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The Body - Temple of the Living God

... for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them ...

II Cor. 6:16

A major problem for all religions is the nature of the relationship between God and man. If God is Spirit, and man, as we know him, is of flesh, how can the one kind of stuff impinge on the other? That God comes into the life of an individual in a tangible way has been the experience of many. To others, just hearing about such experiences is so incredible as to be irritating. Even those who feel they have personally experienced God may be offended by similar claims by others whose experience may differ front their own. Such visitations by the Divine remain unexplainable and irreproducible for most of us.

Even those who claim that God, as Spirit, can and does manifest in a tangible way in the physical, may be unable to explain how this happens or under what conditions it may occur. In all religions, the appearances of God to man have frequently seemed arbitrary and sometimes whimsical. Yet, we know that the universe is lawful, that God is law and that all our experiences follow front lawful sequences of events.

How Do We Experience God in the Earth?

A slowly growing insight of man, indeed one that spans tens of thousands of years, has been that the body is the temple and that it is within ourselves that we meet God. One of the reasons this insight has grown so slowly is because it seems contrary to the way in which we experience such events. Although we may affirm that we meet God within, our experiences of the Divine may have a quality of otherness or outsideness.

The concept of projection may provide considerable help in understanding this problem. This mechanism of perception as understood by psychologists may be illustrated by the physical analogy of projection: a light passing through a slide may cast an enlarged image on a screen. The light and the slide are within us but our projected experience seems to take place outside of us. For example, it is universally difficult during an ongoing dream for the dreamer not to feel that the people and events of the dream are indeed external realities rather than representations of inner processes.

When an individual has an experience of the Divine, such as a visitation by an angel, the external otherness of the experience may be so compelling that it seems to be entirely independent of inner processes. Because of the commanding nature of such experiences, it has taken us thousands of years to come to the knowledge that all perceptions of external events are lawfully based upon internal processes. As we apply the analogy of the slide projector to our religious and mystical experiences, we have a vivid picture of how an energy or a light within passing through the patterns or slides of the processes within our bodies, may be given a projected and enlarged representation which we experience as outside ourselves.

Now let us address our initial question. How does the force of God, as Spirit, impinge on us as physical beings? The answer is, from within. The points of contact are within us. The transformation of energy from spiritual to physical is a process that takes place within our own bodies. When Jesus said, " ... thy faith hath made thee whole," (Matthew 9:22) He was affirming the necessity of the inner response of the individual to the Divine within. Where this is lacking, it is said, even Jesus could do no mighty works. This is the insight contained in the expression, the body is the temple.

In the Old Testament, emphasis was given to the construction of a tabernacle or temple in which man was to meet God. The Old Testament tabernacle with all of its grandeur of construction and intricacy of detail was a projected enactment to become eventually instructive to us about the nature of our own internal processes and structures.

However, even if we take this step, it is difficult for us to transfer this insight to a better and more specific understanding of our own experiences, be they mystical visions, psychic awarenesses, dreams or nightmares. When such an experience occurs to us, the feeling that it is external to us is so strong (and any cues that something is occurring within us are so weak) that we fail to apply the insights we have already gained to a better understanding of such experiences.

Let us consider an example. Suppose in a dream an angel or a discarnate entity appears and gives information of a precognitive nature about some upcoming event. Following such an experience, the dreamer often insists upon being puzzled by the arbitrary nature of the visitation. Why did the vision come to me? The dreamer might more profitably ask, What is it within me that enables me to have such perceptions of the future? What is the inner process which enables there to be this momentary attunement? Can this occur more frequently or even regularly? What are the most helpful applications of such an ability?

Why Do We Have Bodies?

In order to understand the body as the temple, we must be clear about why we, as spiritual beings, have and are so caught up and invested in physical bodies. In the beginning, in our original state as spiritual beings, we were able to move through many planes of consciousness. As free-will beings and co-creators with God, we had minds with which to build, but we built thought which deviated from the Law of One. Over time these separate projections imprisoned our own consciousnesses. Finally, we came to a point at which we were lost; we lost awareness of our oneness with God and we lost our ability to move back to Him in consciousness.

This state is analogous to that of a person who, though he may have many concerns and responsibilities, walks into a movie for a moment of diversion and gets caught up in and identifies with the action on the screen. He may get so involved in the movie that it claims his entire awareness and he forgets who he is and what he was doing before he went in.

There are two major considerations related to our involvement in the earth. In a certain sense, our involvement in the earth is both the problem and the answer. A failure to identify the distinction between the two may lead to continuing confusion about many questions that arise in our daily lives.

Let us first consider the problem. As spiritual beings having moved away from awareness of our oneness with God, we came into the earth plane, found it intriguing and fascinating, and began to identify with it (as in the analogy of the man who entered the movie and forgot himself). This condition posed to God a problem. How could He, as a loving Father of infinite dimensions, speak to us who had invested our consciousness so exclusively to awarenesses limited to three dimensions?

This leads us to the answer. It became necessary to develop a statement, a manifestation, a pattern in three-dimensional expression which would be true to the laws of the third dimension and yet in accord with the pattern of the Infinite. The development of a special creation, the human body as we know it, was one of the major steps in the Divine plan to bring man back to awareness of oneness with God.

The Microcosmic-Macrocosmic Relationship

Since God's problem was to call us to remember our heritage and our oneness with Him, it was necessary for Him to develop for us an instrument of consciousness which had the potential for a vast array of experiences.

To enable us to have the full awareness of oneness, it was necessary that the instrument for the experiences be a miniature replica of Him and thus also of the universe. With the development of the human body, the soul now had an instrument which would enable it to experience, even in the limitations of a three-dimensional awareness, its oneness with the Infinite.

The image or likeness of God implanted within us all is a pattern in the soul's mind. With the creation of the human body, we, as lost souls, now had a vehicle through which this higher soul pattern could be given living expression in our experience in the earth.

The Way Prepared by the Pattern Applied

After evolving the human body, the next step in the solution to God's problem with His wayward children culminated in the full living expression of that image or pattern of the Divine in the life of the man Jesus. It was not enough for us to have the pattern of the Divine within and vehicles through which it could be expressed in the earth. We needed to see it in action. Through Him, the pattern planted within us all was now given full manifestation in a life of perfect love of God and fellow man.

In manifesting this pattern of perfection, Jesus took on all of the traditions, prejudices, negative emotions and multitudinous thought forms of the ages which work against the full expression of the life of the Spirit. The forces working against such an expression, both in this plane and in others, were of such a magnitude that it may be truly said of this unique life that He took on the sins of the world.

We may now understand how the earth experiences may be either the entry into imprisonment or the path toward liberation. It is true that the desires and problems of the earth plane draw us back to subsequent incarnations, but it is also true that special arrangements have been made whereby the earth experience provides a very special opportunity for awakening the soul.

Because of this pattern of the Divine in the soul, the instrument of awareness provided by the body and the new accessibility to the pattern by virtue of the life of Jesus, we have, in the earth experience, a very special opportunity to grow in our awareness of God. Incarnation into flesh gives us a greater opportunity for awakening than some other dimensions which lack this instrument for growth and awareness. Here we receive relatively immediate feedback on the consequences of our choices, activities and relationships with others.

The Temple as a Place

If man can have a direct experience with the Divine, are there special places in which this might be more likely to occur? There are, indeed, many places in the world which are known as holy places because manifestations of the Divine seem to occur there more frequently. But as early as the origin of the book of Deuteronomy, there has been a strong warning in this tradition not to seek God outside of ourselves. Thus, we are told:

For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off.

It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it?

Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it?

But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.

Deut. 30:11-14

This message is reiterated throughout the Old and New Testaments. Why are we to meet God only within? Because what is needed is not the outside experience but the transformative power of His Spirit flowing through us. The soul, that portion of our being which may be made aware of and brought in attunement with God, is within! As His children, we are spiritual beings just as He is a spiritual being. Just as our own children may be said to be flesh of our flesh, so may we, as children of God, be said to be spirit of His Spirit. The essence of our being, then, the indwelling spirit, makes of our bodies not a place of His visitation but rather of His residence. The psalmist said, "Though I make my bed in hell, thou art there" and Jesus said, "Lo, I am with thee always." When He said, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock," He was both affirming His continuing presence within us and indicating a continuing eagerness to enter from the spiritual level of our being into the mental and physical as well.

The Revelation of John

On more than one occasion in the early years of his work, Edgar Cayce extended a surprising invitation to students of his readings. He asked them to study the Revelation of John with the idea that the patterning for the body is expressed in the visions of John. With our new understanding of projection, we can now see more clearly how visions, such as those of John, may be the projected imagery which accompany attunement processes in the body. The readings did not represent this approach as being the interpretation of the Revelation but rather as an interpretation which could be made individually applicable. This approach to the Revelation is the same as that of the great Swiss psychologist Carl Jung in his studies of fairy tales, mythologies and sacred literatures of the world.

As Jung came upon extensive correlations of imagery from such varied times and sources, he hypothesized that the similarities were due to the common internal make-up of man. The basic neurology of a present-day Fijian is the same as that of an ancient Norseman. Due to the physiological parallels of all mankind, he hypothesized a common mental substratum for all experiences which he called the collective unconscious. As he identified major themes or images that appeared in varied human experience, he identified these reappearing patterns as archetypes of the collective unconscious.

In these terms, Edgar Cayce's approach to the Revelation was to see all the visions of John as archetypes of the collective unconscious. That is to say, the visions of John represented the internal processes and structures within us all which become involved in and indeed are the instruments of attunement to the Divine within.

The psalmist marveled at how fearfully and wonderfully the body of man is made. (Ps. 139:14) Indeed, all of its processes and structures are truly amazing. Yet one of the most amazing and important of these is the emotional, motivational and coordinating system of the endocrine glands. The endocrine glands are ductless glands, that is to say, their secretions (hormones) are released directly into the blood stream. These secretions are powerful biochemical messengers which have the potential of reaching all cells in the body and modifying their functioning in a matter of seconds. The endocrine system includes seven major centers which may function relatively independently and also in special concert with one another.

It is known that some of these glands function as emotional and motivational centers. They act especially in response to the imaginative forces of the mind. For example, the relationship between a thought of anger and the consequent secretions of the adrenals is well understood. The activity of the gonads, the sexual glands, is also understood to be related to sexual motivation. Everyone knows that the pituitary is the master gland of the body, and its secretions have a direct and coordinating effect on all the other glands. However, it has occurred to very few to ask what emotions or motivations are related to the pituitary in the same way that anger is related to the adrenals. In the interpretation of the Revelation, the seven churches may be seen as symbolic of the seven motivational centers of the endocrine system. We may infer, then, that the motivational force of the highest or pituitary center would be the God force, the impulse to or desire for oneness.

The Book with Seven Seals

In the beginning chapters in the Revelation, John sees a vision of a book with seven seals. This book may be understood to be the body, inclusive of the physical, mental and spiritual. The seven seals indicate how closed off we ordinarily are from the incredible potential of these seven glands to function as spiritual centers. As spiritual centers, these glands are the storehouses of memory, especially as related to emotions, for all of our previous incarnations and in a certain sense, the history of the soul. Since they are the storehouses of karmic memory, it is by the grace of God that they remain sealed until we are on the spiritual path and prepared to deal more effectively with the memories, problems and talents which accompany their opening.

In the vision, John weeps as he realizes that no one in heaven or earth is worthy to open the seals of this book. However, there appears a Lamb, the Christ, with seven eyes, who opens the seals one by one. This sequence of events in the vision is extremely important and instructive for us in the beginning stages of our spiritual awakening. The awareness that no one is worthy to open these seals except the Christ, should indicate to us that we should make no attempt whether by drugs, hypnosis, breathing exercises, or other specialized meditation or inner awareness techniques which may open these centers without respect to spiritual ideals (remember the motivating force of the pituitary). Why did the Lamb have seven eyes?

The Stones with Seven Eyes

... behold, I will bring forth my servant the BRANCH. For behold the stone that I have laid before Joshua; upon one stone shall be seven eyes ... Zechariah 3:8-9

In the story in which Moses struck the stone at Meribah and water flowed from it, we have a symbol of the way in which the Spirit of God may express in the earth. The apostle Peter, so named as being "a rock," addresses us in his letters as "lively stones." We, being in the earth and of the flesh, are symbolized as stones; and the Spirit of God, as the Source of all life, is symbolized as water. The experience of Moses is an illustration to us that the living spirit of God may express in and through our bodies in our experience in the earth.

The stone with the seven eyes in the vision of Zechariah represents the body with its seven special senses of spiritual awareness. The seven spiritual centers symbolized by the seven eyes are the organs of perception through which we may become aware of other planes and dimensions and of the Spirit in the same way that our commonly known five senses are organs of perception of our earth experience.

Although we have learned to think of God as One or as Triune, the Revelation speaks repeatedly of the seven spirits of God. This expression suggests seven different functions of the Divine Spirit. Thus we, as children of God made in His image, contain within us the corresponding sensory centers which give us the potential of becoming aware of the seven aspects of the Divine.

This concept of seven spiritual centers may also become the basis of our understanding and analyzing the great array of psychic, mystical and spiritual experiences. There is no experience of this sort that does not have its correlative physiological processes. This understanding will enable us not only to analyze ourselves but also to gain an insight into the emotional and motivational bases of all of the various forms of religious and psychic experiences.

Conclusion

The body is the temple of the living God both as the place where we may meet Him and as an instrument of awareness through which we may attune to Him. As an instrument for attunement, the endocrine glands serve as points of contact between the Spirit and the body. These centers are the transformers of the One Force of Spirit into physical consciousness and manifestation.

The functioning of these centers is dependent primarily upon the quality of motivation chosen and dwelt upon by the imaginative forces of the mind. Thus we may reaffirm (as in previous issues of Covenant), "the most important experience of... any individual entity is to first know what is the ideal spiritually," (357-13) and "... the key should be making, compelling, inducing, having the mind one with that which is the ideal." (262-84)

If you have questions about this lesson, please contact me.

Yours in peace and fellowship,

Herbert Bruce Puryear, Ph. D.