Body & Spirit

I had a conversation with a friend of mine yesterday. He is deeply involved with the Waking Down world, and I am very curious about it - and want to have some of my own prejudices about it cleared up, so we talked about various aspects of it.

One was the sense of paradox of being body and Spirit at the same time, which he said happens for everyone (?) who goes through the second birth.

In my own immediate experience, I honestly cannot find anywhere where it appears as a paradox... In my initial awakening, it was so abundantly clear that God, Existence, Spirit goes beyond and includes all polarities - including existence and nonexistence, seer and seen (although that was a subtle duality left in my own experience), creator and creation, nature and culture, natural and human processes, and yes - body and Spirit.

As somebody said, the body is that part of the Spirit that we happen to be able to see and touch. When I read that, I remember experiencing a great relief because it captured exactly what was so clear in my own experience. This very body, these cells exactly as they are, is Spirit. It can really not be any other way.

At the same time, I can of course see how it can be perceived as a paradox if we awaken to that particular aspect of ourselves and we are used to a more dualistic (split, fragmented) view. Then, of course, it may be experienced as a paradox - for a while until we get more used to it.

Still, I am not able to contact that in my own immediate experience... And this reflects a certain one-sidedness. A certain stuckness.

I find that trying to express my immediate experiences of it - here and now - is just about impossible. I am not skilled enough with the words (and words split where what is goes beyond all splits).

Right now, there is clear space which somehow is also knowing. It is distinct from the world of phenomena and any characteristics I can put on it, yet it perfectly receives and mirrors whatever happens in the world of phenomena. It is distinct from, yet it also is the world of phenomena. It is formless and also form. It is not different from the physical body and the rest of the physical world, yet it is more than and different from.

My body is as it is, with cells and everything, and all this - exactly as it is, is also this which is beyond and includes any and all polarities. It is space & awareness, and it is matter and energies and everything else, seamlessly.

It is space-awareness-body, just as it is, beyond any effort and no effort.

Another way to say it is that there is a sense of intimacy and richness of the body, a fluid seamless sensual whole of being flesh, awareness and space.

This is an example of one of the problems with words, especially when used unskillfully: a very, very simple experience - of what is, as it is beyond and including any polarities - is made to sound complicated and special.