The Predominant Split
The predominant split and therefore assault on our wholeness in western culture is the head-body split, the divorce of the mind from the body, the intellect from the physical. This deep rupture in the human soul has a long and painful history and is still unfolding, though it is long overdue for healing.
It originates in the prevailing religious notion of ascent. Heaven is above us, Nirvana is too, we will be saved in the future in the afterlife, which again is symbolically above. If we can only raise ourselves above the events and circumstances of this world, figuratively away from the human, the physical, and the sexual, we are somehow more superior, more pure and closer to God.
This religious conviction and dogma was revitalized in the 17th century by Descartes, the father of modern philosophy. So we have a powerful religious and philosophical basis for delusion. Heaven, God, and so on are no more up in the sky than they are down in the earth. But the idea that they are has enmeshed humanity in a dynamic of attraction and aversion to the natural world, whether that be plants and animals and nature, their physical bodies, sensuality, and sex, or animalistic sensibilities, instinct, and by extension intuition and clairvoyance.
Our soul is concerned with this relationship to the natural world of conscious life. Our spirit however is timeless, beyond this physical plain, deathless, and ultimately self-sourcing. The mind-body split of age-old dualism is a flawed explanation of our involvement as human beings in space and time. As spiritual beings we are prior to space and time.
Excerpt from SAT Online Training, Level 1 lecture manuscript
https://www.centerforhumanawakening.com/SAT-Online-Training-Is-It-For-You.html
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8 年The ‘mind-body split’ is such an interesting area for exploration. Thank you, Richard Harvey, for bringing it up in your article “The Predominant Split.” I am certainly familiar with the idea and belief that my mind is separate from my body. We think our body acts on its own. We think our body sees, hears, smells, tastes, and touches. But the body does nothing, in and of itself. It is the mind that sees, hears, smells, tastes, and touches, and manifests this projection through the body. Like an automobile, the body is the chassis, the mind is the engine. Without the engine (i.e., the mind), the body can do nothing but simply sit there. The prevailing notion that Heaven or God is outside of us—or more aptly—above us, is an equally fascinating and prevailing thought system. This ties into other writings by Richard Harvey whereby humanity, in its orality, has become attached to the idea of the ‘father figure’ through the deitising and anthropomorphizing of ‘God the Father’ and ‘Father Christmas.’ We may seek out these male, father figures to compensate for our perceived lack of such figures early in our lives. And this idea that Heaven is something outside of us, or somewhere we arrive at, after a long life of devotion, is fraught with all sorts of imagery and dogma. I have recently written about this idea of Heaven and shared that Heaven is not a place I arrive at, but simply a place I am. In that way, the biblical teachings from The Lord’s Prayer are brought to life through the beautiful verse “…on earth as it is in heaven.” The possibility of a unification of the idea of heaven existing wherever we are is shared in the non-dualistic teaching A Course in Miracles with the following passage: “"Heaven and earth shall pass away" means that they will not continue to exist as separate states.” (ACIM T-1.III.2.1) I wish I could say I know for certain that I am not a body. What I do know is that I have had experiences in my lifetime here on earth that have shown me that I can transcend traditional thoughts about the body and its limits. These experiences have given me a glimpse of other possibilities for the relationship and connection between the mind and body.