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Everyone is trying to attain a perfect body. This one metapsychological insight from the Esoteric Teaching explains the whole of ordinary human thought, motivation and behavior. It also demystifies the psychological dynamic of identity at work in the various stages of spiritual life.

Everything we do is calculated to position ourselves in relation to the symbols of our conception of a perfect body. These symbols may be qualities, possessions, designations or relationships. For example, someone whose conception of a perfect body includes being a great lover may try to cultivate physical beauty and health, a comfortable dwelling with a romantic décor, a desirable social standing and friendships with beautiful and popular people.

This is the method of association, which does not really work. It simply acts as an enabler for our addiction to the story we tell ourselves to keep up our false hope of attaining a perfect body in the future. The main problem with all of this is that the material body is not really the self. So even if we are able to successfully position ourselves in relation to the qualities, possessions, relationships and designations of a perfect body according to our conception, all we have is a collection of symbols. Our material body will still get old, become diseased and die, and there is nothing we can do to change that.

So long as we mistake the material body for the real self, all our best efforts to attain a perfect body are bound to come to naught. We make this mistake because our ontology—the collection of stories we tell ourselves to explain life, the universe and everything to ourselves—is inadequate.

We need these stories because we cannot see everything at once. Most of existence is hidden from our viewpoint at any particular instant, yet much of what is hidden has a direct bearing on the consequences of every act. So we carry around a collection of stories to explain the hidden parts of life to ourselves, in the hope that it will help us understand the meaning of our experience and make the right decisions. This collection of stories is our ontology, and everyone has an ontology whether they realize it or not.

One of the things we cannot see directly is consciousness. Everyone has consciousness, but few people have a story in their ontology to explain consciousness. Even fewer people have a story that explains consciousness adequately or completely.

Yet just consider for a moment how important consciousness is. If we take away your consciousness—let’s say by a discreet dose of opiates or a tap on the noggin with a blunt instrument—what is left? Your body, clothes, family, friends, bank balance and other possessions remain the same, but you cannot perceive, enjoy or do anything with them.

To express the point succinctly: in the absence of consciousness, there are no other issues. Without consciousness, everything that is valuable, important and enjoyable to us becomes meaningless. Therefore, the value of everything that has value to us is derived from consciousness. The importance of everything that is important to us is derived from consciousness. The enjoyment of everything that is enjoyable to us is derived from consciousness.

Considering all this, the importance of having an accurate and workable explanation of consciousness in our ontology ought to be obvious. More to the point, if the value of everything we value ultimately comes from consciousness, shouldn’t we be paying a lot more attention to it?

The Esoteric Teaching holds that consciousness is not a thing in itself, but a quality of the spiritual living entity or soul. What do we mean by a quality? Take for example the color red. You can demonstrate a red apple, but you cannot demonstrate a red without some object of which it is the color. Similarly, you can demonstrate a conscious living entity, but not a consciousness. Consciousness is immeasurable, immanent and unmanifest because it is a quality of a spiritual being.

When consciousness becomes identified with a material body, it is in an abnormal ontological condition. This is because consciousness is a quality of a spiritual being, not a material object. It is as ontologically inappropriate for a material object to have consciousness as it is for a flavor to have color, or a time to have an altitude. The category and quality do not match.

Thus all attempts to identify consciousness with a particular material object—such as a material body—will eventually fail. It may seem to work for some time, with much effort, as long as we can maintain a story about it that explains away the inconsistencies. But no story, no matter how distracting or clever, can explain away the fact that consciousness, as a spiritual quality, is eternal, and the material body is temporary.

That greatest of ancient books of wisdom, the Bhagavad-gita, says:

“Those who are seers of the Truth have concluded that of the nonexistent there is no endurance, and of the existent there is no cessation.” [2.16]

Therefore all attempts to attain a perfect body by associating the material body with various qualities, possessions, relationships and designations are doomed; because consciousness is eternal and real, and everything material is temporary, and therefore ultimately nonexistent. “Everything that has a beginning has an end.”

But in material conditioned consciousness, the method of association is all we know. Fortunately, the Esoteric Teaching provides the solution to this existential quandary, which we will discuss in the next installment of this series.

Next: What are we Doing? 2