Our human body is a temporary location

Thought for the week

Our human body is a temporary location it is not a permanent residence. It will die at some point and we will leave it. This may be a fearful concept for some of us but it is a fact of life. Our body will normally last between fifty to a hundred years, depending on where we live, our nutrition, our health and our environment.
If the thoughts of death and dying are uncomfortable for us, we are probably misinformed about our true existence, who we really are and why we have a body. There are a few points to consider:
Our body is a vehicle which we occupy
We are more than just our body
We will continue our existence after our body dies.

Our human body is a vehicle we are occupying
Our human body is like a vehicle we drive around our world to do the things we need to do. Using our body we are able to interact with other Souls and elements in this physical world. We are able to try out things, make our own decisions and reap the rewards, good and bad. Using our body to get around our physical world allows to learn a lot about ourselves, other people, our environment and the way things work here.

While we are the main driver of our body we are not in full control of it. There are lots of functions our human body does automatically. For example:
Our heart beats automatically. We are not consciously telling our hearts to beat every second or so.
We breath automatically. We don't have to be conscious of every breath we take, expanding and contracting our lungs consciously.
Our body automatically protects itself. If we are cut or hurt, our body reacts immediately and pulls away from the source of the pain.
When we do cut ourselves we don't have to go about sticking the skin together again. For minor wounds it automatically begins to heal by clotting the blood, creating new cells to repair the broken skin, and over time replaces the cut with new repaired skin.
There are lots more aspects of our bodies which are automatic such as, movement, our nervous system, eating and the processing of food, etc.
It is one of the marvels of life that we have such a useful and complex body for our use.

Birth is a miracle
The birth of a child is a miracle, it is the moment Soul enters a new human body and begins its life in these worlds. We have this idea that once we are born we here permanently but we are actually coming and going from our body on a regular basis. For example, when we daydream, we wander off into a wonderland leaving our body to sit or rest while we get involved in our daydream. These daydreams are usually forgotten almost immediately when we wake up or come back to our bodies.

We leave it again at night so it can recuperate and rest while we continue our activities in our inner worlds. We generally do not commit our inner actions and dreams to our outer memory. We just don't have the capacity to handle all the things we do during our dreams. However if we can set up a system where we do remember the important dreams, the ones that have a bearing on our outer life, we can then begin to get benefits from the wisdom we receive in our dreams.
Daydreams and dreams are just two ways we leave our human body on a regular basis, we just don't think of them like that.

We forget our inner worlds
We loose our connection with our inner worlds once we get beyond the age of seven or eight. We now focus on our outer life and surviving here in the physical world. We forget our connection with the inner worlds. With our focus totally on our outer world it is no wonder that we begin to believe that there is nothing beyond this world. When our focus remains solely on our outer world we then become fearful of the time when the body dies as we have forgotten that we are temporarily occupying this vehicle called our human body. This is one of the things we are here to learn but our physical world continues to convince us that there is no reality beyond this world. Our challenge is to remember and reconnect with our inner worlds.

Our attachment to the things
One of the things that prevents us from realising this is our attachment to the things in our outer life. Our focus is on things in the outer physical world. One of the things a lot of us get attached to is how we looked when we were younger. Once we get into our thirties and beyond we are often disappointed by our outer appearance. Our body keeps changing all the time. We only notice it when we see a photo of ourselves from a few years ago. We forget the fact that we are only here for a short time.

When we get used to the idea that we are occupying our body we then realise that there is more to us than the human body. We really are a point of attention or Soul. When we place our attention on something in a different location we travel there in our imagination. We let the body run on automatic while we pay attention to the scene taking place in our imagination.

If we progress this concept a bit further, to the point where our human body dies, we can see that we move our attention to the place where we go when we dream. When our body dies we leave it and move into our inner dream worlds. It is a natural process, just like going to sleep and dreaming.

How to reconnect with Soul 
One of the reasons we look at life as the the only reality is that we are constantly focused on the outer life. To be able to see our inner life we have to spend time focusing on our inner worlds. One of the easiest ways of doing this is to spend ten to twenty minutes a day in contemplation while singing the HU song. It's a simple exercise but very effective in opening ourselves to the happier, lighter and creative worlds within us.

To sing the HU song, get into a comfortable position with our back straight. It should be a time and place where we won’t be disturbed. Take a few deep breaths to relax. Then, with our eyes closed, begin to chant HU on our outgoing breath. It is pronounced like, hue or the name Hugh and as hu in human, We can take a rest from chanting whenever it is comfortable for us.

As we do this contemplation exercise, ideas, thoughts, concepts, situations and things happening in our lives may cross our mind. Just observe them. If we get an insight into solving a problem, it is a good idea to take a note of it in a notebook or journal.

Points to remember
In conclusion, here are a few points to remember:
We moved in to our human body just as we were born and we'll move out when it dies.
We are moving in and out of our body when we dream and daydream
Everything keeps changing, try not get attached to things in our outer world.
Spend some time focused on our inner world in contemplation or meditation.

Wishing you an insightful inner and outer life.

*Ed Parkinson

If you'd like to inform your human body about other inner in aspects, click here to go to the Spiritual Writings page.