Author Topic: Do you have a body? Seriously... let's explore that....  (Read 4304 times)

Jed McKenna

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Do you have a body? Seriously... let's explore that....
« on: June 26, 2020, 10:33:49 am »
Dear Reader:

I ask that you contemplate the following... not that that it will lead to some giant realization (but it might), perhaps just an open space that is new to you. You will find what you will find.

So, a simple question (usually the best kind).... do you have a body? We language it as ''I have a body'' not, ''I am a body''. That in itself is interesting, but let's go deeper. How do you know you have a body? Stupid question ??? ??? ??? ???, maybe, but give it a little thought. Beyond, ''Hey doodoo, it's obvious!'', I would like to point something out.

The only reason you know your have a body, more accurately, 'think' you have a body, is because your body tells you so. Imagine a bank robber in court giving testimony. When asked, ''Did you rob the bank?'' he replies ''No''. I'm not quite sure what word describes this, but I am going to call it SRV or 'self-referential validation'.  Is the judge and jury, assuming for present purposes that's all the evidence submitted, going to dismiss the case or find him innocent because of his SRV?  It seems to me that such evidence would not go very far in proving anything at all.

Back to what appears to be 'your' body. You might respond with, ''I can feel my body'' or ''I can look at my body'', or ''I can hear my body and even lick my arm and taste the sweat.'' Does that prove anything, really? Is it not just a sensory experience, and one that is generated by a ''body'' or what appears to be a body? This is the same as the bank robber claiming his own innocent... SRV.

If you ask someone, ''Do I have a body'' they are going to say something like, ''Of course, I am looking at it right now''. And you know they are saying it because YOUR body tells you so, it hears hears them speak. Perhaps you look in a mirror and see a reflection of a body, and naturally conclude, ''This is my body''. Once again, how do you know?  :P :P :P. Isn't it your bodies eyes and a brain process that informs you there is a body.

Please contemplate this; the only reason that you think you have a body is because a body tells you so, via various bodily senses. Perhaps re-read up to this point and contemplate if my meanderings are real for you. All that matters is you and your experiences... and in my experience all those come through a body. You perceive your hates, loves, fears, blessing, absolutely everything through your (or 'a') body. Let that sink in before we tackle the next point.

Out on a limb and pushing the limits... I ask you to imagine where everything you appear to currently experience goes when there is no body. Sounds pretty challenging. Is it impossible? Well, perhaps, but isn't that what imagination if for, to create, embrace, to somehow vicariously experience the (apparently) impossible. In 'infinity' nothing is impossible... absolutely nothing. Play with it and you will find you can make headway.

Contemplate, imagine, experience and let me know what comes up for you.

Much love and stay healthy.

Love ya, Jed.



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Guy Ponders

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Wow, thank you. I needed that.

Jed McKenna

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Hi Guy:

Welcome to the forum.  Yes, it's not something that a 'Guy' usually 'ponders'. Glad to be of service.

Love ya and stay healthy.

Jed.

Neverx2x2

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What comes up is something I've called 'Reverse Solipsism'.

I've experienced it as a kind of acute feeling that I was a point upon which pressure was expressed... as if 'accused' into being. I've had it since I attended a family reunion for my grandmother's funeral. I started to realize that all of my relations around me were running very similar thought patterns as 'my own'... as if there were a genetic or bio-linguistic entity at work on all of us. What I realized was that my relationship with my body far extends from what I knew it to be... all that familial language showed it to me... and that my body was 'accusing' a 'point', or 'an imaginary me' into existence. Moreover, it was not just my body that does this 'accusing'... but rather, all of Infinity.

This then became my response to Alan Watt's talk about putting a bunch of solipsists in a room... and letting them argue about who is the 'real' person. It still is my response today... "Try the same trick with 'reverse solipsists', and see if they argue about who is not real."

Moreover, reverse solipsism dove-tails right into the perception of 'Having a body'... it allows it.  If I am accused or scripted by infinity, and a layer of that scripting is 'my body', then that perception of 'having a body' is part of the accusation.

Or, use the common argument having to do with masks today. You can know that you aren't real, and still run the script that declares, "It's my body, you won't be putting a mask on it."  ...because reverse solipsism makes sense of it by putting Infiinity's accusation as the ultimate cause for your resistance. In other words the Reverse Solipsist in Alan Watt's arguing room, would act like anybody else. They might even argue or fight about mask-wearing and social distancing... knowing that it/they is/are not real the whole time.
« Last Edit: June 26, 2020, 05:47:40 pm by Neverx2x2 »
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Jed McKenna

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Interesting way of viewing it Never... AKA, Mr. Who by Who.

Love ya and stay healthy.

Jed.

Iam that Iam

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Hi Jed,  interesting subject. I asked the question once who am I and the mind very Lauder replied the body.No matter how hard I Try to feel or think  different the mind always win leaving me with more an more frustration and depression. The body can't move, think  or do something without  will.BUT and is a big but  who's will?? Is like something hacked the self . Is there  other way to  self realization?  I don't think so. I ???t  is what it is and we have to play by the rules till the time come and whatever is playing here decided to show self realization either by will or death. That's my thoughts. 
 

Be well.

Jed McKenna

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Thanks for sharing. Let me ask you a question... does will have to belong to someone? Why would it have to belong, perhaps it just is.

All that matters is you and what is going on with you... but you have to look and the strange thing is you don't usually find you until you realize there is no you.

Love ya and stay healthy.

Jed.
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Death_by_SallyD

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A couple days of lazy, slip-shod, intermittent, fraudulent and inconstant research on the existence of.....my left arm. 

Conclusions:  My left arm appears to exist.....HOWEVER....the certainty that it exists seems to be galvanized in the context of taking it for granted.  i.e. only the slimmest of slivers of awareness of vague sensations associated with tactile information....and the occasional vague perception of it flickering in and out of view in my peripheral visual perception....somehow lends to the assumption/certainty that it exists.  That certainty, ironically and paradoxically, falters and erodes/dissolves the more sustained focus of awareness is levied upon the previously seemingly incontrovertible "evidence" of its existence....namely those perceptual signatures.  Focused awareness sees my tactile perception of my left arm turn into a puff of vaguely contained, slowly-morphing-to-amorphousness cloud of vibration.  Focused awareness on visual perception of my left arm has it sense of visual solidity slowly thin, change/shift, become progressively translucent...i.e. begin to dissolve before my very eyes.  After a modicum of focused awareness...."my left arm" is no longer a left arm anymore.  I don't know what it is, honestly.

Thus.....extrapolating the trajectory forward (or sideward, downward, upward, backward......inward) the truth of my left arm's nonexistence (at least in terms of something which can be categorized) lies in the inevitability of persistence of awareness of the transitory sensations associated with its presumed existence.

Persistent self inquiry "What am I?" helps mercilessly and persistently redirect that dissolving awareness on the presumed substance of certainty of bodily existence......is my guess.  For those who have the huevos....and character of inner ruthlessness.  Go get 'em!

Krill

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Hi Jed,

Thank you for this.
Awareness is informed, or aware, of a body. 
Where does everything I currently experience go when there is no body? It's not that it wouldn't go anywhere, it's that it would not arise in the way it does through the body.
There seems to be different types of experience; dream, astral travel, jhana yoga, drug induced.  All of these have arisen but I can not prove they have needed the body to do so. I can only say the body seems to be there before and after sleep or prior to and after deep meditation.  Perception then reverts back to the more familiar presentation.
I've often thought/sensed there is another 'sense organ' because of this. It feels 'correct' and even pretty obvious now that the body's sensory system, interpreted by the mind, creates, or forms, experience. It seems equally correct that this particular way of experience will no longer be accessible after the body is gone.
AND, it feels equally correct, though not quite as obvious yet, that some type of perception/awareness remains. This would be the other sense organ I was referring to above.
So, in a nutshell, awareness is informed of both the body and it's particular way of perception/experience but is not exclusively tied to this type of experience. Meaning it is also aware of other types of experience that I can not prove need or are dependent on a body.

I will keep chewing on this however. Thanks for the challenge!
« Last Edit: June 28, 2020, 04:02:09 pm by Krill »

Jed McKenna

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Thank you both for you clear expressions... keep digging... and stay healthy.

Love ya, Jed

Krill

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Dammit it, Jed! That is not helpful!!   :)

But, love ya anyway!

Jed McKenna

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I would suggest that your confusion is much closer to realization than you give it credit. Almost always, anything you 'understand' is something you have found the right box or cubicle to place it in. Then you can ignore that one and get on with fitting something else into an imaginary box. All of those 'fitting in's are you arranging your stories in a slightly different way in order to feel comfortable... for a while. You might be thinking that a thought about another thought will result in a non-thought (peace, enlightenment, realization, etc.). It's very easy to lose track of the fact that a story about a story will always be just a story.

There is no sin/crime, etc. in the forgoing... but I would (per usual) suggest that you bring as much awareness as possible to what you do.

Love ya, and stay well.

Jed

Jenci

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Based on past experiences I imagine I walk into a room. All I can see is the wall in front of me. The room is silent. I can't smell anything. I can't sense anything on skin, except the ground at my feet and I can't taste anything. All five senses are telling me the room is empty. My mind briefly registers this and then is occupied with story about what I have been doing.

Then I get a sense I am not alone in the room. Mind and body get uneasy and investigate and I find that someone is there, in the shadows hidden from my original viewpoint.

How did I know someone was there?
My senses didn't tell me.
What about my mind? I was thinking about something else.
Where did the feedback come from?
If it was the mind, say sub-conscious, surely signals from the body/senses would have to be involved somehow but they weren't.

It seems there is some awareness which is giving feedback to the body rather than the other way around, in this instance. Where is that awareness? There's no medical diagram showing its location. It goes beyond the outside edges of my body. I'm just thinking if this line of enquiry is the opposite or the same as where do I go in deep sleep.

Jenci

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Where am I in deep sleep?

My body does not give me any feedback in deep sleep but it still seems to be functioning. But is it? How can I be sure? Does it disappear when I am not conscious. Do I disappear?

Am I my body? My suggest belonging to. That would suggest two. If there was just one, surely it would not be my body, it would just be Me.

Are my feet Me? I've never lost my feet but I can't imagine someone who does, stops saying they are Me. I've had bits cut out in surgery and I didn't wake up being less Me than when I had the bits. I don't lose Me when my hair gets cut. I say it is mine because it belongs to Me.

So what is Me? The body parts don't contain any Me but for some reason when they are all together I call them Me. Why? I'm like the bank robber claiming he is innocent.

This body cannot be Me. So therefore I Am not the body. So what am I?

I don't know the body in deep sleep and I don't know that i Am in deep sleep. But there is something aware of the coming and going of deep sleep? Now that makes three.

So if there is no body to experience and no mind to even think that I AM, by process of elimination then the only thing left is that third element that witnessed the coming and going of both of them. 

Thinking about it like this, that seems really obvious. It does beg the question why I go around believing that I am the body.....

Jenci

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What comes and goes cannot be real.

Both the body and I Am come and go in deep sleep. The I Am is dependent on the body to exist. They both arise and disappear together. So what about soul journeys and reincarantions? What is irrefutable is that the body disappears at death and the I Am disappears during deep sleep. In deep sleep, I do not even know that , Process of elimination, if both disappear then neither are real.

What comes and goes cannot be real.

The body is not real.

The I Am is not real.

Only what remains is real.