It is taught that we are in the world, but not of it.
If 'not of it' means that we are not or should not allow ourselves to be dominated by it, that we should not mistake the dream of this reality for Reality itself, then I might say, yes. Maybe.
Yet we are here, for whatever mysterious reasons, here we are, souls entwined in bodies through which we perceive and experience this reality, visible and invisible ... not to dominate or be dominated by it, to become its masters or its slaves, but simply and as fully as we can, to Be ....here...now ... part of this world, built from the elements of nature, affecting and being affected by it.
I - the part of me that touches, sees, hears, smells, thinks, feels - I am as much of this world as are the birds that watch us from the treetops or the clouds, as the fish at home in the deep sea, as the tree roots and mycelium and creatures that run beneath my feet. On many levels, I participate in their reality and they in mine, for we are intimately, deeply connected.
We are, in the most fundamental of meanings, related. ... and "the body is my very means of entering into relationship with all things."*
So let us rejoice in our bodies. Let us acknowledge their innate animal ability to attune perfectly, deeply to the life of this world, to nature, to our environments. Let us be - while we can - fully human.
(* from The Spell of the Sensuous, by David Abram)
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