How did we become identified with a body instead of consciousness?

How to realize your true nature and end suffering

Vic Shayne
ILLUMINATION-Curated
5 min readApr 12, 2024

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Photo by YogawithAmit

Everyone has problems, but have you ever considered that our problems problems — including the inability to completely clarify the mind — exist because we identify with, or as, a body? This is even true for those who intellectually understand, or believe, that there is more to us than a body and its life in this reality. We call it “my body,” and this implies that some mysterious “I” possesses it. Who is this I?

We take the body almost everywhere. The business of the body is our greatest distraction and preoccupation as we feed, pamper, care, and worry about it incessantly. Some people work it to death, and others sculpt, train, alter, adorn, and adore it. Others ignore the welfare of the body, abuse it, injure it, and allow it to fall into disuse and illness and then suffer the consequences of attending to it even more vehemently.

Is there more to us than just a body and thoughts? Have you ever thought about this? How can you find out the degree to which the body affects the sense of a “me” without using the “me” to do the investigation?

When you awaken spiritually, do your problems vanish?
A common goal among spiritual seekers is to awaken in the hopes of casting off the…

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Vic Shayne
ILLUMINATION-Curated

NY Times bestselling author writing about reality beyond thought, consciousness, and the self to uncover what is fundamental. https://shorturl.at/mrAS6