The body is a temple.

The body is a prison.

This is a huge paradox.

It can express joy or happiness.  It can also feel pain and turmoil.  Pleasure can be a trap.  Pain can be a snare.  Both pleasure and pain have the potential to free the consciousness that drives the vehicle to the degree that the consciousness is willing to let go.  There are many writings on this throughout history so I’m not necessarily going to add some groundbreaking insight here.  All I can do is report my experience.

Temple or prison?  The body is a temple.  The moment that we desire to escape it, it becomes a prison.  ”We” or “I”, that which drives the vehicle chooses one or the other.  A lot of beings on Earth identify with the body and worldly choices.  I am a body.  I am a doctor.  I am a drummer.  I am these emotions.

I am.

Here in the ‘amness’, we get to choose.  We cannot avoid pain all of the time.  That is not our choice necessarily because, as the saying goes:  Shit happens.  We can however choose our response to events, phenomena and the ever so technical ‘shit happening’.  We can choose our perception.  There is a reason that God didn’t give us pleasure buttons and that’s because we’d become catatonic button pushers.

It is a scientific fact that energy cannot be created or destroyed.  Matter can be created and destroyed, built or broken.  Our body is matter.  Fact.  That which resides in the body is not.  One way that I could see a body as a vehicle for freedom is if the consciousness residing in it could make the body dissolve and re appear at will.  Who has time these days to figure that shit out?

In the meantime, this vehicle we call a body is decaying and heading toward the inevitable.  Fearing that fact is useless.  All the herbs, remedies and strict lifestyle choices in the world will not prevent the inevitable.  Just ask Steve Jobs.  Yet, I type this on a Mac computer.

Acceptance is everything.

At times, I admit that my body feels like a prison but that is because I remember where I came from and know what this material world is.  Most times, I awake with and honor this temple that I am currently occupying.  I get to type words with it and move it about.  How cool is that?  One day my body and I will part ways but I will go on.  Then I will be free.

The best prison would be temples because they’re enticing and the trick of slavery is to not let them know that they are slaves.

Yes the body is a temple and a prison.  It is bound by time…

I am not.