for the two-bodied

For the Two-Bodied:

In man’s general condition, his inner world and outer world are not independent of each other, they exist in a state of mixture, ‘collapsed’ into each other. Man lacks the ‘being’ that enables him to have a simultaneous and balanced existence in both worlds.

The general man tends to live only in his physical nature, but due to the mixing of the two worlds he only experiences a distorted kind of physicality or embodied awareness. It appears rare for the general man to actually perceive his simultaneous existence in these two worlds, to see that he occpies both the inner world and the outer, that he has a ‘body’ and being in each world.

Man’s inner world, as related to ‘thinking’ and ‘feeling’, tends to be experienced in a partial and watered-down form. His general experience of ‘thinking’ is a partial form of access to the inner world, and this ‘thinking’ tends to remain centred in his physical nature, or is experienced from the vantage of his physical nature. Hence there can be the notion that ‘thought’ is happening ‘within’ the ‘head’ or within the perceived physical nature.

Man’s physical presence, his organic nature, and the action of his senses tends to dominate his awareness, hence his form of ‘thinking’ usually operates ‘within’ or ‘in the midst of’ his physical nature. This is to say something like the physical nature ‘impinges’ upon his ability to ‘think clearly’ in the sense of having an independent presence in his inner world. The activity of man’s senses can disturb his thinking capacity and his thinking capacity can disturb his organic functioning and embodied presence. Again, in this sense, man neither really lives in his organic nature or his ‘psychic’ nature, but a distorted mix of the two.

Two have two real independent worlds requires the ableness to have an independent consciousness and awareness in each. Again, the general man appears to fail to recognise that he has different ‘awarenesses’ in him, primarily a bodily awareness and a mental awareness. It ought to be evident to him that this is the case even from some of the basic facts of his experience and functioning. Take the typical experience of common ‘daydream’ for example. This could not be possible if man only had one form of awareness. As it stands man is able to ‘leave’ his physically based awareness in order to enter into the awareness of the mind that is involved in ‘daydream’. In the general experience of ‘daydream’, man is not able to have a simultaneous active awareness and presence in both worlds, and hence he ‘loses’ subjective awareness of the physical nature when ‘absorbed’ in daydream.

Man’s common experience of ‘thinking’, in which some awareness of the physical nature remains, is a kind of watered-down thought, it is like an ‘image’ of real thought;- this being the thinking that occurs from a fully ’embodied’ and independent ‘mental body’. Much of the exercises and practices of the various traditions are aimed at gaining this capacity to simultaneously exist and act in both the inner and outer world, to gain true independence and ableness in both worlds. This work is also tied to developing the ‘second’ body or ‘inner’ body, as it is this that facilitates the simultaneous independent co-existence or co-presence in both the inner and outer worlds. The work of developing this ‘inner body’ also involves work in developing the physical nature and its form of awareness, as the physical presence also needs to be developed in order to enable this co-presence and independence of the two worlds and the form of being and consciousness in each. Various exercises involving the complex division of attention in multiple directions, and sustaining independent activity in mutiple areas simultaneously, are used to try to develop this capacity for simultaneous presence and ableness in both worlds.

From the position of the general man, who only has ‘one world’, or rather, who experiences a distorted, mixed, and water-down version of the two worlds, it is almost impossible to conceive what the reality of having two real independent worlds and bodies consists of.

For the general man, it appears that his physical experience and presence is regarded as the most real, and hence for him it may be said that action of his senses constitutes his reality. For him, physical sensation is the ‘rock’ of reality, whereas his thoughts, by comparison, may be regarded as somewhat lacking in ‘substantiality’. Hence the inner world of the general man is ‘dream-like’ in comparison to the world of his senses and physical body. This is again to say that the general man lacks substantial ‘being’ in his own inner world, his ‘inner body’ lacks substantiality, it is ‘fleeting’ and ‘ghost-like’. The general man has little presence in his own inner world, and hence he may also feel ‘subject to’ the expereince and activities of his inner world.

As mentioned, the general man also lacks a substantial physical presence, his awareness of his own organism is weak and superficial, and hence may also feel himself to be ‘subjected to’ the action of his senses and experience of the physical world around him. Hence the general man is dominated by fears and desires that correspond to his physical nature. If a man develops his degree and quality of physical ’embodiement’ then this will naturally change his experience of the physical world, and this development of his physical presence can possibly provide a foundation and platform for developing his ‘inner body’, his degree and quality of presence in his inner world.

Comparatively speaking, the inner world is ‘more real’ than the outer, which is to say that it is of a ‘higher nature’, and experience can be much more ‘concentrated’ and ‘potent’ in the inner world. For the one who has developed his inner body, the physical body in comparison is like a ‘dream’ or ‘image’, its ‘substantiality’ is vague and relatively ‘intangible’ as compared to the nature and substanitality of the inner body. The ‘organic sensation’ of the physical body would be something akin to the substantiality of ‘air’, as compared to the ‘rock’ of the inner body and its form of substantiality. This is certainly not to denigrate or devalue the physical body and its nature- which is a miraculous gift- but the difference in the degree of ‘reality’ and ‘vivifyingness’ between the two bodies and their natures is significant.

If a man develops both of his bodies and the form of presence and ableness in each, then it could well be said that he is born into two new worlds. The development of the inner body may be said to be more radical than the development of the form of physical embodiement, in the sense of the new form of existence and being that is acquired. This is to say that the general man has more of an established physical presence than he does in the inner world, and hence the development of the inner world brings more new and radical results by contrast. Again, it is almost impossible for the general man to conceive of the kind of freedom that is realized through the development of the inner body, the new world that is entered, and the radically different form or mode of existence and being that such a two-bodied man has.

In some traditions, this inner body is related to the nature of ‘air’ and ‘breath’, and in most languages ‘air’ and ‘breath’ are connected to the term ‘spirit’- hence the term ‘re-spir-ation’ etc. This points to the fact that breath operates as something of a middleman between the two bodies and their different natures. It is of course also known that it is easy to access altered states and capacities via the intentional use of the breath. In the general man, the breath plays a significant role in his lack of independent being and embodiement in both worlds. The general man tends to experience a certain limitation due to the way he breathes, such that his thoughts and sensations cannot stand apart and they influence each other in a particular limiting fashion. This is again why certain exercises involve an active awareness and/or direction of the breath whilst engaged in a simultaneous active awareness and direction of the mind.

To have a truly independent inner and outer body is also what is meant by ‘not letting the left hand know what the right hand is doing’, and this same thing is symbolised in the left and right hand of the sovereign ruler, which often bear different objects or tools etc. Of course this has also been linked to the left and right ‘channels’ of the body and their balance or ruling from the ‘central channel’ etc.