you are not your body

[thelerner]

For those of you who mistakenly think they are their body, listen to my train of logic.

Anyone who is not an idiot has noticed that their appearance changes every day. How can this be if the operation of creating our body is only mechanical?

If you get your leg amputated, you will still be the same person. If you are stupid enough to disagree with that, I cannot help you.

 

It hurts me to put out these arguments, because I do not understand how you could deny the obvious, WHO IS LOOKING? CLOSE YOUR FUCKING EYES AND STOP TALKING TO YOURSELF IN YOUR HEAD AND EXAMINE YOUR EXPERIENCE. WHO IS THE EXPERIENCER?

We will see.  Maybe in 35, 45 years, I'll leave this body and tell it 'So long sucker' and experience some new real estate, then think Drifting-Through-Eternity was right.  Til then, I really don't know. 

 

Though I hope to get some clues within deepest silence.

[dwai]

Yes.

 

I am not my body, my body is me.

 

A cat is not a tiger, a tiger is a cat.

The "my body" makes it abundantly clear. The body is mine, but I am not my body. Just as the jeans and shirt I wear are mine, but they are not me...they belong to me.

[Brian]

The "my body" makes it abundantly clear. The body is mine, but I am not my body. Just as the jeans and shirt I wear are mine, but they are not me...they belong to me.

Yes. My hair is "of me" but not "me." My eyeballs are "of me," my heart is "of me," my brain is "of me" but none of these are "me" -- not even in the aggregate. I am not the sum of my physical parts.

[Marblehead]

I am not the sum of my physical parts.

 

Seems that there is more, doesn't it?

[silent thunder]

I'm human.

 

and yet, look within... and what in me is made of the human element?

 

This human being is made entirely from non human stuff.

 

this question keep arising... where in me is the human part? 

at what point does the organization of all the different individual amino peptides and protein chains

become human...

[Marblehead]

Look, it cannot be seen - it is beyond form.
Listen, it cannot be heard - it is beyond sound.
Grasp, it cannot be held - it is intangible.

 

 

TTC,  Chapter 14  English & Feng
 

Edited April 30, 2017 by Marblehead

[Michael Sternbach]

'Tat Tvam Asi.'

 

I maintain that all my body parts are (part of) me. (However, hair or a piece of finger nail that has been cut off is no longer me.)

[Michael Sternbach]

When my mind is excited, my breathing gets accelerated and my heartbeat goes faster.

 

Vice versa, perceptions and substances that are received by my body will be reacted to by my mind.

 

The two are not-two.

[wstein]

Many people are alienated from their bodies, disconnected in a way that divides them from themselves, disconnected in a way that brings unconsciousness and, eventually, disease.  Almost almost of us could benefit from greater bodily awareness.  In the beginning, I think this awareness deepens our identification with our body: we go into, rather than pull away from, the parts of us that feel uncomfortable or that store, for lack of a better word, the imprints of emotional trauma.

 

In order to benefit from most material things, one must take care of them. Disconnecting, more accurately disregarding, your body or your car has consequences on the material life you experience. Most of the 'purposes' one might have for living as being human for a time requires a functional body. In some parts of the world having a car also has significant impact on the experiences of your life. That does not require that you include your car in your identity (though you may choose to). Similarly, one need not include your body in your identity either.

[wstein]

You are your body.

 

Speaking of 'my body' as a separate entity is a mistake enabled and exacerbated by insufficient language. Your body is not 'your body', it is you; your eye is not 'your eye', it is you.

 

Your breath is not 'your breath', it is you; your food, your water, your shoes, your home, your family, your planet, are all you too.

 

How could they not be?

 

I feel you are confusing what you possess, what you own, what you identify with, and who you are (as a being). One can 'have' an apartment they call 'theirs'. That does not mean you possess it, or own it, it only means you are using it, perhaps having exclusive use of it. The same could apply to your body. Did you actually make that body? Or perhaps negotiate ownership? Or are you simply using it for now?

 

So, when you buy (or make) a pen it becomes 'yours'. Do you then become in part a pen? One might argue that you are now a pen owner (not in part a pen). The situation is the same for your body.

 

The issue of identity is harder to clarify. Identity is arbitrary and entirely under your control. You CAN think or perceive of 'yourself' as anything you want. In fact for the mostly realized choice of identity has some very real consequences in your experience (as does disbanding identity). However, your identity is your concept about who you are, not who you are. Yes it greatly affects how you perceive things and how you act in the world/reality. It does not however establish your inner nature. In other words, identity does not override the qualities that make up who you are. For example are you generous because you identify with a body or because that is the nature of your essence?

[Prasanna]

Yes.

 

I am not my body, my body is me.

 

A cat is not a tiger, a tiger is a cat.

 

 

'Tat Tvam Asi.'

 

I maintain that all my body parts are (part of) me. (However, hair or a piece of finger nail that has been cut off is no longer me.)

 

 

When my mind is excited, my breathing gets accelerated and my heartbeat goes faster.

 

Vice versa, perceptions and substances that are received by my body will be reacted to by my mind.

 

The two are not-two.

 

The scriptures say that this individual existence itself is false, only God or Supreme Self within is the truth and that alone exists. Everything else is our interpretation of the world by our material layers.  

[Michael Sternbach]

The scriptures say that this individual existence itself is false, only God or Supreme Self within is the truth and that alone exists. Everything else is our interpretation of the world by our material layers.

 

I take it you are talking about Brahman (God), which is Atman (Supreme Self) in the Hindu system?

 

If everything else does not exist but an interpretation, what is it that we are interpreting? And who is the interpreter?

[cold]

If I'm not me who am I ?

[Michael Sternbach]

If I'm not me who am I ?

You may be you. (Or you may be me.)

[thelerner]

If I'm not me who am I ?

and if I'm only me,

then what am I?

[cold]

I'm not sure, but I think the total is greater than the parts

[Michael Sternbach]

and if I'm only me,

then what am I?

https://youtu.be/E0g4GAN54og

[Jonesboy]

Your body, just like thoughts are energy..

 

It is all you

[silent thunder]

for me, recently it's not... if I'm not me who am I?  or even who am i? 

 

it's... at what point am I not me and you are you?

 

at which point in the space between us, do I stop and you start?

 

is there a line of demarcation?  is this the infamous spiral line of the yin yang?

 

i sometimes suspect i am that line and that i am you so you also are that line

as are the 10,000...

 

and none of it is static or solid, not one solid form anywhere

all full of space that dances with vibration

 

it is all flow, flow from form to form within space.

form flowing in space while space is infused in the very core of the non solid and vibratory pattern that lends to the experience of the form

[Jonesboy]

I tend to think of it more that there is one essence that we all experience uniquely.

[Andrei]

You are your mind and your consciousness, but these two wouldn't exist without a brain. As soon as your brain dies, your mind and consciousness cease to exist. The only purpose of the body is to feed with fuel the brain. That's why you have organs. Your consciousness can exist without body parts that are not vital but cannot exist without vital organs. If just one of your vital organs fails, your whole life including mind and consciousness cease to exist. Just that simple.

 

If you think your consciousness exist without a body because you can dream or you can have visions, think deeper. You wouldn't dream anything without your body being functional. There are not such things as spirits, ghosts, angels, demons, immortals... they are all fantasies of the mind, they are illusions of the brain.

[Jonesboy]

You are your mind and your consciousness, but these two wouldn't exist without a brain. As soon as your brain dies, your mind and consciousness cease to exist. The only purpose of the body is to feed with fuel the brain. That's why you have organs. Your consciousness can exist without body parts that are not vital but cannot exist without vital organs. If just one of your vital organs fails, your whole life including mind and consciousness cease to exist. Just that simple.

 

If you think your consciousness exist without a body because you can dream or you can have visions, think deeper. You wouldn't dream anything without your body being functional. There are not such things as spirits, ghosts, angels, demons, immortals... they are all fantasies of the mind, they are illusions of the brain.

Where in the brain are you then?

 

I have seen people with no left brain working.. no right brain working, no medulla oblongata working..

 

Where are you in your brain if you are not any of those parts of the brain?

 

I would also disagree with you on immortals and the like...

[Andrei]

The brain works holographically. You can take any parts of the brain and still can function but if you take the most important parts like the mid brain or cerebellum it just cease to function, sooner or later.

 

Edited May 1, 2017 by Andrei

[Jonesboy]

This woman is living without a cerebellum. How is that possible?

 

https://www.vox.com/xpress/2014/9/12/6136647/cerebellum-missing-brain-woman-explained-hemispherectomy

 

I guess we are not there either...

Edited May 1, 2017 by Jonesboy

[Michael Sternbach]

There are other cases of people living relatively normal lives with most of their brain missing. This is evidence (if not proof) that the mind is more than a function of the brain.

 

http://www.iflscience.com/brain/man-tiny-brain-lived-normal-life/

 

According to esoteric theory, the brain and other nerve centres are interfaces to the non-physical parts of a human being. These are known as subtle bodies and described in many traditions.

Edited May 1, 2017 by Michael Sternbach