As I reflect on 2021 and look forward to 2022, I am grateful for the health and happiness of many friends and family members who have persisted through these strange times of a global pandemic.
Without sounding like a complete downer, it is realistic to keep in mind that death is also a part of life – and we and those around us whether loved ones, long friendships, or just short acquaintances will not live forever – and a life can be taken away from us at any moment of our lives.
It is on this very topic of death that I want to write some thoughts that I am hoping will help some of you get over the loss of a loved one whether it was due to the virus, another health condition, or an unforeseeable life event. Death is a sad event that I wish I didn’t have to deal with, but the reality is that death is really what sets all of us free when you really start to understand it.
I was thinking I would write this as a series of posts that I have been thinking a lot about, especially with some close family friends and members that are no longer with me, and I wanted to put in as simple an understanding of what I understand death really is.
The concepts that I will break down for you may present an interesting light which you will need to reflect on based on your own beliefs, traditions, and religious background. My goal is to ultimately understand how it is that we can rapidly overcome grief when we lose someone. Is there an easy way to overcome this that transcends the common belief that just time heals?
I am blessed to have learned from many around me through books, seminars, but I am eternally grateful to folks like Dr. John Demartini who bring interesting western perspectives to understanding values and the many great teachers of Eastern religious thought that have paved the path to making me think the way that I do and to present the ideas in these series.
Let’s start with an understanding of what really is the body. What we will learn is that there are three primary bodies that make us who we are and they are all inter-related.
In the most basic sense, the body that we have is nothing but matter creating a shell that houses a number of organs that perform a series of actions to keep the body functional supported by a nervous and muscular-skeletal system.
The key thing to keep in mind is that what we call the body is nothing but a shell housing a variety of organs that allow the body to function. We can call this body the Anatomical Physical (AP) Body. This body is analogous to an automobile, which has an engine, transmission, brakes, chassis, etc. required to run. Essential to the body is allowing air to enter, food to be consumed, and blood to be circulated – these three things are critical for the body to have vitality.
The AP Body is nothing but muscles, organs, bones, blood, etc. that make up what we see in the mirror as ourselves. Many of us don’t know the shape of our heart, but we know the size of our nose. Many of us can’t see our brains, but we can see our eyes in the mirror. I think you get my point that we are what we see as ourselves from the outside.
So then what makes the body start to do things like pump blood, take breaths, blink our eyes, breath in and breath out? This is where we also realize that there is more to ourselves than what we see, for we are also what we feel, and there is some foundational drive to this feeling.
Organs must be “given life” or some sort of energy push to function. Without this energy, there is no life to the body and the body remains just a shell – not doing anything. Bringing back the car analogy – a car won’t start unless there is gas in the car and a human being (I know there are auto-starters but lets keep things basic) turns the ignition to create a spark to start it and and then move the gear to create movement. Without triggering the spark to start the car, the car will just be what it is – a shell of something made of metal parked in the street or garage without any life.
This understanding of the creative force is where we start to realize we have another body contained within the AP body which we can called the Energy Generating (EG) Body. What we learn from the EG Body is that by giving substance to our AP body, it starts to respond by making sure the organs do what they need to do. If we eat the wrong foods or put toxic substances in the AP Body such as through smoking or excessive drinking we will pollute the body creating impediments to the flow of energy that put the body in “dis-ease” impacting organs from functioning properly.
If you look at your AP Body in basic terms, the center of life is actually the pulse created by the heartbeat. Even if we don’t breath the heart can still beat. The heart is the single most vital organ of the body that replenishes the body with fresh blood and expels toxins such as carbon dioxide through the cardio-pulmonary function. The circulation of blood is performed through breathing – the element of air that enters the body – it is this air that gets transformed into energy that makes all the organs within the body function.
If you choke someone to cut off oxygen to the brain you will eventually kill them, but the heart will still beat for a while until it stops. Key point here is that what we put in to the body in the form of food, water, and air gets transformed into energy that makes the body do what it needs to do from digesting food, creating insulin in the pancreas, increasing metabolism, to circulating blood.
To recap: the AP Body is given life by the EG Body. However, there is something more – for which a question will provide a clue: what drives us to create energy? This leads to the last and third body that is of utmost importance which is the Sensory Perception (SP) Body.
The AP Body in partnership with the EG Body is triggered to act as a result of sight (eyes), sound (ears), smell (noise), touch (hands/feet) that allows us to “feel” things. One thing about feelings is that they are deeply internal but driven by external factors. Again, without Sensory-Perception we are left with a body that is an anatomical shell that feeds the inner engine through food, water, and air substance – but has no rationalization ability. This sensory-perception body is what makes us humans so special in that it makes us think, decide, and act.
Bringing this full circle to the car analogy, the car is the vehicle that must be turned on by a human – but how do you know where you need to go and why go there? Let’s say you are hungry and getting cranky and order food, now you need to go pick it up so you will get in the car, start it and move. But the car can do much more, it can be used to pick up your kids, take you to work, support road-trip vacations, etc. The car is driven by you based on what you need to do – it’s always an “external body of consciousness” that drives the utility of the automobile – just like external environmental decision-making factors drive the body.
Just like the AP Body receives and releases substance (i.e. urine, poop) in partnership with the EG Body, the SP Body gives thought power to the brain through the nervous system to take action based on what it feels through the nose, eyes, ears, and touch. As soon as we have sensory-perceptions, we will have the ability to continuously feel – and this feeling is what gives us emotions (i.e., sadness, happiness, anxiety, stress) which lead to judgements and opinions.
So, what we can conclude is that the human body is basically nothing but a medium to express emotions. Furthermore, this body takes the form of male bodies (i..e, fathers, brothers, uncles, boyfriends) as well as female bodies (i.e., mothers, sisters, aunts, girl friends, etc.) with their own degree of emotions.