My Body, The Car

Here's something that has been knocking around my head for a while. It started after I read the book Power vs. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior. It is an amazing book that has changed the way I see life, creation and Divinity. It is a concept of self-awareness that has changed the way I live my life.
I'm also writing this because I was speaking with a friend last night and she mentioned, just out of the blue and quite casually, that her 18 year-old daughter is in intensive care after ingesting 400 paracetamol. He daughter is bi-polar and she had been living with it for a while and she was told that the best thing she could do was 'be normal'. She is doing a great job. Her daughter is highly intelligent, being able to read and write at age two and reading a book in Japanese, cover to cover and understanding it. It turns out that she can read and write Japanese. She never did Japanese before. The daughter has also had her trials and tribulations having lost a grandfather, a step grandfather and, most recently, her father in the last 18 months. What came across most, though, as her mother spoke, was the feeling of dis-association that the daughter had with herself as if she was an independent observer in her own life.
So who are we? How do we define ourselves? Well usually, it's by our job. "Hi, I'm Howard I'm a production manager in a graphic design company", "Hi my name is Kevin Martineau, am the Pastor at Port Hardy Baptist Church on Northern Vancouver Island." It seems the most natural thing in the world. So what happens if we are to lose that role? We always have our person to fall back on, right?
In his book mentioned above, Dr. David Hawkins puts forth that our bodies are not "us" any more than a jug is the water that it holds. What defines us as who we are as individuals are the thoughts that we think driven by our identity, our 'soul' for the want of a better word. I would liken our bodies to cars and our souls to drivers. So let's take a closer look at this analogy and just for the purpose of this post, let's take the above to be true.
Our bodies are like cars, once we become aware that we are in them we can animate them. They have working parts and if we look after them, we'll get good mileage out of them. Yet a car doesn't think for itself, it needs us to direct it and we use it to get where we would like to go. In this analogy our bodies require our Self (as opposed to the self) to drive/operate the body. And here's a remarkable and simple concept, like drivers of a car we can choose where we want to go with our bodies, literally and figuratively. We now have the means to take ourselves wherever we would like to go. How much fun is that?
And like cars, bodies come in different shapes and sizes. Some built for speed, some for comfort and some for distance. So who's to say that the driver of a Bentley is better than the driver of Ford? Look in to the windscreen (the eyes) and see the person within, see the driver not the car. As for the maintenance manual? There are many to choose from; the Bible, the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita and the teachings of the Buddah would be the main ones. I am sure this is part of my attraction to Personal Development, it is the self-awareness and empowerment that it is me and my will who is driving this body, my choices and yet, paradoxical as it may seem, nothing happens except through the Grace of God. I don't even need a road map, just a clear decision on where I would like to end up. If I make that choice and act with certainty, the Universe will move to assist, my faith can move mountains. Of course, nothing happens without taking the appropriate action. A car won't start unless you turn on the ignition, it wont move unless you push the accelerator (or 'the gas').
So here's an opportunity to delve deep and see who your driver is, who is your Self whose will is governing your actions. As Yoda says in The Empire Strike Back, " Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter." As I see it, when this person's car has run its course, the entity in the body you call Howard Michael Hughes will get out. Then the next adventure begins! I will be free to travel without the limitations of the physical.
There are corollaries to this notion that I'll post in my next piece. As always, I will get more enjoyment from seeing your comments and views that I have in writing this. I'm glad I shared though. Gloria in excelcis Deo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBTRLp9JOIo&feature=related

Adendum: On the night of Tuesday 10th August, my friend's daughter passed away. The body couldn't be fixed and the driver had to leave. My belief is that she is happier now that she could ever be on this plane and that she is with the other immortals that have left this world. Her mother asked for no sadness as her daughter had been struggling with the dis-ease for some time. Gloria in excelcis Deo.