Questions and Meditations

18 Evolution of the body

Our body is our refuge, our home, our armor, our observation post and our vehicle in material reality. Of this vehicle and shelter we have but a very relative mastery, inconstant and subject to numerous factors and forces which we do not control. This body is interlinked with the entire terrestrial reality – in its substance as in the space-time it shares with the whole human species.

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Our corporeal existence, even in the best possible conditions, cannot be independent – neither of external material inputs nor of others.

The life of the body is in no way guaranteed = it must be won, earned or in some way or other ensured by constant effort and vigilance. The needs of the body, such as it is constituted till now, are heavy and engrossing. Its vulnerability and precariousness belie, contradict or compromise our vital thrusts and urges, our projects and ambitions, our ideals and our conceptions.

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Could it be that we name “divine” today what we shall be tomorrow?

Similarly, to the primal and instinctive vital creature, the mental being or consciousness first appeared as supernatural, magical and formidably puissant and unpredictable, to which it must submit and make the most demonstrative offerings, or from which it had to flee and retreat most violently to escape its malevolent invisible influence.

And yet we did become these superior beings, whose intelligence and subtle faculties have conquered the world – and divided it.

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