Lately I have been studying various esoteric groups that believe that you are not your body. Everytime I come across this concept I nearly wince. All of my life I abstracted my mind from my body. I didn’t pay much attention to my body until puberty when hair started sprouting everywhere. Even then my lump of flesh was no different than all the other lumps of flesh, except that I could chose to shave it or pierce it or tattoo it or whatever else I wanted to do with it because it was my property. But now I know my body is not my property. My body is me. My mind is the processes of my brain. Emotions and thoughts are chemical reactions. But the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Those that say we should pay more attention to the spiritual than the material create a false dichotomy. It’s quite possible (and I’m very open to the idea) that the material world is only an emanation of the higher worlds, but that does not mean it is an abberant world. Often the language of giving into the temptations of the flesh is used. I think this misses the mark. Gluttony, lust and sloth all seem to happen to me when I’m not paying attention to my body. We humans like to kid ourselves into thinking we’re so much different than other animals, that “bestial” things are beneath us. Man may not live by bread alone, but bread is still a prerequisite. One must be attentive to the things of the material world as well as of the world of ideas. To be attentive to the body is a supremly spiritual thing to do.