The Hassle On Body, Mind, Soul and the Question of Who Is Driving

I am a body.
I am a mind.
I am a soul.

At least, this is one way I have come to understand myself.

The difficulty begins when I ask:

Which one is me? Perhaps the better question is:

Which one is leading now?

One · arrival

Welcome to the Flesh-Suit

Imagine arriving here for the first time.

Perhaps one of the first great lessons of embodiment is simply:

The Hassle.

And yet something curious happens.

The body learns.

Then it stands.
Then it falls.
Then it stands again.

Eventually it runs without knowing how it runs.

A new function becomes available.

And there is joy.

Two · the arrangement

Three Ways of Being Me

Perhaps I do not need to reduce myself to one thing.

I have a body through which I encounter the physical world.

I have a mind through which I observe, interpret, remember, imagine and question.

And I experience something I call soul: not necessarily another object somewhere inside me, but an aspect of myself that seems deeper than the immediate story.

Something consultable.

Something strangely quiet.

And, at least in my experience: non-negotiable.

The mind may argue.
The body may hesitate.
Circumstances may become complicated.

But occasionally there is simply a knowing:

This way.

Three · leadership

Who Takes the Lead?

This is where things become interesting.

Because I don't always know.

Sometimes the mind leads. It plans. Compares. Predicts. Constructs.

Sometimes the body leads. It moves before the explanation arrives. It relaxes around one possibility and contracts around another. It dances. It reaches. It stops.

And sometimes something seems to arrive from somewhere quieter than either. An intuition. A direction. A word. A simple sense of yes or no.

Perhaps that is what I call soul.

But leadership seems to change depending upon what is happening.

Which leaves another question:

What is the trigger?

Four · movement

Emotion as Movement

Perhaps emotion has something to do with it.

Not emotion as an obstacle to clear away.

Not emotion as the ruler of everything.

But emotion in its older and simpler sense: movement.

Something happens.
Something moves through me.
The body changes.
The mind notices.
Meaning forms.

And when that movement is allowed to complete itself, perhaps the different parts of me reorganise naturally.

The mind no longer needs to control every detail. It can sit back. Watch. Interpret when interpretation is useful.

The body can take care of what bodies have spent an extraordinarily long time learning to do: move through the physical world.

Perhaps this is why some actions feel effortless when emotion is allowed to flow.

There is less internal administration.

Five · the reassignment

The Mind Does Not Need to Be Fired

This does not make the mind an enemy.

The mind is magnificent.

It can imagine something that does not exist and then help the hands build it.

It can examine an impulse before the body acts upon it.

It can remember yesterday and prepare for tomorrow.

But perhaps it was never meant to micromanage every movement.

Sometimes its most intelligent action may be: to observe.

To let the body move.

To let emotion flow.

To listen for whatever deeper orientation becomes perceptible when the internal noise settles.

The mind does not disappear.

It becomes a witness, interpreter and companion.

Six · the floor

The Body Knows Gravity

The body has an extraordinary advantage: it is already here.

It knows weight. Distance. Balance.
Breath. Touch. Temperature. Rhythm.

The soul may contemplate eternity.

The mind may contemplate tomorrow.

But the body has a rather compelling argument:

The floor is here.

Perhaps that is why embodiment matters.

The body continually brings possibility into contact with limitation.

And limitation is not necessarily punishment.

Without gravity, there is no learning to stand.

Without distance, there is no reaching.

Without another body, there is no embrace.

Without physical limitation, perhaps an entire category of experience would simply never arise.

Seven · the quiet part

And the Soul?

I hesitate to define the soul too tightly.

The moment I turn it into a diagram, I suspect I have already made it smaller than whatever I am trying to describe.

So perhaps it is enough to say: the soul can be consulted.

Not commanded.

Not interrogated until it provides satisfactory paperwork.

Consulted.

Perhaps it is the part that remembers orientation when the mind has become lost in maps.

Perhaps it does not always tell me what will happen.

Perhaps it simply reminds me of what I am unwilling to betray.

A quiet, non-negotiable relationship with All That Is.

Eight · the open question

The Trigger

And so the question remains unanswered.

What causes leadership to pass from one aspect to another?

Perhaps the trigger is not a single thing.

Perhaps living is the continuous negotiation between these different dimensions of ourselves.

The mind observes.
The emotions move.
The body responds.
The soul orients.

And then the arrangement changes again.

Not a hierarchy. A conversation.

Nine · through, not away from

Multidimensional Bodies

Perhaps this is what it means, at least for me, to discover that I have multidimensional bodies.

Not that I must escape the physical one.

Quite the opposite.

I discover them through embodiment.

Joy when a new possibility becomes available.
Grief when a familiar form passes away.
Emotion when something moves between what was and what may become.
Thought when I try to understand it.
Silence when understanding is no longer required.

And underneath it all: the strange miracle of being here.

A body touching the world.
A mind watching it happen.
A soul quietly available for consultation.

And none of them entirely sure what the next moment will ask of us.

Perhaps that is not a design flaw.

Perhaps that is the point.