Know Thy Self- I Am Not My Body

Join us for this series of lessons that takes us through the seven levels of existence toward Self-realization. This a unique opportunity to shed off false identifications and experience the true nature of the SELF. This first session will focus on the realization: I am not my Body. The Body is the temple in which "I" am hosted.

Transcript

So, We are gathered here to walk the path towards self-realization, Realizing that that question, Who am I, Can never be answered directly as an idea or a concept. There is no one final answer for this question, Just like there is no final answer to questions like what is the meaning of life, And who is God, And what is love. These questions belong to the group that I call the leading questions because they are not designed to be answered directly, But to keep propelling forward human consciousness and its evolution. So we are choosing probably the mother of all questions today to lead us forward, And that is, Who am I? Why is it important? Because if we don't know who we are, Truly, Intimately, It doesn't matter how successful our life is, It's always going to be accompanied by a sense of lack, Of something that is missing, Incomplete. So, The whole spiritual path was designed to help the seeker come closer and closer to their realization of the Self, The knowing of the I. And we are here going to follow a specific path on that way to self-realization, And that is the path of the seven layers of existence. The seven layers of existence are designed to help us not realize who we are, But realize who we are not. The process is not gaining more and more understanding, More and more identifications about ourselves, But the opposite. We are letting go of false ideas, False preconceptions about ourselves, False identifications. And the more we shed, The more the truth that is hiding behind those ideas is revealed to us. Not as an idea, Not as a concept, But as a direct experience. And that's the whole point. So on this journey we need to gather some skills to allow it to be useful and fruitful for us. What are the two major skills required in this journey? The first one is courage, Because it's not always easy to look in the mirror and face that reflection. And the second is honesty. We have to be honest about it, Because if we keep lying to ourselves and to the world, Trying to portray an image about ourselves instead of facing the truth about it, We will never be able to expand beyond the current state of affairs. So courage and honesty are crucial on the path. That's my two cents about this journey before we actually embark on it. Any questions about what we are doing here today and in the next weeks to come? Good. So again, I don't know what's the problem with the microphone, But bear with me. I promise you it will be worth your while. This journey that we are now embarking on, Making the first steps forward, Thousands already have been on. And without exception, This is a life-changing process. So the more you are tuned, The more you are actively participating in it, The more you are dedicated to it, The higher the result will be for you. All the way up there in the life-changing events of your life. So without further ado, Let's make our first steps. So who am I? Not. I am not everything I believed to be. This journey is a journey of letting go. All the ideas I have about me, Who am I, Will eventually turn to be an illusion, Reveal itself to be an illusion. You are leaving because of the microphone. Maybe I'm going to try this one and see if it makes any difference. So bear with me for a minute. Can you hear me now better? Yes. Okay. So who am I not? That question is easier to answer because we know what we think we are. This is something we can hold on to and then let go of. It's not as vague as trying to grasp and hold on as the direct question, Who am I? This is cut into seven different layers of existence. And today we're going to focus on the first level, The most basic physical level. I am not the body. I am not my body. You know when you talk about yourself, People ask you who you are, You say me, Me, And you pound your chest. This is who I am. I am the body. And here the invitation is to realize the body is just a temple in which I am hosted. It's not who I am. It's just a temple. And for the period of my life, It's my hosting temple. So immediately if we realize that, And we all know that, We all have that memory in the back of our heads, When we hear this sentence, We know, Yeah, The body is temporary. We are much bigger than that. Of course on the day to day we tend to forget, But that memory is there. My body is hosting me. So realizing that immediately allows us to become aware of the relationship that we have with our body. Because if there are two, Me and my body, There is always a relationship, Right? Like any duality, Any dual relationship, Any dual meeting between me and something else. There is a relationship. So what is the type of relationship we have with our body? It's important to put a focus on that for a minute and try to see, I mean, Are we having a loving, Healthy relationship with our body? Or is it something that we need to fix? Or to upgrade? If you would need to characterize that relationship as if your body is a friend, What type of relationship do you have with that friend? First of all, Like you said, Brook, The most important relationships are the ones we tend to forget or ignore. And the only time we remember that there is a relationship there is when it's taken away from us. We even forget that we live in a body until the body starts calling us. This is one thing. Another thing that is very common is that this relationship is not balanced in the sense that we are always demanding from our body. Your body needs to do whatever you want, When you want it, As you want it, And provide every need and demand in real time for you, Sort of a slave. When I need to wake up, You wake up. When I need to go, You take me there. When I'm late, You run. And now is not a good time to go to the toilet, I'm too busy. It's not a good time to rest, I have too much to do. Now I'm depressed, So you're going to shove some ice cream and make me feel better. Do you know what I'm saying? It's always in demand. Trying to compensate for a sense of lack. And the worst aspect of it is we never stop and listen to what the other side has to say. What does your body want and need? What is good for your body at this point? Did we eat enough? Or are you still hungry? Do you ever ask your body that? Or do you keep eating because there is food on the plate? Or do you stop eating because you have an image about a perfect body that you need to accomplish? Different than the one that you have now. So you can be happy. When the body reaches a certain weight, You see again and again, Your body is in a position where it needs to give you. And it's never heard, Not really. We don't stop and listen to our body. And this is the first thing we need to realize when it comes to healing the relationship we have with our body. Having that capability to listen to your body. It's like training a muscle. Again and again we stop and ask, Tell me, I'm here for you. My body, What do you need now? Can I be of service to you? I respect your needs and wants. Just like you heal any relationship with a friend, It has to be balanced in that sense. Otherwise, What happens? The body just keeps accumulating more and more stress, More and more negative emotions. What do you do with negative emotions? Like frustration, Anger, Disappointment. What do you do? Especially men, We keep it in. We keep it in. We don't want to talk about it. We don't want to share that. We want society to see only our happy, Successful face. So what we do, We bottle it in. In the body. And another year, And another year, And the body has to deal with all this garbage, All those toxins. Until the bottle is full and it starts overflowing. How does it overflow? You start experiencing symptoms, Headaches, Migraines, Blood pressure. And if that doesn't work, The body starts screaming. It puts you into bed. Listen, Enough is enough. Now I'm taking over. We are going to rest for a week. That's it. You know what I'm saying? So the idea is to listen to the body before it starts screaming. When it's talking quietly. Listen to your body. And it starts with being aware that you are in a body that has its wants and needs. And it's your responsibility to balance that relationship. So this is the first thing we do. We look at this relationship we have with our body. We ask ourselves, Is it balanced? Is it healthy? If not, What can we do to make it healthy and balanced? And in the majority of cases, I tell you from experience, It starts with developing that skill to listen to your body and be available to its wants and needs. Listen to that and provide as much as you can. If your body needs to eat now, Give it something to eat. If it ate enough, Stop eating. If your body needs to rest, Let it rest. So your body is fueled by life force, Prana we call it. Prana. I'm sure you've heard that term. What is prana? It's that life force that vibrates in your body. When the prana is low, You feel tired. It's easy to feel low and depressed. And when your prana is high, You feel alive. You feel full of excitement, Enthusiasm, Creativity, Etc. So what can you do in order to make the prana high? I'm going to give you a few tips that I ask you to start practicing after this meeting and the following week to come. The first thing that is very important to do if you want to keep the prana high is watch what you eat. They say that you are what you eat. So try to eat fresh food, Non-industrialized food as much as possible. Try to reduce meat consumption and eat fresh fruit and vegetables, Nuts, Things that can help your body fuel itself without spending too much energy in digesting the food. And not too much. Every meal is what you can hold in your two hands. That's it. That's what you need in terms of quantity. And you can eat those two or three times a day and some fruit in between. That's good. So not too much food in one meal. And you drink a lot of water and fresh juice. And you avoid alcohol, You avoid drugs. At least for the next week. See how it helps to keep the prana high. Try to reduce caffeine if you used to drink a lot. And you don't smoke. You don't smoke. Cigarette kills prana. Cigarettes kills prana. Yeah, Sugar as well. No caffeine, Sugar. What happens is it boosts your prana and then it goes back down again. And then you need more sugar and then it goes back down again. What you want is some graph that is gradually growing independent of substances. So this is what I recommend. So the first thing you need to do is see what you eat. Make sure that you are aware and you don't just shove food into your mouth because you are used to it. And ask your body, Is this what you need now? Ask it. Is this what you need now? And remember, The body speaks and it's a matter of fine tuning your listening. How does your body speak? In many ways. But to make it simple, Just those two words you need to know in this vocabulary. Yes and no. Your body says yes, Then you feel open. You feel relaxed. You feel there is softness inside you. And no, You feel closed. You feel contracted. So contraction and the opposite of contraction. How do you say it in English? Letting go. So if you ask your body, Is this what you need now, And look inside for a few breaths. What does your body say? Do you feel contracted or do you feel loosened? Then the body tells you yes or no. Try it. Try it for a week and see how it works. What you eat and then how much you rest. Prana has to do with you allowing rest. Enough rest for the body. So when you need to sleep, Close your phone. Don't keep bombarding your mind with more images. Close your phone. Go to sleep. Sleep for 6-7 hours a day. And if your body requires additional sleep during the day, You can meditate. And that will concentrate sleep into 10 minutes. You see 10 minutes of meditation is like 1 hour of sleep. So take 10 minutes break in the middle of the day. Rejuvenate your body. So eat right. Rest enough. Meditative state of mind is the third. What does meditative state of mind refer to? You reduce the stress in your life. You learn how to face life, How to accept life with less and less stress. Stress eats prana. The more stressful you are, The less prana you have. You feel always that you are exhausted. Life is exhausting. So we will learn in detail how to do that as we go. But for now, Just make sure you have your doctor's orders. Don't get into stressful situations. Or get yourself ramped up about something. So eat right, Sleep enough, Rest enough, Reduce the stress. And the fourth one is use your breath to reduce stress and to increase prana. The breath is an amazing tool to do that. And we'll talk all about breath in the next session. But for now, When you feel stressed and you need to calm down and you need to come back to the present moment, Increase prana in your body, You just focus on your breath. Breathe deeply. And breathe out all that stress, Useless stress. OK, So these are my recommendations about prana. Let's refer to your questions here. What is your advice? Chronic pain affects my mood. Pain. Why is it affecting your mood? Because you believe that in order to be happy, The pain should go away. So you sit there waiting that the pain will go away so you can be happy. Pain is not a problem. The body is here to experience pain. When you didn't have a body, You didn't experience pain. But there was a long waiting list that you have to wait until you did receive the body. So expecting not to feel pain when you do have a body is ridiculous. Pain is not a problem. Some people use pain to come close to God through the body. You know the fakirs in India. Many many spiritual paths use pain. The other side of pain is pleasure. You cannot experience pleasure without a body. Pleasure and pain are one and the same. Rejoice that you now have a body to experience those. Pleasure and pain. Don't judge the pain. Of course, You can treat pain as a sign that the body gives you that you need to give extra attention to something. Like if there is chronic pain, Something is not balanced in your body. So you can go to a therapist and find out what's wrong. Ayurvedic medicine, Chinese medicine. Try to see what's not balanced there. But don't judge the pain. It's just a way for the body to call for your attention. That's it. It's not a problem. How does consent, Or lack of it, To be touched? To be touched have an effect. That's exactly what I just said. Life cannot touch us if we don't have a body. When you are just pure spirit, You cannot touch life. Life only happens on the physical realm. And for you to engage with that, You need a body. And you do have a body. Rejoice it. Instead of victimizing yourself around your body, Blaming it for your misery. No, No, No, No. The body gives you this unique opportunity. Only 80 years. That's it. 90 years if you're lucky. Don't waste this opportunity. Agree. An awakened consciousness says, Yes, Life, Come. Touch me. I am here. Please. Sometimes it's painful. Sometimes it's pleasurable. It doesn't matter. Do you see what I'm saying? So for this week, Don't watch the news, I guess. If it helps you remain calm, You don't need to watch the news. Just concentrate on that. I want my body to know that I'm here for it this week. And I want to keep my prana high. So I'm going to do that. This is not a theory. This is not philosophical theory. This is a practical lesson that we are going to engage in this week. So how are we going to develop that? We do practice daily the guided meditation that you can find on my Insight Timer page. It's called Me and My Body. Look for it. And play it every day. Me and My Body. And it's there to guide us to do exactly that. Give some space of attention to your body. I am here for you. Tell me what you need. And you know, It might take some time. The body is a very old machine. Very wise, But very old. So it might take some time for the body to actually consent and agree that, Hmm, Okay, There is somebody there that actually wants to listen. Finally! So, A day or two or three, And then you'll start having that experience of your body speaking back to you. And how does it speak? The first thing you're looking for is those contractions and expansions. If you feel something is contracting within you, Then you just breathe into it and breathe it out. You know, In those ten minutes, You'll be guided by that guided meditation. How to do that? So follow that. Every day. It's like ten minutes. That's it. But you do it every day. Okay? That's a prerequisite for next meeting. So don't mess it up. I agree, But it is a limit to my routine, My work. So what? Add it to your routine. Meditation is a part of the spiritual seeker's routine. Add ten minutes. Less ten minutes on TikTok and more ten minutes for meditation. Okay. Any more questions so far? So what's more also important to know about the body? It's important to know that it's not an answer to the question, Who am I? As we said in the beginning of this session. You know, The body belongs to the realm of phenomena, The realm of events, The physical realm. The body belongs to the physical realm. Everything that has a start and an end. But you don't belong in that realm. You cannot be touched by time, By changing events. You are eternal. That's the first and last realization on the path. I cannot be touched by changing events. My body is touched by changing events. My body is a part of changing events. It's changing a lot. My body is changing all the time, Whether I'm aware of it or not. Changing throughout the years. It started as a baby, I'm an adult, I will grow old and I will die. The body is going to die. It comes with an expiry date, Whether we are aware of it or not, On a daily basis. The body is there to experience the changing event, Because it belongs to the same realm as changing events. But I am not part of that. I am eternal. Time cannot touch me. Changing events cannot touch me. Do you see that? Doing that helps you to stop being afraid of life and what it can do to you. Life will destroy you 100%. It not only touches you, It will destroy you eventually. It will caress you and hug you and scratch you and kick you and it will destroy you. But all that is happening on the physical level. You cannot be touched. You cannot be stained by changing events. Pure consciousness has got nothing to do with the realm of time or space. It allows the realm of time and space to exist and to be experienced. That's it. I am not my body. It's just the temple where I am hosted for the next carnation. I can see I'm not my body, Even with a bit of pain. But when pain is intense, I can't seem to dis-identify. That takes practice. When the experience that we face is very extreme, It tends to steal all of our attention. Like in a movie, When the scene is very intense and we are completely lost with it. We completely identify with the plot or whatever is happening on the screen. And we use it as entertainment. At the end of the movie we say, Wow, It was a fantastic movie. I didn't realize two hours passed. I was completely lost in that movie. But when it happens in the relationship between me and the experience that I currently have, Then we are lost. We identified with that experience and there is no self anymore to be experienced. There is only the changing event that we are completely emerged in. So that's why spiritual practice is important, To redefine the difference between the experience and the experiencer. Again and again, Again and again. I am much bigger than anything life can throw at me. Life, Changing events are temporary. I am eternal. When does the body start to exist? Depending when do you start counting. But it starts growing in the womb soon after your parents make love. And then as it's ready, You can call it spirit, Enters the body, Merges with the body. I believe his thoughts are in order to feel bliss. You must feel pain. All is an experience. This is life. Adapt to the changes. In order to feel bliss, You must feel pain. Bliss is not an experience. Bliss is who you are. You are blissful when you feel pain and you are blissful when you feel pleasure. You are blissful when you are happy and you are blissful when you are sad. You are blissful to sleep and you are blissful to be awake. Bliss is who you are. You are that. I see that by separating or visualizing a space between my body and my soul when going through this world takes a lot of work. It's a constant dance or swing of the pendulum between the light and the dark. This is why sadhana is there. What is sadhana? It's the spiritual practice. What does it do? It allows us to remember again and again, Again and again. Because life has a tendency to make us forget all those things that are happening out there, All the drama, All the distractions. We are distracted by life. So sadhana brings us back to remembering, Oh no, No, No, This is who I am. Ten minutes, Oh no, No, No, This is who I am. Oh right, Right, Right. I forgot, Now I remember. I once was blind but now I see. Every day. This is why sadhana is so important. Don't use this just as a talk that you hear once an hour a week. If you really want to take that process and change your life, I tell you this is a life changing opportunity. Otherwise money back guaranteed. But you need to follow these instructions carefully. We forget and sadhana helps us to remember. We forget and we remember, We forget and we remember. Again and again and again. So this week is going to be dedicated to that, Sadhana. First remember that you exist in a body and your body needs your attention. So you practice that guided meditation. Me and my body it's called. Me and my body. Practice that once a day, At least, If not twice a day. And make sure you keep the prana up high. Make sure that you are aware of what you eat. Follow those instructions that I gave. Rest enough, Reduce stress and use your breath to clean that stress out and fill your body with energy. And next week we can see how that influenced the relationship you have with your body. Light and dark is the same. It is one. Light and dark are the same. Dark is just lack of light. That's it. You don't need to fight darkness. You only need to light a candle. That's it. Darkness will go away. So that's what we're doing here. We are lighting a light within you. Close to your heart. Gradually that light will go and spread throughout your existence. Next week it will be I'm not my breath. Then I'm not my mind. Then I'm not my intellect. Then I'm not my story. Then I'm not my ego. And then we'll see what's left. After we've shed all those layers of false identifications. Tommy, So we're here to remember? Yes. To remember. To be reminded. Because we already know that. Some of you maybe listened today to this talk and said, Oh yeah, Of course, This is the way it is. Isn't it? Don't everybody know that? Because all it takes is just, Oh yeah, Of course. The knowledge is there. It just needs some brushing, Some airing. Not to the earth, It's not. Not in our experience in this 3D world. Not sure what you mean. In order to see dark, There needs to be light. You just make sure your light is shining. Any more questions about the body and the homework and everything that was discussed today? Prana is that life force. The Chinese call it Qi. That life force that rejuvenates everything. Every living organism has prana. And you know, When the prana is low, You feel sad, Depressed, You have no energy or any motivation. It's a subtle sense of energy. Not an energy you can harness to activate machinery, But the energy that exists below that and brings life force to everything. The whole sadhana is there to increase prana and redirect it to go through the seven chakras from the first to the last, Upwards, Through the sushumna. If you want, One day we can discuss this in detail. Go through every chakra and see how prana works there. But let's not complicate this session. The instructions are very clear. This week is going to be dedicated to heal the relationship we have with our body. And we start by stop demanding constantly without asking the body. What do you want? What's the problem for you? Now it's your turn. Tell me. And as much as possible, Provide. Stop using it as a garbage can to your negative emotions. Reduce stress. Do that for recommendations to increase prana and practice the guided meditation daily. And next Tuesday, We're going to meet again. You'll be able to share your experience in this regard and we can start discussing the second layer of existence. I am not my breath. Good, Good, Good, Good. So people, I want to thank you very much for your attention and your beautiful questions, For your donations. And do come back this Tuesday evening to continue this journey. I urge you to stay throughout the process, Throughout the seven layers of existence, So you can have the full picture. The full map will be laid for you. Take some dedication, But it's definitely worth your while. And there is another thing I should say. There is a book that describes those seven layers in detail. So if you're interested in the book, You can contact me through my website. You can find me on Google. I'll be happy to share it with you. So see you next week. Enjoy the rest of the weekend. Bye-bye.