Tracking down the soul Part.1

People get angry with "me" when I tell them that there is no doer, there is only life being done. But who is the "me" who perceives this anger? Certainly anger is perceived by "me", and that "me" is also a bundle of sensations in those moments. "I" usually feel the tension of the other, along with my body's own fight or flight response which creates sensations that flow through "me" in those moments. "My" body tightens, "my" heart pounds... surely these are all signs that "I" am an "I" that is a entity. "I" must exist, right...? If not as the body then as the soul in the body.

The problem with this line of reasoning is the root of perception (you could say "the seat of the soul") has never been found. We all agree that a corpse is no longer a person. The corpse was a person. Did the body that became a corpse house a soul? If so, then the soul is within the body, but where?

Think about this: where do you feel yourself to be when you move about the day. Not as the body, but as the sense of "I". Do you think through your toes? Do you identify with your fingernails? Probably not, unless you are some asshole guru running around telling people you perceive the life in every cell of your body. For most people the arms and the legs are tools that they use, and unless they are a source of pain they are easily forgotten. I think we can rule them out as the "seat of the soul" If you are like most people, you probably begin to perceive a solid sense of self in the genitals and anus. Most of us, even the most animalistic of us, would not identify ourselves with these regions. We know the jokes about what head men really think with. But all jokes aside its pretty obvious as a location for the "I" we can rule out the ass/cock/twat

 Disqualifying the arms, legs, genitals, and anus, where could the soul be? In aikido the hara (the spot behind the navel) is seen as the source of personal and spiritual power. Developing balance and power from the "core" becomes a lifelong pursuit. This power is not merely expressed through the  motion of the physical body, but also as living energy that radiates from the core, affecting the world around the person. Here we find the beginnings of our definiton of the "I" sense. And not just "I" in the sense of being alive, but "I" with meaning. The power to influence the world comes from this place. The term "gut instinct" finds an obvious basis here, in our native understanding that the hara is real in some sense. If we strip away the mystical extremes of eastern thought we still know the hara as part of the of "I" that we feel. If you told me you felt more life in your toes or genitals than in your stomach, I might start to back away from you. That sounds scary to me. The arms and legs provide fight or flight, the genitals and anus make the cycles of reproduction and cellular regeneration possible (no anus, no shit, no shit, no space for new cells) but the stomach region is the beginning of the sensation of "I" in humans. I don't know about animals... Im not a koala bear.

Power, sex and cellular cycles... do these things comprise the soul? Clearly not. I would argue we need to travel higher through the torso to come closer to the seat of the soul. I think it's funny that we are traveling along the same dierction as the Kundulini energy. Maybe the Hindus were aware of something... but how could we believe any group of people who don't know how delicious cow is?

Its impossible to deny the region of the heart gives us much of our moment by moment sense of identity. This is because of the incredible amount of sensation we receive from it each day. The energy can be overwhelming, swinging between polar ends.Whats amazing about this is, this area only exists in two emotional states: bliss or suffering. Everything else is a play on words. But am "I" my heart? Is the "I" housed in the chest? Personally I find my sense of "I" is weakest at the hara, grows stronger around the chest, and becomes most pronounced around the head.

Now we come to the top of the body, having followed the soul across the desert, over the mountains, and through the forest of the heart.Along the way our faithful trail of crumbs has been the feeling of "I" which grows stronger the farther we walk. What is left but the head? Once again we are reminder of those cow lovers the Hindus, and the map they created. On their map the X is a dot marked right between the eyes. But as we have already considered the sense of "I" is not localized to the head, it extends through the heart into the hara.

At first glance it seems the "I" must be a field that starts at the head (or above, we can't forgot the seventh chakra) and extends downward. But where is it? Or to make the question more personal to the reader? from exactly where in your head (or above) do you exist as the perceptual gateway between inside and outside? Does not the "I" sense extend downward into the flesh? There must be a location, if you believe the "I" exist.