The Onion

Happy New Year!

There's something that I didn't post from the previous year. Just before finishing Steve Richards' "Traveller's Guide to the Astral Plane," I saw the seven layers of this body one by one. I was a bit too fascinated by the images though - didn't focus on most of them properly. Regardless, I realized the imbalance - quite a bit of strength in the low and the high layers but almost nothing on the middle layers.

Also realized that due to my preconceptions, I had previously mistaken the lowest layer for something else (something inherently pure or clean). I saw a black slimy humanoid crawling. The lowest layer is all dirty, fleshy and with very basic instincts. It grows from earth and it will become earth again. I've ignored a lot of that - because I've been certain that's not who I am. Both true as well as false - having acquired a body, it's my responsibility to take care of all its layers, to feel all its layers, to become one with them. It's as if human souls were injected into a realm several layers below their natural habitat, to inhabit bodies that belong there. This makes it possible for the souls to become acquainted with, and to acquire the sensation of the lower realms which would otherwise be too far off.

Thank you @ the authors of the caving story, Steve Richards and X-Files for this realization.

I'm pretty sure the 7 layers are a rather coarse interpretation but having just a few of them makes it possible to envision, categorize and analyze them with the rational mind.