How Should We Regard the Flesh?

June 29th, 2008

Fear not the flesh nor love it. If you fear it, it will gain mastery over you. If you love it, it will swallow and paralyze you. –Gospel of Philip

The Gnostics are often portrayed as extremists. Not religious extremists as we think of them today, but extreme in how they regarded the body. As the popular conception has it, all groups believed the physical world doesn’t matter, and in their quest to become free of its constraints different groups were led in one of two directions. Some renounced the body and chose a life of rigid asceticism, while others viewed life as a hedonistic free-for-all.

While this may or may not be the case with some groups, I posit that this belief comes partly from the exaggerated claims of their ancient opponents, and partly from projecting common modern views of what it means to be “free.” A fundamentalist of most faiths would tell you that we have to renounce the body and its “carnal urges” in order to earn our freedom. (Yes I know, “salvation by faith alone!” some will exclaim — but in my experience, if you answer “so my actions don’t matter then!” the discussion gets either very quiet, or very loud, but either way a clear and sensible answer is rarely forthcoming.) And then there are the “free spirits” who take the opposite approach, believing that freedom is found in indulgence.

From the quote above we can see that the group who produced the Gospel of Philip (likely the Valentinians) would beg to differ with both parties, instead advocating a philosophy of balance and moderation. When it comes to the question of personal freedom, I have found no better advice than this. I’ll explain.

“Fear not the flesh nor love it.” “Fear” refers to those who renounce the body and the trappings of the material world. “Love” in this instance refers not to a healthy self-love, but rather to identification, and indulgence, possibly to the point of obsession. What happens when we renounce or identify with the body?

“If you fear it, it will gain mastery over you.”

Try an experiment. For the next ten seconds, don’t think about sex. Ready? GO!

…

What happens the second I tell you to stop thinking about sex? That’s right — your mind goes “sexsexsex!” because the subconscious mind doesn’t register “don’t” and “don’t think about sex” is still a thought about sex. If you were to try this for a day, a week, or longer, suddenly you would find references to sex popping up everywhere you looked; it’d be inescapable! This is because of the basic truth that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If you push something away by force, it boomerangs back at you with equal force. If you deny part of natural material existence, you put the mind and body, two aspects of yourself, into conflict… and the rejected aspect will simply begin expressing itself some other way, with or without your conscious consent. The Roman Catholic church continues to give us many tragic examples of the “fruits” of denying the body, and freedom has no part in the equation. Many of us have also seen examples of overprotective parents whose kids go absolutely nuts and indulge in all the things they were denied with reckless abandon the minute they leave home. These are all examples of what I call “forbidden fruit syndrome” — the quickest way to create a demand for something is to restrict or forbid it. If you define part of your identity as being against something, that thing is still defining you. It has gained mastery over you.

“If you love it, it will swallow and paralyze you.”

Identifying with and obsessing over the body and the things of this world is the source of much misery, because the only thing about them we can depend on is change. Change is guaranteed, and loss is a certainty; yet fear of change and loss are two of the biggest negative driving forces of this world. Where’s the sense in fearing the inevitable? If we base our identity on anything temporary, our very identity can be stripped from us. Energy we spend on trying to cling to “the way things are” is energy wasted. Our efforts to resist change consume us and cause us to stagnate. Change is like a river that’s going to flow with or without your consent; try to swim against it and you might be able to fight it for a little while. But once your strength runs out, you’re swept along at its mercy; you lose all ability to direct your course and may smash into a rock or two. If you make more efficient use of your energy by treading water and allowing yourself to flow with the current rather than pushing against it, you put yourself in a better position to consciously navigate a smoother path.

How then should we regard the body and the material world?

In between the extremes of renunciation and indulgence lies the narrow, middle path of balance and moderation. We should regard the body and world for what they are — temporary tools that provide us the ability to have experiences and learn a set of lessons about ourselves. That meat-suit you’re wearing is not “you;” it’s an entire collection of organisms that have come together for the purpose of giving you the experience of interaction with the physical world. When is the last time you said thanks? Physical pleasure is neither the ultimate goal nor something to be shunned; it is simply to be experienced, appreciated and learned from. When we can see change as a set of opportunities rather than threats; when we can experience what the physical world has to offer us with honesty and integrity, neither fearing, identifying with or claiming it as a need, we find ourselves on the narrow path. When we find this balance, we move without tension or conflict. When we can move and act out of our own nature and will, without clinging to objects or expectations, we become free.