Exercise The Spirit & Soul Pt. 1

It’s funny how our bodies are consistently finding ways to betray us. No matter how much you invest into your vessel, it is built to sabotage itself and doesn’t mind taking you down with it. It truly scares me to hear and/or see people treat the human body like it’s some Magnum Opus of God. “The body is the temple”, they say, and there’s no reason to disagree with that. Still, let’s skip the superfluous philosophical speech by calling this flesh costume exactly what it is. It is a disloyal cowardly tool for spiritual growth that becomes a prison for many who know not the reality of materials. Honestly, the human body is no more (nor less) sacred than the toilet paper you wipe your ass with.

I know the previous statement may be difficult to accept for some. Trust me, it was the most terrifying thing I had to realize. If this bothers you just ask yourself these questions:

Why is my body so limited?

Why do I only feel adrenaline in dangerous situations?

Why can’t I fly like a bird?

Why can’t I survive very long underwater? Why do I have to eat or else I’ll die?

Why does the things I eat have to die in order for me to live?

Why am I attractive to some people but unattractive to others?

Why are the most pleasurable things deemed to be bad?

Why is there a such thing as good and bad anyway?

Now those are just a few “why” questions, we haven’t even included how, what, when, where, etc. Pondering is the essential exercise routine for spirit and soul. It’s like walking or jogging around the track, there’s no extra equipment or intense training required. Unless you have no legs just think of push ups, if you have no arms or legs then I apologize but understand the point. Also, the terms “spirit and soul” may be archaic to the atheist/agnostic scientific folks so just replace them with psyche, mind, emotions, cognition, whatever.

Strength is measured by how much one can accept. The more you accept knowledge of self the stronger your mind and emotions become. (Communication is also acceptance but that’s a more detailed subject). Awareness and acceptance are two slightly different things that work beautifully together and horribly apart.

We accept our poor behavior but rarely are we aware of the damage we cause to self. We are aware of our poor behavior but rarely do we accept making the necessary adjustments. Awareness and acceptance doesn’t automatically convert to agreement but it will give you comprehension. The only problem of acceptance is what we choose to accept.

Being in human form makes it so easy to forget the reality of existence. Many of us spend our entire lives focused on flimsy matters such as status, wealth, social issues, acceptance by others, appearance, and so much more trivial things. This is where that disloyal body aka “the temple” gets his/her shine in. Our egos outgrow the vessel so we work vigorously to match up with this thing that’ll always be superior to our humanity. Man is greedy and deceitful, along with all other negative aspects, due to this ego. We become slaves to our sense of self importance and of course it can make us outright stupid.

Ego death is an ancient concept that is very misconstrued in modern times. When something dies it doesn’t leave its plane of existence, actually it becomes somewhat permanent until it’s time to be reborn. It may be interpolated, like the ego after “death”, but it hasn’t completely left so it might as well be considered to still be alive. Think of your body once it complete its ultimate goal, it dies. You’ll go into the ground, an urn, or what have you, and be placed elsewhere in the ecosystem. Depending on your prior arrangements and financial assets you’ll have a level of control with your care-takings despite being dead, correlate that to spirit/soul. In other words, the ego is to be mastered as with all other things, it’s fundamental to humanity like your body so just let it die with that.

The ego is obviously a gross thing that should be developed/disciplined until it is corrected. You wouldn’t cut off your genitals (at least I hope not) because you have uncontrollable sexual lust, a sexual situation may actually be the solution to your problem. However, the body is a lying machine so be careful when solving problems of it.

To exercise spirit and soul is to go beyond the body. The best way of doing this is escaping our limited perspective in any form of expression. The body is merely a vehicle meant to get us from point a to point b. Some of us have Bentleys, some of us have hoopties, some have more features but the purpose is to reach a destination and we all have proper transportation. Many of us get stuck cherishing the vehicle, trying to have someone else’s, racing others, just all sorts of foolishness. We spend so much energy on hi-jinx that by the time we reach the destination the purpose is gone. We can and should enjoy the ride but focus on getting to where you’re going or you’ll have nowhere to go.