through the body, not away from it. This
is why no true master has ever advocated fighting or leaving the body,
although their mind-based followers often have.

Of the ancient teachings concerning the body, only certain fragments
survive, such as Jesus' statement that "your whole body will be filled
with light," or they survive as myths, such as the belief that Jesus never
relinquished his body but remained one with it and ascended into "heaven"
with it. Almost no one to this day has understood those fragments or
the hidden meaning of certain myths, and the "you are not your body"
belief has prevailed universally, leading to body denial and attempts to
escape from the body. Countless seekers have thus been prevented from
attaining spiritual realization for themselves and becoming finders.

Is it possible to recover the lost teachings on the significance of the
body or to reconstruct them from the existing fragments?

There is no need for that. All spiritual teachings originate from the same
Source. In that sense, there is and always has been only one master, who
manifests in many different forms. I am that master, and so are you, once
you are able to access the Source within. And the way to it is through
the inner body. Although all spiritual teachings originate from the same
Source, once they become verbalized and written down they are obviously
no more than collections of words - and a word is nothing but a signpost,
as we talked about earlier. All such teachings are signposts pointing the
way back to the Source.

I have already spoken of the Truth that is hidden within your body, but
I will summarize for you again the lost teachings of the masters - so here
is another signpost. Please endeavor to feel your inner body as you read
or listen.

SERMON ON THE BODY

What you perceive as a dense physical structure called the body, which is
subject to disease, old age, and death, is not ultimately real - is not you.
It is a misperception of your essential reality that is beyond birth and death,
and is due to the limitations of your mind, which, having lost touch with
Being, creates the body as evidence of its illusory belief in separation and
to justify its state of fear. But do not turn away from the body, for within
that symbol of impermanence, limitation, and death that you perceive as
the illusory creation of your mind is concealed the splendor of your essential
and immortal reality. Do not turn your attention elsewhere in your search
for the Truth, for it is nowhere else to be found but within your body.

Do not fight against the body, for in doing so you are fighting against your
own reality. You are your body. The body that you can see and touch is
only a thin illusory veil. Underneath it lies the invisible inner body, the
doorway into Being, into Life Unmanifested. Through the inner body,
you are inseparably connected to this unmanifested One Life - birthless,
deathless, eternally present. Through the inner body, you are forever one
with God.

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Q & A
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From THE POWER OF NOW - By Eckhart Tolle

Q: What is the relationship between presence and the inner body?

A: Presence is pure consciousness - consciousness that has been
reclaimed from the mind, from the world of form. The inner body
is your link with the Unmanifested, and in its deepest aspect is the
Unmanifested: the Source from which consciousness emanates as
light emanates from the sun. Awareness of the inner body is
consciousness remembering its origin and returning to the Source.

Q: You said that presence is consciousness that has been reclaimed
from the mind. Who does the reclaiming?

A: You do. But since in your essence you are consciousness, we
might as well say that it is an awakening of consciousness from the
dream of form. This does not mean that your own form will
instantly vanish in an explosion of light. You can continue in your
present form yet be aware of the formless and deathless deep within
you.

Q: I must admit that this is way beyond my comprehension, and yet on
some deeper level I seem to know what you are talking about. It's
more like a feeling than anything else. Am I deceiving myself?

A: No, you are not. Feeling will get you closer to the truth of who you
are than thinking. I cannot tell you anything that deep within you don't
already know. When you have reached a certain stage of inner
connectedness, you recognize the truth when you hear it. If you haven't
reached that stage yet, the practice of body awareness will bring about
the deepening that is necessary.

www.eckharttolle.com