THE PHYSICAL BODY AS NECESSARY INSULATION

'Origen did not, like many of his contemporaries, degrade the body to the status of an unwanted encrustation imprisoning the soul; for him, the body is a necessary principle of limitation, providing each soul with a unique identity. This is an important point for an understanding of Origen’s epistemology, which is based upon the idea that God educates each soul according to its inherent abilities, and that the abilities of each soul will determine the manner of its knowledge. We may say, then, that the uniqueness of the soul’s body is an image of its uniqueness of mind.'

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosopy, "Origen of Alexandria"

I have written about the body being a form of insulation (not Origen's word) necessary to give the soul individuality and focus by shutting out perceptions which would otherwise overwhelm it.  I postulated that in a schizophrenic person this insulation has failed to some extent.  http://flightsofpegasus.blogspot.com/2006/11/writings-of-schizophrenics.html

Small and Large

The Bhagavad Gita has helped me to a fascinating new way of conceptualizing something. It says: “Your soul, your self, is too small to be harmed by any weapon.” “The individual soul is smaller than a tiny fraction of the size of the end of a hair, but God/Source/Creator is the smallest of all, and can easily enter into the heart of the individual soul.”

The Bhagavad Gita also compares the smallness of the Creator to the gigantic material universe which came from that smallness. I’m exhilarated and inspired by the idea that creation is from the smallest to the largest, from inside out. That makes sense to me. Crystals grow that way. Even when I stir my coffee, my instinct is to make an expanding spiral which begins in its center.


My mind was conditioned, probably because of the way the Bible was interpreted to me, to think of the Creator/God as outside myself, and very large. On the other hand, when I thought of something “within” I could visualize only the dark inside of the body. Thousands of creaky old teachings gave me the idea that to “face God” in some way, I should look up and lift my hands.

The Old Testament creation stories caused me to imagine a gigantic Being fashioning the earth, the sun, humans, animals, like a big potter at a wheel, or a child making mud pies. Biblical language leads to that. This naturally caused me to conceive of myself as a small creature on a big stage created by the Biggest of all, looking down on me.

For that reason I’ve always had trouble with statements like, “look within for God,” and “The Source is within you.” Now, with the idea that God/The Source is the smallest of the small, and is within my own very small (relative to the size of the body) Soul, I finally am able to conceptualize, if only in a crude way, God as within.

I can’t help immediately thinking of quantum physics’ ”string theory” -- that everything in the universe is made up of vibrating bits of energy, possibly the smallest of the small, from which all the physical universe is constructed -- the vibrations of the smallest creating and sustaining the components of sub-atomic particles, then atoms, then structures made of atoms, molecules -- sphere expanding outside sphere -- and on out to humans and elephants and cars and stars and galaxies.

I realize that the Source is inconceivable by my human mind, that non-physical things like the Soul can’t be compared in size to physical things, and that Creation is perhaps what we’d describe as a grand illusion in which nothing is really smaller or larger, but a new way of conceptualizing nevertheless has helped me to entertain the feeling of God “within” instead of outside and above.