July 20th, 2025

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You are not your body (and that’s good news)

Most people today have no idea that they have a body — they think they are their body. This might sound like philosophical hair-splitting, but it's actually a monumental difference that affects every aspect of your daily experience.

"What do you mean I'm not my body? Of course I am! I’m in pain when it's injured, I’m in pleasure when it feels good!"

Not exactly. You're confusing experiencing through your body with actually being your body. There's a crucial distinction between the experiencer and the vehicle of experience.

When you believe you are your body, the stakes feel overwhelming. Every ache becomes a personal attack. Aging becomes an existential crisis. A medical diagnosis feels like a verdict on your very existence. You defend your physical form with desperate urgency because you've confused it for your actual identity.

But when you recognize that you have a body — like you have a car or a house — everything shifts. You can care for it without being enslaved by it. You can enjoy its pleasures without being devastated by its inevitable changes. A diagnosis becomes information about your vehicle, not a judgment on who you are.

Consider this: if you truly believed you were nothing more than flesh and bone, why would you ever feel embarrassed? Embarrassment requires a sense of self that's separate from the body — something that can observe the body's actions and judge them. That observer isn't made of tissue.

This misidentification is tragic because it prevents you from fully enjoying the remarkable gift of having a body. When you're constantly worried about preserving and defending your physical form, you miss the incredible sensory richness it provides. You can't fully appreciate good food, satisfying movement, or physical intimacy when you're anxiously monitoring every sensation for signs of threat.

The irony, of course, is that when you stop identifying as your body and start relating to your body, it actually becomes healthier. You make decisions from wisdom rather than fear. You listen to its signals without panic. You care for it like a treasured tool rather than guarding it like a fragile ego.

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Freedom from regret

Regret feels like drowning in your own body — anxious belly, desperate heart, gritted teeth. At its worst, I'd curl up in fetal position, pulling my hair and pinching myself, desperate to feel anything other than the crushing weight of "How could I have been so f*cking stupid??"

There is value that comes from reflecting on the past, of course. But that is different from chronic regret — a mental illness where thoughts have convinced one that a past decision has somehow ruined the present moment.

Regret is the result of being addicted to the impossible fantasy "If only I had known then what I know now, I would have chosen differently, and my life would be better right now." The mind loves this story because it creates the illusion of control.

But let me be clear, this form of hindsight is useless. Why? Because it obsesses over what is ultimately unchangeable. If you could rewind time and press play again — with the exact same knowledge, awareness, and emotional state you had then — you would choose identically. Every time. You weren't evil or stupid; you were operating from a limited perspective. Forgiveness is your only option now.

This isn't about excusing your poor choices, by the way. It's about recognizing that regret is a form of self-torture based on the impossible standard of expecting your past self to be omniscient. You made the best choice you could with the information and consciousness you had at the time.

More on releasing these thoughts next week...

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"The degree of freedom from unwanted thoughts and the degree of concentration on a single thought are the measures to gauge spiritual progress.” — Ramana Maharshi

To place your attention wholeheartedly on one object necessarily requires withdrawing it from all others nearby.

For instance, to attend fully to your breath means you cannot simultaneously attend to your foot. To focus on your left nostril means releasing attention from your right. And to concentrate on a single cell within that nostril means ignoring the billions of adjacent ones.

This principle applies to thoughts as well. As your mind becomes progressively purified and refined, all mental activity gradually consolidates into one primary direction — the thought of wanting to experience God. When that aim becomes all-encompassing and all other thoughts of judgement have subsided, you will have you seek.

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