HUMAN AS EMBODIED SPIRIT

Human Limitations
-Human existence is embodied existence.
-We are not angels. We have bodies.
-Many things that are related to our existence as persons are related to our bodies.
-Our limitations are due to our being embodied being.
This does not mean however that our bodies are merely hindrances to our desires and aspirations
Embodied Beings
A large part of who we are and how we define ourselves is determined and delineated by our bodies.
Body has limits-we only have certain amount of strength to carry things or accomplish task -we cannot prevent
accidents no matter how careful we are.
As limitations, the body related aspects about ourselves are not a products of our free choice.
It is given in a permanent basis.
It then comes as no surprise that the body is a source of frustration to many.
-Some people are not happy with their age, sex, physical appearance or familial relationships.
Some people wish that they were born at a different time, of a different sex, or of a different family.
Frustration of this kind put the body in the negative light as if it is some form of imprisonment.
The paradox of possibility in limitation
-we cannot move as fast as we could from one place to another; we can never reverse the course of time
-we cannot beat death.
We hardly see that the body also opens possibilities.
While the body limits us, the very same limitations creates opportunities.
-We often complain that we cannot be everything we want to be.
-It is through your limitations that possibilities become real.
Potter scoops mud from floor and mixes it with water to make clay, throws it into a potter’s wheel and with firm and
gentle hands, shapes it as he wishes.
But this entails putting boundaries and limits to the free and shapeless clay.
Without those limits, the mud may just as well nothing, a shapeless entity spread out on the ground for stepping on.
The same is true of the limitation of the body. Even if we complain about our age, height, race, sex, or appearance,
we must not fail to understand that these are the limits that enable us to create our own unique identity.
Transcendence
-existence or experience beyond the normal or physical level.
-the ability to change, be dynamic and continually redefining ones self.
Trans- go beyond Scandare – to climb
Embodied Spirit
Plato writes that the soul “is the giver of life body, permanent, changes, divine element as opposed to the changing,
transitory, and perishable body.
-This makes human being “a soul using the body”
St. Augustine
-Medieval Christian Philosophy
-the human being is a restless being continuously searching for restful waters.
-Man consists of soul and body , “a soul in possession of body’ which “does not constitute two persons but one
man.”-”the human soul is an immaterial principle’ which animates (gives life to) the body.
-human person is created after the image and likeness of God, and what makes him as such is his power of reason
and will. Through man’s thinking and willing we get a glimpse of who God is.
Rene Descartes
-formulate the concept of res cogitans (thinking thing) and res extenza (extended thing)
-the former refers to the soul, the latter refers to the body
-there is a tendency for us to live our lives in a more detached way from our experiences.
-Detachment and shrewdness are highly lauded qualities in our modern world.
The primacy of mind over the body
Emotions are commonly understood as belonging to the scope of bodily functions.
-People who factor in emotions in their activities and decisions are viewed to be less rational.
Having and Being
Gabriel Marcel
-Body as object
-we relate to our bodies as if it is something we have. “I have a body”
-”This is my body. I can do whatever I want.”
-Like property we use it for our needs and wants.
-To treat the body as something that we have is to treat it as an object.
-Body as subject
-the relationship with the body as something you “have’ is just one dimension of our everyday experiences.

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-all things we have are bound to separate from us no matter how hard we try to unite with it.
No matter how much we try, objects are one day going to separate from us.
-this is called as tragedy of having
Our bodies are not object. It is our being. I am my body.
- To remind ourselves of this unique, sui generis, relationship with our body, we must constantly reflect.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
-clearly articulated the meaning of inextricable union of mind and body.
-everything we experience in this world-happens in our body.
-our thoughts in the mind are always embodied.
Hinduism
-human beings have a dual nature; one is the spiritual and immortal essence (soul)
The other is empirical life and character.
-soul is eternal but is bound by the law of karma (action) to the world of matter, which it can escape only after
spiritual progress through an endless series of birth.
God allot rewards and punishments to all beings according to their karma.
All of us, through what we do or not do, supposedly determine our destiny.
Hinduism holds that humanity’s life is a continuous cycle (samsara).
While it is spirit is neither born nor does it die, the body, on the other hand goes through a transmigratory series of
birth and death.
Transmigration or metempsychosis is a doctrine that adheres to the belief that a person’s soul passes into some
other creature, human or animal.
If the person has led a good life, the soul goes upward the scale. The soul of an evil person, on the other hand, may
pass into the body of an animal.
Humanity’s basic goal in life is the liberation (moksha) of spirit (jiva).
True knowledge (vidya) consists an understanding and realization of the individual’s real self (atman) as opposed to
lower knowledge that is limited to an interpretation of reality based solely on the data offered by sense experience.
An individual, by seriously understanding oneself, comes to realize the dictates of karma that point the way toward
moral progress and perfection.
One’s whole duty is to achieve self knowledge in order to achieve self annihilation and absorption into Great self.
Common to all Hindu thought are the four primary values, In order of increasing importance.
1. wealth-worldly values
2. pleasure-worldly values
3. duty-or righteousness, refers to patience, sincerity, fairness, love, honesty
4. enlightenment-by which is illuminated and liberated and most importantly finds release on the wheel of existence.
Buddhism
-contained in the teachings of Siddharta Gautama
-Turning away from Hindu polytheism and palace pleasures
He began searching for answers to the riddle of life’s sufferings, disease. Old age, and death.
Finally, while resting and meditating in a grove of trees, he came to a clear realization that the solution lays in his
own mind.
He devoted to sharing his “Dharma” or Law of Salvation-a simple presentation of the gospel of inner cultivation of
right spiritual attitudes, coupled with a self imposed discipline whereby bodily desires would be channeled in the
right directions.
He omitted any appeal to gods as currently conceived; definitely rejected philosophical speculations; and spurned
all recourse to ancient scriptures, outmoded rituals and priestly incantations.
Four Noble Truths
1. Life is full of suffering (Dukkha)
2. Sufferings is caused by passionate desire, lusts and cravings. (tanha)
3. Only as these obliterated, will sufferings cease.
4. Such eradication of desire may be accomplished only by following the Eightfold Path with earnest endeavor.
Eightfold Path
Right view-know the truth Right livelihood-respect life
Right intention-free your mind of evil Right effort-resist evil
Right speech-say nothing that hurt others Right concentration- practice meditation
Right action-work for the good of others Right mindfulness-control your thoughts
1 and 2 enjoin us to develop widom

3-5 urge us to practice virtue and avoid vice

6-8 tells us to practice meditation.
We do this essentially by following three short axioms:
Cease to evil
Learn to do good

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And Purify your own mind

Nirvana
The way to salvation lies through self abnegation, rigid discipline of mind and body, a consuming love for all living
creatures, and the final achievement of that state of consciousness which marks the individual’s full preparation of
entering the Nirvana (enlightened wisdom) of complete selflessness.
-means the state in which one is absolutely free from all forms of bondage and attachment.
-it means to overcome and remove the cause of suffering. It is also the state of perfect insight into nature of
existence.
The Buddhist see one who has attained nirvana as one who is unencumbered from all the fetters that bind a human
being to existence.

The Biblical God and Humanity

-Definitely do not treat God’s existence as a hypothesis, for God is constant presence rather than a being whose
existence is accepted as the best explanation of available evidence.
It should be take as a humble acceptance of the fact that human beings alone, without God, are bound to fail.
For St. Augustine, physically we are free, yet morally bound to obey the law. The eternal law is God himself.
Humanity must do good and avoid evil.
No human being should become an end to himself. We are responsible to our neighbors and we are to our own
actions.
Innocence of heart and purity can only be gained by God’s grace. God alone can give that gift to some instantly or
to others at the end of an entire life’s struggle. Through prayers, modesty, fasting, and other sound measures that
the church recommends, or God provides, can purify of heart, mind, and body be maintained and daily live.
Suffering is close to the heart of biblical faith.

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