As we discussed yesterday, everyone is trying to attain a perfect body. Everything we do is calculated to position ourselves in relation to the qualities, possessions, designations or relationships appropriate to our conception of a perfect body. This is the method of association, which has a serious handicap: the material body is not really the self.
So even if we are able to successfully position ourselves in relation to the qualities, possessions, relationships and designations of a perfect body according to our conception, all we have is a collection of symbols. Our material body will still get old, become diseased and die, and there is nothing we can do to change that.
We make the mistake of identifying with the material body because our ontology—the collection of stories we tell ourselves to explain life, the universe and everything—is inadequate to explain consciousness, the principal symptom of our actual identity as spirit soul.
Consciousness is so important that in the absence of consciousness, there are no other issues. If the value of everything ultimately comes from consciousness, shouldn’t we be paying a lot more attention to it?
Consciousness is not a thing in itself, but a quality of the spiritual living entity or soul. Consciousness is a quality of a spiritual being, not a material object. Therefore when consciousness becomes identified with a material body, it is in an abnormal ontological condition. The category and quality do not match. Consciousness, as a spiritual quality, is eternal, and the material body is temporary.
We need a process of self-realization to correct this abnormal ontological condition. The goal of self-realization is to enter into our actual eternal spiritual identity beyond this temporary material body. The method of association cannot help us with this. But in material conditioned consciousness, the method of association is all we know. Fortunately, the Esoteric Teaching provides the solution to this existential quandary.
First, the Esoteric Teaching puts us into relationship with spiritual qualities, objects, activities and designations. This is actually what every bona fide religious culture tries to do, more or less successfully. But since the Esoteric Teaching makes this process of spiritual association completely deliberate and conscious from the very beginning, it is very powerful.
But this is only the beginning. The second stage of the Esoteric Teaching is a comprehensive process of ontological education and adjustment. This literally changes our consciousness from material to spiritual, and actually allows us to rediscover our perfect, eternal spiritual body.
How does this work? We all have a perfect spiritual body right now. But because we are in material consciousness, we don’t realize it. This is because the quality of our consciousness is determined by our ontology. If a symbol or experience is not present in our ontology, we cannot recognize its meaning.
We tend to assume that anything meaningless is unimportant, and so we tune it out. When we encounter an experience that does not fit anywhere in our ontology, we tend to overlook it. For example, most people do not understand the calculus. So if I started talking in terms of the mathematical concepts of the calculus, most of you would simply tune me out, no matter how important or useful the information I was providing.
Similarly, people have spiritual experiences all the time; since we are spiritual beings, this is only natural. But since we have no ontological information on spiritual life, we tend to tune these experiences out and overlook them. Thus our ontology strongly influences our consciousness, in terms of the value and importance we assign to our experiences.
By the process of ontological education and adjustment, the Esoteric Teaching provides a platform for properly evaluating our spiritual experiences. And by also giving us the tools to cultivate spiritual association, it provides a controlled laboratory environment for those spiritual experiences.
Thus the Esoteric Teaching is a scientific approach to self-realization. Nevertheless, it does require faith. Everything does; even getting up in the morning requires some degree of faith that the effort is worthwhile. Similarly, the Esoteric Teaching requires sufficient faith in its methods to give them a fair, objective trial. You need enough faith to perform the experiment and observe the result. We hope to kindle that faith by these discussions.
Right now the only faith required is to stay connected, download the next installment of our podcast, and give it a listen—ten minutes out of your day—about as much faith as it takes to floss and brush your teeth. (You do floss and brush you teeth, don’t you?) Before I have a right to ask for more than that, you have a right to know what I’m doing and why. That’s why I’m explaining the methods of the Esoteric Teaching before trying to get you to perform them.
I’m trying to help you realize your perfect body. That body is not material, but spiritual. Material bodies do inconvenient things, like getting old and sick, and dying. But our spiritual bodies are perfect in every way. In the next few installments, I’ll talk some more about consciousness, the nature of the soul, and the benefits of realizing your perfect body.
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