The Philosophical approach to the Body. Duality and the Non-Duality

Our modern civilization inherited a critical view  from the previous millennium that falsely divided the man in two halves. It divided the Body and Spirit, Body and emotions.

Compared to the mind the body remains something of a minor(simpler) nature, one that only needs to be addressed after the fact. For centuries, the body has been regarded as the anchor that causes the man to suffer in this world. To a large extent, the Christian tradition, which reduced the body exclusively to sinfulness and worthlessness, influenced that thinking. It was  early Christianity that caused us to forget the ancient culture of the body and its worship, reducing the body functions to sin and shame. 

From Descartes’ mind-body duality, to this day, we are reaping the negative rewards due to lack of “body’s” culture in our modern world, and thus have come naturally to the existential crisis of ourselves Here and Now, and to the crisis of our Own integrity to the World.

“Nonduality” of the mind-body

The Descartes’ axiom: “I think therefore I exist”,”Ego cogito-ergo cum ‘nullified any autonomy of the Body as the one from which Truth can begin. Thinking became the only condition of existence, that is, my existence was made possible only because of what I was thinking, and not through a direct physical Presence in the World.

Not only did the infamous Descartes theory divide body and mind, but he actually brought humanity to a total virtualization of the world we are in right now. It’s easier for us to “be away”, getting hung up in our smartphones, television and in a stream of virtual reality that doesn’t exactly involve the body in our “daily program of life.” As a consequence, after such an intense mental involvement, one loses the sense of Self, and of His presence in the World. A Man ceases to be Here and Now, in this Body and this moment, as he willingly leaves the body, breaking away from this physical world and its reality.