PURIFICATION OF THE BODY
PURIFICATION OF THE BODY
I am often asked about purification of the body on the path of awakening ...
In the deepest dimension of being and realm of inner light, the pristine purity of consciousness can neither be cleansed nor polluted by anything you do (or don’t do) in the outer realm of physical form.
Consciousness is like the sun, it can never be switched off. And yet, just as the sun’s rays are refracted or weakened as they filter through dark clouds or hazy sky to cast shadows on the earth, the emanation of your inner light gets distorted or dissipated as it expresses itself through your earthly vehicle. While this distortion of the purity of your essential nature ultimately has no substance (just like a shadow has no real substance but is simply the absence of light), it does have a very real impact on you and your life.
The body is a storehouse of the stories we hold in our minds, and every unexamined story is an additional encumbrance that obstructs the clarity of our unbounded nature as it is expressed through our earthly lives. If the light of consciousness is to flow unimpeded into our everyday reality, attention must be given to the unburdening of this repository of darkness.
Purification of the body is like spring-cleaning your home. First you must be fully present, and then you must turn your attention to the removal of stagnant mental, emotional, and physical energies. The body is a gateway to a luminous wholeness. Your willingness to sit inside all previously unmet energies, as a felt sense here and now, is the beginning of a realignment with the flow of life’s intelligence.
Very often, simply being present with the deeper energetic experience of physical tension, discomfort, or pain dissolves the shadow by revealing the story inside it. If you are able to see that the story has no real substance in the light of conscious presence, you are likely to fall into the deeper dimension of the body, where the pristine light of your essential nature will offer you physical and psychic immunity.
While purification of the body-temple does not cause or guarantee enlightenment, it is a useful preparation. Very often the light of awakeness is not strong enough to penetrate the denser forms of emotional and physical debris. Even if the aperture to awakeness opens, to afford a glimpse of the radiance of being (as in sudden awakening experiences), it can easily and quickly be hidden from view again. When awakening becomes a more permanent reality, as this light descends into heart and body, the encounter with shadow-energies can cause all sorts of problems if the process of embodiment is not fully engaged with. Extreme tiredness, unusual or unexpected physical pain and symptoms, involuntary spasms and shaking, sleeplessness, and intense body heat can all be experienced and are often not recognized as energetic blockages.
It’s important to recognize that awakening kick-starts the spring-cleaning, and any attempt to avoid getting your hands dirty in the mire and muck of what has been unconscious in you, up until now, is like trying to pull down the blinds after the storm has blown through your house. A more intelligent response is to participate in the spring-cleaning by consciously engaging with it by being willing to discover what is asking to be released, by being willing to use the tools for purification, and by doing what it takes to support the growth of the bud of awakening into the flower of awakeness.
Thank you Amoda for continually addressing the radical brink. At times it seems I would rather commit suicide than sit with and open to the fear and intense unbearability within. It all seems so insanely pathological, but then you beautifully articulate and shine light on what is really going on. That that which seems so unimaginably frightening and dark, is God's invitation. Thank you.