We are tracking the mystery of how we see the red, sweet-smelling, crunchy, tasty apple. We started with the eye, then went to the brain. We now need to head off to the chamber of the mind.
But, in order to gain access to the chamber of the mind, we have to first cross a bridge. This bridge is the beginning of the ‘subtle’ part of our selves.
The bridge is where we begin to experience the ‘twilight zone’ between our ‘body’ and ‘mind’. Let me explain this a bit.
Our body makeup is quite straightforward – thanks to biology, medicine and other related sciences, we understand the terms
-‘physical’ – (skin, bones, muscles, tissue etc)
– ‘physiological’ – (circulatory system, respiratory system, reproductive system, excretory system etc)
In the mental aspect, we expect to encounter things like ‘thinking’, ‘reasoning’, ‘creativity’ and ‘perception’.
OK. So, what is the bridge about?
The bridge is where we experience
- sensations (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral)
- feelings (nice/not nice, pleasure/pain, belonging/loneliness, happiness/sadness, relaxed/stressed)
- emotions (anger, jealousy, panic, hatred, power, passion, fear, love, kindness, caring)
- intuition(gut-feel)
- psychic experiences( clairvoyance, telepathy, channeling)
- connection (with other beings, nature, objects)
As you can see, it is kind of a ‘fuzzy‘ space, so I call it a bridge. If you want to explore the mind-body connection, it is best experienced here on this bridge, directly.
This chamber is a bridge because, it is not purely physical or mental or physiological. You can see it is real confusing when, even wise men from the past, got themselves in tangles when they tried naming it – with some calling it ‘subtle body’ and others calling it ‘lower mind’. I just call it the bridge. Here is why:
– Emotions and feelings are not physical (they are not organs), yet they affect the physical organs (e.x. skin, brain, heart)
– Emotions and feelings are not physiological (functional system), yet they affect the physiological functions (e.x stress affects hormonal production, breathing rate, heart rate)
– Emotions and feelings are not mental(thoughts), yet they affect our mental activity (e.x they ‘cloud’ our reasoning and we end up doing the wrong thing)
It also works the other way round
– The state and health of our physical body affects our emotions, feelings and sensations (changes to our diet and exercise affect the way we feel)
– The state and health of our physiology affects our emotions, feelings and sensations (when we breathe evenly and the endocrine glands are doing well, we feel more relaxed)
– The state and health of our mental activity affects our emotions, feelings and sensations (we can think pleasant thoughts; all we need to feel itchy is to think of it)
By even accepting that this chamber as it is – fuzzy yet important – we are making a big step forward in our growth as human beings.
Please don’t be offended, but in my humble opinion, as a general observation,
– most men find this fuzzy space very uncomfortable, because it is neither here (body) nor there (mind)
– most women love this fuzzy space and choose not to waste their time examining the mind
It’s not that either is ‘good’ or ‘bad’, but why do you want to experience only ½ of your true being?
So, let’s grit our teeth and strive for balance. It’s not very hard. Really. We can get started today. To achieve balance,
– most men need to walk on this bridge a few times every day
– most women need to cross this bridge a few times every day
Since we are here, here is a great catalog of activities you can do to explore and benefit from the mind-body connection
However, the way to really master this bridge is by working with our subtle energy fields. We will explore it in more detail in the ‘Middle’ stage, when we talk of methods and techniques.
The Urban Monk diaries 