The body is your temple (how to put it into practice)

The body makes all of life’s experiences big and small possible, from eating to working to playing to loving. But it is also subject to disease, pain, aging, and ultimately death.

The rejection of the body in the Western Christian religious tradition is well known, but it has also occurred in the East. Hindu Brahminism shares the vision of Christian asceticism when it dismisses the body as unreal or as a dense burden to be freed from. Some Buddhist texts define it as a source of suffering, and similar qualifiers can be found in Judaism and Islam.

The body can be an ally of inner growth

However, in the same traditions we find words that extol the body as a very materialization of the divine. Along with the tendency to separate the body from that which is most sublime in the human being, there is the intuition that in practice they are united or are the same thing.

For Jorge N. Ferrer, author of creative spirituality (Ed. Kairós), it would be desirable to leave behind the ambivalence of spiritual traditions to definitely embrace the body and the material universe as spiritual manifestations.

Take care of it, beyond health

Considering the body as a temple leads to take care of it with an intention that goes beyond the maintenance of health. Or, in the case of illness, to try to heal through natural means, not so much fighting the symptoms as respecting the intelligence of the body, which can use the illness to favor an existential shift or a change in values. The body can be a teacher even when it is sick.

More than avoiding disorders, it is about encourage the development of their extraordinary vitality potentials. For this, it is necessary to know its structure. Traditional wisdoms describe it as a combination of three different levels: physical, mental and spiritual.

Beyond theoretical descriptions, everything in the body is connected. That is why techniques such as yoga, tantra or martial arts act on the physical body to achieve spiritual or immaterial goals.

Through eating, breathing and the practice of certain exercises, its functioning can be refined until it becomes an instrument of knowledge.

body awareness practices

Treating the body as a temple means take care of all its dimensions, from the most physical to the highest, remembering that no practice focuses exclusively on one of them. Washing, dressing, drinking, eating, greeting, giving, taking, collecting… any of these acts is an invitation to be more conscious.

Physical exercise, such as different sports or walking, can be as ritual as the techniques that work on subtle energies (tai chi, yoga, chi kung, certain massages), and even as the different types of meditation and visualization, which operate at the level of consciousness.

Throughout the day and week there is time to dedicate in a balanced way, and in line with personal characteristics, to each type of practice.

Another way to exercise the body

The combination allows to enrich the quality of each one. For example, when running or cycling we no longer focus on burning calories or increasing performance, but instead we pay attention to the harmony of movements, to breathing, to the sensations we experience and to the relationship with other living beings.

Strength and endurance training, often carried to the point of exhaustion, familiarizes us with the ability to be reborn and push our limits.

These experiences are surely so important for the human being that they explain to a large extent the practice of high competition sport or mountaineering.

Achieving the flexibility and control of the body exhibited by expert yogis requires an equal amount of effort, accompanied by inner conquests for which titles are not received.

Practitioners of psychophysical disciplines develop skills that allow proper management of mental, emotional and energetic states. This is how they cultivate serenity and promote psychological or spiritual growth.

In yoga or chi kung this domain refers to the vital energy that descends and ascends the trunk of the body as in a closed circuit.

The ultimate goal of these practices is to achieve such a fusion between the physical and energetic structures of the body that is possible andThe unfolding of the extraordinary potentials of understanding and longevity referred to in ancient traditions.

Reconnect with the body and with the Earth

Spiritual traditions see a resonance between the body and the cosmos. In its operation all the wisdom and creative capacity of nature is expressed.

The mind may crave knowledge of physical and chemical laws, but the human body is already the most finished result of its application. Somehow, the goal should be to connect with what the body already knows.

The experience of the body as a sacred entity –worthy of respect– is a first step to consider the whole of nature as its origin and its home. Thus we reach a double hold, in our body and in the Earth, that cures the strange sensation of not being part of this world.