The Mind-Body Connection | Sunday Soliloquy
I've been thinking a lot about the separation between the mind and the body, or rather that which makes them distinct from one another. Not to encourage separation between the two, but to foster a renewed interconnectedness.
I think of my body as the wish granter of my mind. If my mind is the one sensing the world, then it is my body which acts upon it. But that is to reduce the body to a tool, which I don't want to do. I want to focus more on the creativity of the body, all that it does behind the scenes that I'm privileged not to need to think about.
All that my body thinks about for the whole that is me. And so I can say that my body is a thoughtful creature, autonomous, dedicated, and resilient. But if thought is the domain of the body and not the mind, then what use is my mind?
Without thinking too much about it, I would say that the mind is an analytical complex, like a giant calculator constantly taking in new information and asking the question what is this and how does it reflect me?
Unlike thought, which seems to me like solidified pieces of a puzzle, like soundbites on the evening news, or singing grains of sand, the ephemeral being that the mind becomes is like a constantly moving fluid, absorbing, dreaming, and seeing.
If we were speaking of chakra systems, I would say that thoughts erupt from Vishudda, the throat chakra, an expression of truth consolidated into a few small words. It is an interesting realization to think that there is an expression of consciousness higher than thought itself, and in fact even more interesting that this is not surprising.
So then we would say — I would say that the third eye we speak so much of is the domain of dreams, fantasies, and even hope. This makes sense to me given the warnings I've heard about the third eye, that it is also the realm of illusion.
Thus, it must be the foundation of the mind, the dreaming consciousness which my body protects and perhaps governs.
My body protects and nourishes my mind, and my mind envisions beyond the basic space that my body can experience. In this way, the two whose roots are intertwined with one another grow beyond the boundaries that either would experience alone.
So my body thinks and my mind dreams. I don't understand yet what a soul is except perhaps that it is an inherent capacity for self awareness that even the mind and body together cannot accomplish. An innate and inescapable ability to self-reflect, to see one’s face in the mirror and to know that that is me, and to sit above one's own dreams — quite unlike The Fool in tarot — and ask is the dream worth following or is it taking me somewhere I don't wish to be.
I am certain that most paths look romantic and inviting when you first set out upon them.
Perhaps then the soul is a conscious and discerning force which seated upon the union of the mind and body can view beyond even what the senses are capable of.
The three together, then, comprising the whole that is me.
