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Organizing the Self Through Service
In organizing our selves, we must realize that everything is interdependent of each other in the universe. The unified human vehicle can be separated in explanation by saying we are body, mind and soul, but we are more than that. The totality is more than the sum of its parts.
Service begins with the self: organizing matter, consciousness and spirit as they are reflected in the body, mind and soul. We must serve the body and take good care of it, maintaining the material mechanism in which we are housed. When we do not, we become a burden for others and we cannot serve them. We must also serve the mind, educating it and programming it with positive thoughts, for that is the arena in which we make our life decisions. And we must serve our soul, giving it the valuable experiences through which it grows, and we must allow it to contact the spirit from which it draws its strength. Then this service for the body, mind and soul must be organized together so that there is harmony and all conflict is resolved within oneself.
In many people, especially when we are young but not always so, there is great conflict and imbalance between the body, mind and soul. The body may just want to get drunk and fat at the expense of the mind and soul. The mind may want to devote itself to political, social or theological causes without due concern for the welfare of the body and soul. And the soul may lean towards fanatical spiritual ideals with no regard for body and mind. When the self is organized, the three are in harmony and can move as one in power, strength and purpose. When they are out of balance, energy is dissipated, there is no cohesion of purpose, and life is disjointed with no unity of intent.
Before we can organize the body, mind and soul together, each of these components itself must be organized and balanced.
Organizing The Body
A well organized body is a body in which the parts that compose it are in optimum relationship with each other so that it can operate at its peak efficiency. Common examples of bodies in our society that are not well organized are bodies that have too high a fat content, or a body that has too much toxins in it. Unorganized bodies are uncoordinated bodies, imbalanced and not running at close to its fullest potential.
The body is an amazing mechanism. It replicates the cells that makes up its parts, it reproduces itself, heals itself, has mobility, is innately coordinated, and is a wonderful housing for our mind and soul. A normal healthy body, as long as it is fed the right nutrients, exercises and is not damaged by external means, is a well balanced and dynamic material system. So in most cases, the normal human body does not need to be tweaked in any way to do what it is supposed to do - to be the material matrix for our soul's journey. Unfortunately, many human bodies have problems that are mostly a result of external factors. External factors such as disease, accidents, unhealthy lifestyles, and the like. This is when it becomes necessary to balance it, to take steps to get it back to being a normal, healthy, and well-balanced body, as much as possible.
The body in itself has an innate mechanism to keep it healthy, and believe it or not this is the innate urge to want to do things that feel good. The feeling of wholesome pleasure tells us we're doing the right things, pain is an alarm that tells us to stop. Sadly, many people have those two signals confused. All those things that people do to themselves, things that they think makes them feel good, such as to overeat, eat things that are unhealthy, imbibe harmful but stimulating toxins, and to be sedate are due to the body not being aware of itself. The body wants to feel good, but the reality is that it does not feel good to be overweight, laden with toxins and sluggish. The reason it gets stuck into those behaviors that results in those states is because the mind has made the body think those states are pleasurable. Our minds have been conditioned by society to think it is pleasurable to eat all we want, whatever we want, to get intoxicated regularly and sit around watching TV and we convince the body that this is so. But the body does not think, you might say, that it is has no awareness apart from the mind. Yes and no. To a limited degree, it can think, to a certain degree it is aware. When something gets stuck in the nose, the mind does not need to tell the body to sneeze, it does so of its own accord. When the body feels intense heat close to it, it doesn't need the thinking power of the mind to shrink away immediately. The nervous system of the body imbues it with a certain degree of awareness and power to make decisions. This is because there is a cluster of nerves between the bottom of the spine and a few inches below the navel that is like a second brain. It is the next biggest nerve cluster next to your brain and called the tan tien by alternative health practitioners. It is also the center of gravity of the body and is considered the nexus of the body's strength and power by masters of martial arts such as aikido. When the body is in tune with itself and is aware its own condition it will do what is the healthiest for itself because it knows that that is what feels good, as long as the mind does not interfere by instilling misconceived notions to the body of what constitutes pleasure and what doesn't. Unfortunately, it is not easy to reverse this behavior by the hoodwinked body because the body has been addicted for many years and it needs to keep up this behavior, not anymore to get into a state that it thinks is supposed to feel
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