🔵 By Timothy Brunner. Photo by lauragrafie.
I am a very physical person. I have trained my body for long years and with a single minded focus. This has taken the various forms of cardio-vascular training, weight training, athletic performance conditioning, agility, power, strength, endurance, and many other practices to condition my actual physical body. Because of this, I have come to know the capabilities and limits of my body very well. “Know thyself.”
I see in my efforts the principles taught in so many marital art credos and many other spiritual and religious practices that highlight the physical journey to attain a spiritual goal. I have used this immersion of my mind into my body as a way to fend off the despair of my place in the world. That is, the despair of that place and my despair at my place.
In this deepening of my understanding of my physical being, I have gained a better grasp of my spiritual being. I am more able to identify the spiritual needs I failed to recognize before. I can see why fasting and self-denial are so prevalent in many spiritual practices. In learning to listen to my body I have been able to separate out the voice of my spirit.
I do not imply that there is any division between these aspects of my person. My mind, my body, and my spirit are inextricably connected and cannot be separated if I am to remain me. However, each of these aspects has a distinct set of needs and, when denied those necessities, each has its own language to communicate that longing for satisfaction.
In the deeper understanding of my physical being I have become able to discern more clearly the desires that are not of the flesh. Hence my struggles with a loneliness that I hear crying out so clearly from within me. I no longer attempt to fulfill that desire with food, intoxicants, sex, or other physical distractions because I know the voice of the spiritual aspect of my personality to which that need belongs. It is not a physical longing but a spiritual one.
I live within a subculture where there exists many people who many other people would describe as broken. I have so described myself on occasion. In my description I cannot imply that this is a spiritual brokenness because the human spirit is an indomitable force of nature. I have had mental breaks, as so many others in my world have and do, but not spiritual.
I believe this because of the inseparability of the mind from the body from the soul, this holy trinity of humanity, is the human spirit. Perhaps the final separation of these at death is the breaking before the reforging into a new realm of existence,b but as long as life remains so does a person’s spirit, in its entirety. Unbroken.
In this world which I now inhabit I do see broken men. Physically broken, which is not so difficult to achieve. So many weak minded tyrants believe that the spirits connection to the physical allows for their influence over the body, their control of another’s body, to force spirit into submission. The hatred of the slave for the master belies this view. I also see many men who are broken mentally, some through no fault of their own and others who sacrifice their mind and awareness for the bliss of ignorance. Those who choose ignorance are assuredly suppressing their own spiritual expression, but the resilience of that spirit is undeniable in those who I often see setting aside their ignorance to choose a more enlightened path. That spiritual awakening is always humbling.
I, personally, fell into the caverns of my mind in order to escape my surroundings. As I grew and learned, my mind sank into my body and I came to master my physical interface with this world. As I gained control of my mind and my body I came to know that they are inseparable parts of a whole that includes my spirit. I am still struggling to find the balance, the harmony, the union of all three aspects of my self. In that struggle I see the aspects of my self. In the journey I become my self.