Body

“There is only one temple in the world, and that is the human body”  Novalis

To consider the body a temple shifts the consciousness to a caretaking role. For me, it is the one area in my life that I feel I can truly control because I can make choices about how I use my body and what I put into it. I like to think of my body as a vehicle for being in this space and time.  It can malfunction, but I can try to maintain it so it functions optimally.
From a transpersonal perspective, a focus on the body is another approach to personal growth.  Almost anything that we do will have an effect on all the parts of our being.  Karl Dürckheim, in his book The Way of Transformation says, “When we have understood that body and psyche are not two separate entities, but merely two aspects of the whole way in which a person manifests, outwardly and inwardly, we come to understand that work on our inner being will inevitably affect the body, and that efforts to change the body will equally inevitably have their effect within.”