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lalow33
USA
966 Posts |
 Posted - Aug 18 2015 : 09:59:00 AM
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I have heard this phrase, " I am not the body", many times from Yoga teachers and various religious figures. It always felt wrong when I heard it. The longer I practice Yoga, the more I feel like I am the body and the split apartness is the problem. Feel free to disagree with me. |
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Charliedog
1625 Posts |
Posted - Aug 18 2015 : 10:09:08 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by lalow33
I have heard this phrase, " I am not the body", many times from Yoga teachers and various religious figures. It always felt wrong when I heard it. The longer I practice Yoga, the more I feel like I am the body and the split apartness is the problem. Feel free to disagree with me.
And what do you mean by split apartness, apartness from what? |
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Ecdyonurus
Switzerland
479 Posts |
Posted - Aug 18 2015 : 10:47:46 AM
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Hi Lalow, agree with you about the body. I would even say that yoga revealed my body to me, after 40 years if disconnection between me and my own body.
Put in another way: if yoga means "union", how could yoga create a separation between me and my body? Or even between me and anything. |
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Bodhi Tree
2972 Posts |
Posted - Aug 18 2015 : 10:50:20 AM
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I am the body, and not the body. I am the mind, and not the mind.
Nestled in between, encompassing all angles, beyond all angles, I find myself. I am where I need to be, want to be, have to be. In short, I am.
Non-identification is not anti-identification. Falling back upon the witness does not have to include disconnecting from what is witnessed (though certain teachers spin it that way).
I applaud your identification with the body. I, too, see my body as an extension of myself, and therefore part of me, but perhaps not wholly me. |
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Charliedog
1625 Posts |
Posted - Aug 18 2015 : 11:33:07 AM
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I can not say I am the body, I have a body.
Edit: I will not try to explain, but I am in and outside the body at the same time. Not that that is constantly the experience during daily life, but it becomes easier to experience during practice.
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Edited by - Charliedog on Aug 18 2015 1:20:08 PM |
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BlueRaincoat
United Kingdom
1730 Posts |
Posted - Aug 18 2015 : 12:38:52 PM
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Hi lalow, I couldn't disagree.
It seems to me the body is like a portal - you go in deep before you go out. The way out is through.
It is rather counter-intuitive (stands for you have to experience it to believe it, I guess) - the more I anchor myself in the body the more I feel one with everything, so the more I feel 'I am not this body'. A bit circular but there it is.  |
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Dogboy
USA
2195 Posts |
Posted - Aug 18 2015 : 1:03:30 PM
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This is my kind of topic!
I'm 5'8" on a good day, a sprinter way back in high school that gave me legs like crab apple tree trunks. Forward folds and most floor poses are the bane of my being; you'd think ten years worth of asanas would have loosened something. I'm a Ken doll on top and GI Joe on the bottom; I can swivel at the waist  .
AYP practice led me to recognize how disconnected I'd become from my legs. To get requainted, I gave myself the 5 Minute Intention: devote five minutes daily to folding forward, or two songs on Pandora, to be with them, how do they look, feel, smell. I learned to better employ my bandhas, that I'm sweetly sensitive in my knee crease, that my shins need daily lotion, that my feet are a beautiful expression of how far I've tread. Now that I have active kundalini, I easily spark arousal which, of course, fills me with love all the more. And yes, I have loosened my hamstrings somewhat over the course of five months, enough to know my devotion is paying dividends. That gash at my midsection is healing over
As Bodhi suggests, we are the body, less and more. The whole point of practice is preparing the body so we go beyond. |
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sunyata
USA
1506 Posts |
Posted - Aug 18 2015 : 1:29:55 PM
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Hi Lalow,
I am this body and more. The "more" part I'm discovering everyday.
Five years ago I went through emptiness for months to a year (can't remember exactly how long). The mind was silent and great. But nothing compared to being in the body. Silence and bliss in transcendence but ecstasy is felt in the body. It's only when we embrace the body we come full circle in life.
Sunyata |
Edited by - sunyata on Aug 18 2015 2:23:17 PM |
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lalow33
USA
966 Posts |
Posted - Aug 19 2015 : 10:41:50 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Charliedog
quote:
Originally posted by lalow33
I have heard this phrase, " I am not the body", many times from Yoga teachers and various religious figures. It always felt wrong when I heard it. The longer I practice Yoga, the more I feel like I am the body and the split apartness is the problem. Feel free to disagree with me.
And what do you mean by split apartness, apartness from what?
Good question. I don't really know. Just felt like I was divided into different parts.
I'm not sure that I was ever my body. Sure I had reactions to things that happened. With Yoga, I was watching the body and had fewer and fewer reactions. Now, I feel like I am my body. It was simple, subtle but what a relief! From my perspective right now, it is so natural to be a body. I've had lots of out of body experiences; I've been shooting prana, astral traveler, even a tree! I've witnessed myself across from myself.
So now I'm a body, too. I didn't expect this. I'm surprised anyone agreed with me. |
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lalow33
USA
966 Posts |
Posted - Aug 19 2015 : 10:50:34 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Ecdyonurus
Hi Lalow, agree with you about the body. I would even say that yoga revealed my body to me, after 40 years if disconnection between me and my own body.
Put in another way: if yoga means "union", how could yoga create a separation between me and my body? Or even between me and anything.
I teared up reading this post. I know what you mean. I think you get what I'm saying. |
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Beehive
USA
117 Posts |
Posted - Aug 19 2015 : 10:59:10 AM
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| This thread fits equally well in the illuminated poetry for me |
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Charliedog
1625 Posts |
Posted - Aug 19 2015 : 11:09:19 AM
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Hi lalow,
quote:
Good question. I don't really know. Just felt like I was divided into different parts.
Good to hear that your are experience yourself as a body.
But if you say that there is a split apartness there has to be more? Or is this gone at this moment?
English is not my native language and if I say I am my body, it feels not good, as if I am only that body. If I say I have a body that means that I am more then the body.
Funny is that in all these posts, I read with my Dutch eye that you also all saying my body, so that means in my reading as Dutch that you all say I have a body....
So I do not know if we mean the same...I like posts like this !
I experience myself in this body, grounded, stable, but at the same time as I am practicing, I feel myself at the same moment grounded in the body, but also without boundaries.
I am always connected can grow or shrink but always, always grounded.
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Edited by - Charliedog on Aug 19 2015 12:22:19 PM |
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Charliedog
1625 Posts |
Posted - Aug 19 2015 : 11:32:15 AM
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Before yoga came into my life, I had neck and shoulder problems, there was a physiotherapist who gave me therapy and said to me, you are really so disconnected from your body, he showed me a human skeleton, explained, did all to make me aware.....It was such a deep shock for me that after that, I went on this yoga journey. Forever I am grateful to him. |
Edited by - Charliedog on Aug 19 2015 11:48:09 AM |
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lalow33
USA
966 Posts |
Posted - Aug 19 2015 : 11:47:29 AM
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Hi Chaliedog,
I'll try to explain. Example: I used to watch myself vibrate ( I can feel energy). Sometimes it was with attachment, sometimes not. Now, I am vibrating. I feel more alive! It's subtle. Maybe it can be grounding in the body. I don't know. I feel like I'm the body.
I still feel a split with the mind. I'm not really working on it. Just doing my practices. |
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Charliedog
1625 Posts |
Posted - Aug 19 2015 : 12:18:11 PM
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| Practice, experience, and enjoy ! |
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parvati9
USA
587 Posts |
Posted - Aug 21 2015 : 3:47:13 PM
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For me it has been quite important to realize "I am not the body".
However, it is possibly just as important to realize what a magnificent gift the body can be, when we truly appreciate it and use it as one of our best resources on the spiritual path. It is a temple for the divine, and is not separate from the divine, but the divine does not consist of the body alone. So we need to honor the body for what it is, and no more. We needn't identify our "Self" with the body.
love
parvati |
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lalow33
USA
966 Posts |
Posted - Aug 30 2015 : 7:19:06 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by parvati9
For me it has been quite important to realize "I am not the body".
However, it is possibly just as important to realize what a magnificent gift the body can be, when we truly appreciate it and use it as one of our best resources on the spiritual path. It is a temple for the divine, and is not separate from the divine, but the divine does not consist of the body alone. So we need to honor the body for what it is, and no more. We needn't identify our "Self" with the body.
love
parvati
I understand what you are saying and appreciate your point of view. I'm not great at explaining things. I don't feel like the body is a temple. I just feel like I am the body. It's simple and amazing at the same time. It is backwards from most things I've read, but that's what is happening. I didn't expect it. It's almost anti-spiritual. I know that attachment is "bad". Why do I feel so much better?
I don't feel like I have layers or koshas or anything like that. Just am one whole body. I don't have blocks. It's just me being tight. . What a relief!!!!!
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jonesboy
USA
594 Posts |
Posted - Aug 30 2015 : 9:07:27 PM
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Put your awareness in your body.
Bring up an emotional upset.
Feel the energy feeling of that upset in your body. In your heart.
Residing with that feeling will help integrate those attachments and bring one to the present moment.
When you talk to people but your awareness in your body and feel the emotions as they come Ian's go within your body.
It is all energy. This is a powerful method of experience ecstatic energy and realizing that everything is within us. |
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lalow33
USA
966 Posts |
Posted - Aug 30 2015 : 9:27:18 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by jonesboy
Put your awareness in your body.
Right now I don't feel a separation of awareness and body. I can't put my awareness in my body, if that makes any sense. It's hard to describe. |
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jonesboy
USA
594 Posts |
Posted - Aug 31 2015 : 12:18:34 AM
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Can you feel your right big toe? Can you relax your feet, calves, then your thighs and then everything below your waist.
If so you just did it.
Every thought has an energetic feel to it. The energy feels a certain way. Disappointment, feeling lonely all have a feel to them. It is this energetic feeling that our mind uses to create mind stories.
Learning to reside in that energy stops the mind stories and helps one to become present.
It is a powerful technique by Michael brown of the presence process.
When you get this down you will understand what it means to not be this body. Or what your body really is.
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lalow33
USA
966 Posts |
Posted - Aug 31 2015 : 10:37:38 AM
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| Oh I've done the Presence Process more than once. I know that feelings start to loose their labels, and you are just vibrating in different ways. In the similar manner, feeling like a whole body instead of any type of division, the verbiage starts to not make much sense. I understand on a mental level from previous experience, but with the experience now, I just won't be able to agree. |
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jonesboy
USA
594 Posts |
Posted - Aug 31 2015 : 12:54:55 PM
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What is it that you don't agree with?
What is it that you are not able to experience?
Also I have found that experiences come and go like the tide. Somedays are better than others :) |
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parvati9
USA
587 Posts |
Posted - Nov 25 2015 : 09:46:30 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by lalow33
Oh I've done the Presence Process more than once. I know that feelings start to loose their labels, and you are just vibrating in different ways. In the similar manner, feeling like a whole body instead of any type of division, the verbiage starts to not make much sense. I understand on a mental level from previous experience, but with the experience now, I just won't be able to agree.
Hi Lalow
Your perspective is very interesting, but a little confusing. Is it possible you could expand on the above, or share your experience with TPP (perhaps in the thread on TPP)?
love
parvati |
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lionw343
United Kingdom
3 Posts |
Posted - Feb 18 2016 : 09:14:50 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by lalow33
I have heard this phrase, " I am not the body", many times from Yoga teachers and various religious figures. It always felt wrong when I heard it. The longer I practice Yoga, the more I feel like I am the body and the split apartness is the problem. Feel free to disagree with me.
I am not the body comes from buddhist religion, therefore, they can sit and meditate for hours. Also, they believe that they don't need much food and that in this life we don't need any "physical pleasure" because it is not necessary |
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jonesboy
USA
594 Posts |
Posted - Feb 18 2016 : 10:10:48 AM
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It has more to do with we are awareness. When you realize oneness you are one with that. All form is empty. The form is just that and you can be that.
Prana is like that. We first notice the energy inside of us. Then we notice the ecstatic nature of the energy. Then we notice that we are that energy, one can focus on a leg and feel that it is just energy. The same with a plant or a dog or any "Thing".
That is what Ramana calls Kundalini which is really universal consciousness. We are that, not just awareness within this body. |
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Kentox
India
61 Posts |
Posted - Sep 13 2017 : 4:46:45 PM
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that just means your a karma yogi material. Do work with all your dedication and feeling and you'll see the effects.
you are merely body dominant, When you actually start working hard you'll have to utilize help of mind, heart and perhaps will. Only then one realizes the true power and joy within in the union of all those |
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I Am Not this Body
