THE BODY

The Body is a balanced course in perceiving and perfecting the physical body’s potential to become an outward expression of the divine force within. All its exercises, breathings, hygienic and dietary suggestions have a twofold intention: (1) to make easier one’s progress in the development of intuition and the deepening of meditation, and (2) to assure physical, psychological, and spiritual safety in the process of awakening and directing the spirit-energy dormant within the unregenerated physical organism. With the ultimate goal of successfully transmuting the energy that appears (on its lowest level) as sexuality, it presents a sane and effective graduated sexual ethic corresponding to individual levels of development and spiritual commitment. It also explores and compares some of the differing problems and advantages, with respect to spiritual practice and development, that nature bestows along with the biological organization distinguishing men and women. With respect to this last point, it is advisable to establish a context for individual paras or sentences in the text that may evoke inappropriate responses in some readers. The material on this issue has been thoughtfully reviewed by numerous readers of both genders. What remains that may seem critical of either gender is being published because those readers found the remarks directed toward specific problems of their own biological gender to be very helpful in understanding—and in some cases freeing them from anxiety about—difficulties which they have experienced in their own practice. It should also be observed that these remarks are made by a widely traveled individual with a global perspective on spiritual practice. That some of them may not be entirely applicable in parts of the American and western European cultures now experiencing a certain amount of psycho-sexual homogenization, does not yet thereby invalidate them. At some inner level, we are all both male and female: The interior opportunities, and obstacles, of each gender must be understood if we are to progress. Finally, the more essential point behind these potentially controversial statements, the point not to be missed or misunderstood, is that neither intellectual metaphysics nor devotional mysticism by itself constitutes the philosophical goal of the spiritual quest. Regardless of which of these two aspects one’s disposition favors, only the harmonious complementary development and creative union of both these sides of the human nature issues in that ultimate goal. With respect to the exercises, purifications, and dietary recommendations in The Body, it is, of course, necessary to point out that no one with any condition requiring a physician’s attention should undertake any program of exercise, diet, or physical purification without qualified medical supervision. P.B. has written several warnings into this category of The Notebooks, the publisher has highlighted many of them, and readers should give them due regard. Editorial conventions here are the same as explained in the introductions to Perspectives and The Quest. Likewise, (P) at the end of a para indicates that it also appears in Perspectives, the introductory volume to this series. For more information about Paul Brunton and the Paul Brunton Philosophic Foundation, please visit: www.paulbrunton.org and www.larsonpublications.com. In the human body there is at one and the same time a projection of the Overself and a channel for it. The wisdom and intelligence which have gone into and are hidden behind the whole universe have gone into the human body, too. To ignore it, as some mystics try to do—and vainly—or to deny its existence, as others even more foolishly do, is to ignore God and deny the soul. The student of philosophy cannot do that. His outlook must be an integral one, must take in what is the very basis of his earthly existence, must be a balanced one. 1 PREFATORY Those who read The Spiritual Crisis of Man will remember that I brought the book to a close with chapters which depicted the portals of the Quest but which did not penetrate far beyond them. There was no attempt to venture an explanation in any detail at all of the physical aids which I hinted could make markedly easier the systematic reform and uplift of the seeker’s mental and emotional life, nor was there any elaboration upon the bodily pressures, tensions, abstentions, and cleansings which I merely mentioned could help to re-educate instinct and appetite, nerves and passions. Here the attempt has been made; I have tried to give those explanations and elaborations. The fact that there are practical benefits from the use of these methods is only incidental to my