Three Bodies

We frequently overlook the most important object or force that allows us
to stay on the planet. I’m not speaking about gravity; I’m speaking
about the body. Of course, when we approach death, either by the sudden
or the slow method, we get the importance. I suppose we know how
important body is on some level because there is nothing we spend more
money on, either dressing it up, decorating it or keeping it
functioning.


I wanted to talk today about the party or celebration or wisdom that
awaits you as you really live in the body. There is some assumption here
that you have already noticed that experiencing body, being embodied,
is actually something our culture does not do well. There’s a line from
a Henry Miller play claiming that one of his characters wa
s having a
good life as he ‘lived fairly closely to his body’. Isn’t that true of
most of us? We’re mostly up in our heads regurgitating and planning life
while it is happening. Actually, when we really inhabit body, through
harmonizing body and mind by practicing mindfulness, body is not one
thing at all but three different displays of wisdom.


The first wisdom has to do with the density of body and how it is made
from Earth. It takes a lot of smarts to build a body. This body, of
course, has form and we can see it and make it move when we want. The
wisdom that is ours, as we inhabit this body is Earth wisdom. We feel
like we come home. The Earth and its forms become ordinary but magical
at the same time. How things move, how we move radically changes. We
become more elegant in our movement. We get the seasons and the sense of
day and night. We get the food chain and sacredness of all life. Most
importantly there’s a bit of heartbreak like finally coming home. We’re
home and rushing about to go from one room to another becomes less
important. It’s all your house, your home. This heartbreak of belonging
is a ticket or library card to the next body.


The second level of body is information body or energy body. A huge,
like a trillion bits of information a second, is being managed to allow
the body to stay on the planet. The information body is deeper than
dense body and is basically what allows you to read this while a cadaver
has a very hard time making sense of the words. Energy body is the

difference between you and a cadaver. A corpse still has the same form
as a body but there’s no life. There is no exchange of information.
This body is sensual wisdom and is sometimes referred to as the ‘body of
enjoyment’. The party you get to enjoy with this body is to feel or
dance to sounds and light.


It is a further display of how outrageous your home and inheritance is.
This wisdom is yours when your presence is powerful enough to let your
senses all come through feeling. Again as a culture we are a bit
feeling challenged. Basically, this wisdom has to do with wiring all the
senses through the heart. You see by feeling through the heart. You
hear by hearing through the heart. This is not a metaphorical image but
an alternate way pathway of information gets routed. So, this body is
sometimes called bliss body, as the sensuality of our existence gets so
overwhelming it puts us into bliss and joy. Our compassion and love
grow.


The third level of
celebration, which comes from even deeper presence,
is the foundation of all life. This body is has been called wisdom or
space body. There has to be space before there can be an object and that
space is marked by wisdom and c
ompassion. Your body is made from
wisdom and compassion. That is why it has been called a ‘temple of God’.
It is also why the Bible says ‘the Kingdom of God is within’.


Beingness, which needs no feedback, no confirmation, experiences space
body. The concept of ‘you’ experiencing space gets in the way of the
wisdom. The ordinariness of wisdom and compassion as our nature gets
lost in the commentary. This is not an extraordinary experience,
reserved for mystics, as it is the nature of our beingness. We are very
pro
grammed to comment on everything, however, so that tendency needs to
be quieted which is no small task. Rumi, the great Sufi poet calls this
experience ‘the beloved’.


Why would anyone want to experience body-only because it is fun. It is
so much fun to relax in the home of the Earth body and so much fun to
dance in the sensuous of the information body and then even more
welcoming to be aware of space, wisdom and compassion. The whole
journey is fueled by what we see as having a good time or time being
good. Nowness turns into the best of best times. But, the first step is
the learning to inhabit the body through mindfulness, practicing the
muscle of staying here. The whole party starts from this harmonizing of
mind and body. Listen to birds-they carry the invite.