The Body of Flesh, the Body of Light, and the Eternal Witness
The Witness Behind The Healing Journey
The Inner Landscape of Experience
Beyond the physical body lies another dimension of our experience: the subtle body, often called the body of light.
The sub
tle body is the luminous tapestry of intellect, ego, memory, thought, emotion, impression, and personal experience. It is the inner landscape through which life is interpreted, experienced, and known. Yet, like clouds drifting across an endless sky, it is never still.
Thoughts seem to arise and dissolve, our memories emerge from silence and return to silence. Emotions bloom, linger for a time, and fade away as if they were never there at all. Beliefs evolve, identities shift, and understanding deepens through our experience.
Thus, the subtle body is not a fixed self but a living stream of becoming, constantly reshaping itself from moment to moment. It is a river of appearances, a flow of experience moving through the field of awareness.
The Nature of Constant Change
Just as the physical body moves through birth, growth, maturity, decline, and death, the subtle body also undergoes continual transformation.
Memories are gathered and forgotten, although some hang around but are distorted. Desires seem to arise and dissolve, perspectives shift and our understanding deepens.
Experiences leave their imprint before fading into the vast storehouse of memory. Consequently, nothing within the subtle body remains exactly as it was. Like the physical body, it is subject to change, movement, and impermanence.
The gross body is made of matter, our subtle body is made of experience, one is visible to the world and the other is visible only to oneself.
Yet both are impermanent both are movements within a greater field of consciousness.
The Two Bodies
The physical body is a dense shell, constantly changing as it passes through the stages of life before finally returning to the elements from which it arose.
Likewise, the subtle body is a softer shell, woven from thoughts, emotions, memories, perceptions, and identity. Though more refined than the physical body, it too remains in continuous motion. It is recreated moment by moment through experience and is never truly the same from one instant to the next.
The body changes
The mind changes
The personality changes
The story changes
Everything that can be observed changes
The Mirror of Consciousness
Yet there is something remarkable hidden within this endless flow of change. Like reflections appearing within a mirror, both the gross body and the subtle body arise within consciousness, are illuminated by consciousness, and eventually pass away.
The body changes
The mind changes
Thoughts appear and disappear like ripples upon a vast ocean
However, the awareness that knows these changes remains untouched
Silent and Still
Ever-present
The body of flesh changes
The body of light changes
But the witness of both remains unchanged
Discovering the Witness
This invites a profound question:
If everything that is observed changes, what is it that observes?
We can observe the body, you cannot be merely the body. If you can observe a thought, you cannot be merely the thought. If you can witness an emotion arising and passing away, you cannot be limited to that emotion.
Therefore, there is within you a knowing presence that remains present throughout every experience. It is the witness, the seer, the knower.
Like the open sky that is never disturbed by passing weather, awareness remains untouched by the movements of body and mind. It allows every experience to arise, unfold, and dissolve within it while remaining forever free of what appears.
Your True Nature
The subtle body changes
The physical body changes
But that which knows the changes does not change
That witnessing awareness is your true nature
It does not arise and it does not fade
It’s not born and therefore cannot die
But simply knows
It is closer than thought
Deeper than identity
Present before every experience, during every experience, and after every experience has passed away
Indeed, it is not something to be created, attained, or acquired.
Rather, it is what has always been present
The path of Self-realisation is not the creation of a greater self, but the recognition of what remains when all that changes is seen as changing
Then it becomes clear:
Beyond body,
Beyond thought,
Beyond the mask of self.
Awareness remains,
Clear and knowing,
The witness of all that comes and goes.
The seer that cannot be seen,
The boundless presence in which worlds arise, linger, and dissolve.
That has always been your true nature.