One day, long before the days of Inspirational music, I lay on my back and decided to see if I could find out just where it was that I lived inside my body.  I folded my arms across my chest, closed my eyes and began my search.

I decided to first eliminate the obvious places that would not be the center of my being, but explore these places nonetheless, just to make sure, so I started in my feet.  I wanted to be thorough.

I could not find any trace of me in my feet – my toes, the arches, my heels nor my ankles, calves, shins, knees and thighs.  As I moved up through my body I tried to search every inch of me lest I stumble across some unknown, some previously unimagined hidden-away place.

My lower stomach and reproductive apparatus was certainly the first area of interest and possibility.  There were signs of mystery and beginnings, certainly central places of some unknown essences, but after a while I decided that there was really no real core, no fundamental.

So I continued my exploration on up.  My backbone was the next place of interest, and though it too proved to be somewhat central, it was clearly not the real home of my identity, my true self.

My stomach gave me the giggles.  It turned out to be a processing station simply connected to a series of tubes on the way to several other filter systems and eventual waste station.  Since then I have always held a comedic view of all those storage bins and tubes.

The next point of real possibility, and the one that actually gave me the most pause, was, of course, my heart.  Though it too was eventually yet another set of tubes and machinery, it also had to do with valentines and first loves and breakups and pangs and perhaps even a potential place or hard drive where I stored old loves – loves of people, of ice cream, of chocolate, of mountains and songs.

But there was no real me, no soul, though the two words (heart and soul) are often spoken or sung in the same breath.  And so, somewhat regretfully, I moved on.  The lungs were simply bags of air and I gave them my gratitude for all their hard work and untiring attention to duty.

I couldn’t find my pancreas.  I looked for it, but not even knowing what it did for me (I was embarrassed to realize) and only just hearing of it spoken, I was admittedly a bit taken aback of this ignorance of this organ I have carried around with me for all these years and could not even find.  How silly of me!

Muscle was explored to no avail.  Veins were followed, but only, in the end, judged for what they were – more piping.  Skin was investigated, but realized with some consternation to be only the bag into which the rest of the junk was thrown.  My arms and hands just the grabbers and holders and huggers – the extensions.

My throat was of interest for a spell, for therein lay my voice, that wondrous vibrator so controlled by soul as to move up and down a musical scale and reflect the music of my mind or to whisper soft “I love yous”.  Besides being the well hole to my processing plant, my throat served purposes never before considered, but then I realized that in the end, it served.  It did not initiate.  It served a higher institution.

So I was finally to the place where I had long suspected would be my residence, the home of spirit, soul, mind – me.  Head.  And more specifically, brain.

First eliminating mouth, nose, eyes and ears as yet again servants of a higher power, I had finally arrived at her long-suspected doorstep.

I paused before entering and looked back on the rest, grateful for what I had discovered, in awe of my newfound and newly appreciated machinery, and assured that I had done my job methodically.  After all, as I said earlier, I like to be thorough.

I entered the mysterious grey matter of the brain – that blob of squirming jelly that occupies the top half of my dome and clearly sits right behind my eyes and, so I’ve heard, is Control Central.  I began to look around through places like Cerebellum, Hippocampus, Amygdala (which I couldn’t even pronounce), Lateral Orbitofrontal, and even moved a bit through the Parietal Lobe.

I’ll have to admit that I sometimes did not know exactly where I was.  Sometimes I felt like I was wandering through a hard drive, sometimes a processor and then sometimes some form of Ram (random access memory).  Sometimes I just looked and wondered at the maze of things.

And it was then that I realized the truth.  In a flash the breakthrough came.  In a personally historic moment of discovery I stepped beyond the matter model.

I thought to myself, “Here I am looking into the brain to see if I can find me.”  Yikes!  “Here I am up here or over here looking into… over there… the body.”

“Why I don’t live in my body at all.  I’m here on the outside looking in.”  I opened my eyes and looked around the room.  Everything looked the same, but everything was different.  I quickly shut my eyes again, for I did not want to let go of the moment of revelation.  I held on for dear life to that moment of knowing.  I GOT IT!  I ate it. I grokked it.  I lay there and rehearsed it.  I lay there on my back grateful for this knowing and completely sure that this moment was a grand discovery of the truth of me.

After a while I got hungry.  Assured that the moment was fully realized I got up and fed the organism.

As hours, days, months and years went by, I’ll admit that I lived in the misconception all too often – actually most of the time.  How silly of me!  But life on planet earth can do that to ya’.  I think it’s called ‘being trapped in the illusion’ – the illusion that there is life in matter.

Well, when I really think about it, when I really need to come to grips with it all, I have that timeless moment to turn to.  That moment in my life when I got it.  I got that I do not live in my body.  The I of me lives elsewhere.

Where I do not know

Where I do not care

For there is no time or space

There is only God’s place

Infinity, eternity

Home!