The Body in Religion
How the Physical Body May Be Missing from Our Mental & Spiritual Development
Chelsey here! I wonder if you've thought about this, too…
I’ve met people who have meditated, prayed and visualized their way into mental and spiritual development, but they feel something big is missing.
I’ve met folks who have been in talk therapy for years, even decades and they still feel stuck on the same problems.
What both of these groups have in common is NOT that they’ve been doing the wrong things, but that their bodies still remain within the shadow of their consciousness.
We can use embodiment to complement and deepen the benefits of a therapy or religious practice. Religion comes from Latin roots “re” meaning again and "ligar” meaning to unite/bind. To translate that colloquially, the purpose of religion is to reunite us with the divine, with creation. Compare that with the word yoga which means “to yoke" or bind together. The ancient Yogis recognized that developing an exploratory relationship with our bodies was a keystone on the spiritual path. Therefore, we can reframe the idea of enlightenment, heaven, or spiritual attainment not as a practice of transcending (going beyond) the body, but by getting down into the flesh and exploring the almost unfathomable intelligence that we've evolved since life came together in the first cell.
As a cultural anthropologist, I’ve observed that most of the major world religions came out of patriarchal sociopolitical contexts around 2000-2500 years ago, which have in common the trait of bodily ignorance and repression. We cannot pretend that context doesn’t matter in the development of religious beliefs and blind spots. This came at an enormous cost of our personal power, our deep innate knowing that is contained within our soma. In many cases it also came at the very real human costs of suppressing and subjugating women: Killing “witches” and their healing knowledge which was a threat to the domination-oriented society ruled by male clergy and kings, as well as vilifying the feminine aspect of self that we all have regardless of gender identity. Our planet and the physical stuff of the human body - skin, bones, muscles, etc. - are made up in part of the same Earth element, so this disregard for the physical body also uncoincidentally translated into disrespect for the planet and her resources.
The body as a source of sin, as a decaying meat-suit to be transcended, grossly undervalues the innate, and you could say god-given intelligence that exists within our organism. But there is hope: as somatics rise in popularity today, we are awakening to the need to reconcile with both the Earth and our bodies. Imagine what could happen when you drop into your deep source of inner-knowing… all of the wisdom and insights you contain within yourself, just waiting for you to tap in.
Anatomically speaking, we can recognize that the
human body is uniquely designed to lead us toward
Self-realization/Enlightenment/Heaven, right here in this life…
Our guts and our hearts have their own nervous systems - meaning they actually register and “know” things, and they send information from body to brain via the vagus nerve.
Our feet were designed with ¼ of all the bones in our body, along with the highest concentration of nerve endings and joint articulations to touch, feel and move on the Earth.
Our heads reach up into the sky replete with the major sense organs of sight, hearing, taste & smell to perceive the external world.
Our central axis, called Sushumna Nadi in yoga, is unique in the animal kingdom for its vertical orientation. The spine and central nervous system are widely regarded as the seat of our consciousness. We are literal conduits between sky/heaven and earth.
As we come to regard the body as a part of our spiritual/mental evolution, we regain the ability to speak our own body’s language which is at once biological and mystical.
Here at Brooklyn Mindbody Collective our mission is to fill in these important gaps in our conscious embodiment, to heal by becoming truly whole. Thanks to coincidence, miracles, karma or just plain good luck, we each met holistic health practitioners/teachers who woke us up, so we continue their lineage and work by helping New Yorkers in our studios every day.
Our upcoming Embodied Living Urban Retreat is an opportunity to learn and experience these embodiment practices directly and integrate them into your life.
We rarely offer these events, because our private practices normally keep us very busy! Out of city retreats run into the thousands of dollars and require travel, making them inaccessible for most. So when we found the perfect city sanctuary for our retreat, Kadampa Meditation Center, just a few blocks from our holistic health center, we knew we had to bring our community together for a day of empowered healing and somatic exploration.
When: Saturday, July 22nd 9:30a-7p
Where: Kadampa Mediation Center Williamsburg
We hope you can join us!
Written by Chelsey Kapuscinski, Founder of BMC, Certified Rolfer, Therapeutic Yoga Teacher
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