Week 6. Spiritual Principle
Inner Bodies
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Okay, let’s begin.
“Imagine a limitless expanse of water: above and below, before and behind, right and left, everywhere there is water. In that water is placed a jar filled with water. There is water inside the jar and water outside, but the jar is still there. The 'I' is the jar.”
— Guru Ramakrishna, spiritual teacher
This image reminds us how easily we confuse the container with the true self.
“Those who are identified with their good looks, physical strength, or abilities experience suffering when those attributes begin to fade and disappear, as of course they will. Their very identity that was based on them is then threatened with collapse. In either case, ugly or beautiful, people derive a significant part of their identity, be it negative or positive, from their body…. Equating the physical sense-perceived body that is destined to grow old, wither, and die with ‘I’ always leads to suffering sooner or later.”
— Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth, spiritual teacher and author
So, the question you might be asking yourself is...
“What’s the difference between beautiful and ugly?”
— Lao Tzu, philosopher, Tao Te Ching
For some, appearances dominate the conversation...
“We could say politically correct that look doesn't matter, but the look obviously matters.”
— Donald Trump, businessman and U.S. president
“I have a great body. I really do.”
— Donald Trump, businessman and U.S. president
But true wisdom offers another perspective...
“It's like this, I think: the excellence of a good body doesn't make the soul good, but the other way around: the excellence of a good soul makes the body as good as it can be.”
— Plato, philosopher
“The main purpose of life is to live rightly, think rightly, act rightly. The soul must languish when we give all our thought to the body.”
— Mahatma Gandhi, spiritual leader and activist
And for some, the body itself feels like a prison...
“The whole ocean stretched out before me, and yet I felt trapped. My body.”
— Emily Ratajkowski, model/actress, My Body
“We've gotten caught up in thinking we are what we look like, the physical, the exterior. We think we're the lamp shade. We've forgotten that we are the light—the electricity and the luminosity that lights up every man, woman, and child. The light is who we truly are.”
— Michael Beckwith, spiritual teacher and author
Fortunately, we can move beyond body-identification...
“Although body-identification is one of the most basic forms of ego, the good news is that it is also the one that you can most easily go beyond. This is done not by trying to convince yourself that you are not your body, but by shifting your attention from the external form of your body and from thoughts about your body—beautiful, ugly, strong, weak, too fat, too thin—to the feeling of aliveness inside of it. No matter what your body’s appearance is on the outer level, beyond the outer form it is an intensely alive energy field.”
— Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
This is such a hopeful reminder. The ego convinces us to obsess over our bodies, but the spirit whispers: “Go deeper, feel the aliveness within.”
Here lies the key — when we shift from body to inner body, from matter to Being, we begin to heal the illusion of separation.
“What I call the ‘inner body’ isn’t really the body anymore but life energy, the bridge between form and formless. Make it a habit to feel the inner body as often as you can…. When you are in touch with the inner body, you are not identified with your body anymore, nor are you identified with your mind. This is to say, you are no longer identified with form but moving away from form-identification toward formlessness, which we may also call Being.”
— Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“In the world of bodies, we are all separate. In the world of spirit, we are all one. Citing the Course, we heal the separation between the two by shifting identification from body identification to spirit identification. This heals the body and the mind.”
— Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love
What divides us in body unites us in spirit. Spirit-identification restores wholeness.
“Every day the choice is presented to us, to live up to the spirit that is in us, or deny it.”
— Henry Miller, novelist
“The only thing you're taking out of here is your spirit and your soul, so we need to be conscious to try and develop that part of ourselves, because we're all spiritual creatures.”
— Smokey Robinson, singer/songwriter
That’s the reminder we often forget. You can polish the body, maintain it, or even worship it, but what you are cultivating for eternity is your spirit.
“My whole goal is to keep my spirit intact. If that doesn't happen, none of this is worth it.”
— Jewel, singer/songwriter
Jewel is speaking what we all know deep down — if our spirit is neglected, then even a comfortable life feels hollow.
“I've been on a quest for spiritual answers for a long time. The things I've learned about interconnectedness and non-duality and the feeling of tapping into your soul that goes beyond the edge of your skin is important to me.”
— Jim Carrey, comedian/actor
His words point to the same truth — we are not bound by skin. When we feel into spirit, the edges of “me” dissolve into “we.”
“God sees the inner spirit stripped of flesh, skin, and all debris. For his own mind only touches the spirit that he has allowed to flow from himself into our bodies. And if you can act the same way, you will rid yourself of all suffering. For surely if you are not preoccupied with the body that encloses you, you will not trouble yourself about clothes, houses, fame, and other showy trappings.”
— Marcus Aurelius, philosopher
Marcus Aurelius is blunt: once you stop obsessing over the shell, you free yourself to live in what matters — the spirit within.
“I want to tell people how to live spiritually. After you've bought all your houses and your clothes, you want something bigger.”
— Tina Turner, singer/songwriter
The “something bigger” she names is spirit. The body accumulates, but the soul longs to expand.
“It is my own firm belief that the strength of the soul grows in proportion as you subdue the flesh.”
— Mahatma Gandhi, spiritual leader and activist
The ego insists the body comes first. But Gandhi, like so many, shows us that when we place spirit first, the body finds its rightful place.
“You die to your flesh and are born into your spirit. You identify yourself with the consciousness and life of which your body is but the vehicle. You die to the vehicle and become identified in your consciousness with that of which the vehicle is but the carrier. That is the God.”
— Joseph Campbell, mythologist
Campbell makes it plain: the body is the vehicle. Spirit is the driver. Don’t confuse the two.
“I don’t think you understand who you’re dealing with! I have no limits! I cannot be contained because I’m the container. You can’t contain the container, man! You can’t contain the container! I used to believe that who I was ended at the edge of my skin, that I had been given this little vehicle called a body from which to experience creation, and though I couldn’t have asked for a sportier model, it was after all a loaner and would have to be returned. Then, I learned that everything outside the vehicle was a part of me, too, and now I drive a convertible. Top down, wind in my hair!”
— Jim Carrey, comedian/actor, Commencement Address, 2014
He turns it into comedy, but there’s deep truth: you are not in the container — you are the field that holds all containers.
“It is not the body, nor the personality that is the true self. The true self is eternal. Even on the point of death we can say to ourselves, ‘my true self is free. I cannot be contained.’”
— Marcus Aurelius, philosopher
Even when the body fades, the true self — spirit — remains free.
“I'm not afraid of death because I don't believe in it. It's just getting out of one car, and into another.”
— John Lennon, singer/songwriter
Death is not an ending, but a passage — the soul changing vehicles.
“I feel like my body is borrowed and this life is very temporary.”
— Beyoncé, singer/entrepreneur
Even those most celebrated for physical presence recognize — the body is on loan, but the soul endures.
“You can kill the body, but not the spirit.”
— Robert Louis Stevenson, novelist
History and flesh may pass, but the spirit cannot be destroyed.
“I believe what it says in the scriptures and in the Bhagavad Gita: ‘Never was there a time when you did not exist, and there never will be a time when you cease to exist.’”
— George Harrison, singer/songwriter
Our spirit is eternal — it predates the body and continues beyond it.
“You live you die and death not ends it.”
— Jim Morrison, rock star, The Doors
Morrison, in his raw poetic way, points to what mystics confirm: death does not end life — spirit goes on.
“How about not equating death with stopping?”
— Alanis Morissette, singer/songwriter, “Thank You” (song lyrics)
Death is not a full stop — it is a turning of the page.
“You have to work out where your place is. And who you are. But we're all spirit. That's all we are, we're just walking dressed up in a suit of skin, and we're going to leave that behind.”
— Bob Dylan, singer/songwriter
Dylan strips it down: we’re spirit, only temporarily clothed in skin.
“He can open heaven to you and walk you through its gates, there to exchange this world at last for your true home. But it is not your body that will pass through heaven’s gates, nor your body’s eyes that will view the new world you will behold and take with you.”
— Mari Perron, A Course of Love
Heaven is not for the body. Spirit alone enters.
The destination of the soul matters more than the path of the body.
“I care not where my body may take me as long as my soul is embarked on a meaningful journey.”
— Dante Alighieri, poet
Even the cosmos mirror this truth — body and soul together, yet soul leading.
“The universe has a body and soul and evolves through cosmic time. As microcosms of stardust, we do the same.”
— Deepak Chopra, spiritual teacher
“The Christ in you is not a body. The body, when properly perceived, is seen as a suit of clothes. The spirit is eternal, while the body is dust to dust.”
— Marianne Williamson, The Mystic Jesus (The Mind of Love)
The body is a garment. The spirit wears it for a time, but Christ — your divine essence — is eternal.
“We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion year old carbon, and we got to get ourselves back to the garden.”
— Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, “Woodstock” (song lyrics)
Even our music remembers — we are made of stars, and our calling is to return to spirit.
Currently, most sentient beings self-identify with their outer bodies—attractive or ugly, strong or weak, healthy or ill. These self-perceived qualities become powerful influences that shape who we think we are.
However, once again, both thinking and the body itself are illusions that exist exclusively in the world of form. And like all things bound to the illusion of linear time, the body will eventually change, decay, and lead to suffering. That is a time-honored guarantee!
Additionally, simply knowing that you are not your body is not enough to create Heaven on Earth.
What we must collectively do is evolve beyond body identification to spirit identification—your inner body, or soul, so to speak. This means becoming aware of the aliveness, life force, energy, timelessness, and divine being that exist within your body.
This will be a top priority of the OCA Movement.
Through this awakening, we will ascend from our Earthly existence—where most of us reside today—to our Heavenly existence, while still experiencing Earth. In other words, Heaven on Earth.
An essential part of creating Heaven on Earth is consciously evolving from body identification to spirit identification through a deliberate spiritual evolutionary process. This includes designed and well-coordinated spiritual practices that we do both individually and collectively.
This plan was created to initiate that very process: to embody spirit within, consciously, during our Earthly existence as human beings—while experiencing the body as our temporary container of consciousness.