The paradox of incarnation is that one can lose the body without realizing it. There are examples of this throughout The Passing of Merlin Zauber. The body provides the mind with a vehicle for experiencing, appreciating, and reacting to the material world. It is the body, not the mind, that supplies the exquisite range of emotional responses that define the human condition.
The body has its own processes and mysteries. What one can do while on "automatic pilot" is amazing. Not just sleepwalkers, but athletes, performing artists, and multitaskers function at least partially outside the immediate jurisdiction of the mind. In fact, the body of a person having an out-of-body experience (OBE) might appear completely normal to casual onlookers.
The body, then, is a temporary shelter for the soul/spirit/mind. In much of today's human societies, particularly those that put commercial interests above spiritial concerns, emphasis is centered on the body, and the implicit message is that soul doesn't exist or doesn't matter. This amounts to mistaking the temporary for the permanent, an error that the soul will have to deal with in a future incarnation.
© Copyright 2005 by Robert J. R. Rockwood. All rights reserved.