Chapter 6 

Your Body Speaks its Mind 

“Well I couldn’t stand it anymore,” I said, “I’m going to give him a piece of my mind...” Ah! What kind of a gift will that be? Usually something fairly unpleasant if the image runs true to form. We do not always fill the mind with sweet thoughts. Certainly that sentence evokes the picture of an outraged person who has delivered a parcel of abuse to the neighbour. We might quickly build an imaginary drama but somehow it is already familiar enough. When tensions and conflict develop we have many ways of dealing with them and sure not everyone will take the path of action. But whether we keep our negativity to ourselves or pass it on to others the common experience is one of dissatisfaction with life. 

Our thoughts reflect what we feel about life. If we love life we have loving thoughts that are sweet and fragrant. If we resent our situation and feel unfairly treated by life our thoughts will be bitter and acrid. And what we share of our mind with others will be in accord with what we carry in our thoughts. We may convey the pure clear light of reason, the cold dispassionate thoughts of the uncaring, the crystalline thoughts of the unyielding which are beautiful but without life or the scattered thoughts of the confused. 

As thoughts come to speech we will see their quality. Noble or beautiful thoughts are not reserved to fancy language but they will make any language fine and beautiful. Similarly cruel thoughts will corrupt the fairest words. The force of the thought that is behind the words will show through and we recognise this instinctively as hypocrisy. Some words create destructive force patterns by their very sound and should be avoided. Certain words that are frequently used in situations of stress for instance can both reflect and induce the difficulty. Sound has both a creative and destructive force and like thought it influences our bodies. And we may recognise here that just as thought can act to distort the pattern of the life force so too thought can act to realign the pattern of the life force. 

We each form a picture of life which shows us to be more or less satisfied with how it is. Our thoughts are specific to our individual life story but the principles guiding them will be the same. We think about that which is either inside of ourselves or outside and it either makes us happy or unhappy. The unhappy person therefore may be unhappy because they do not like the way the external world exists (“I want that situation altered”) or because their inner life makes them feel miserable (“I feel depressed”). Then again somebody may be happy with themselves internally (“Yum, yum, I am eating a lovely cake”) or externally (“What a beautiful day...”). These four states are equivalent to the four traditional temperaments : choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic and sanguine. We can act in accordance with any of them at differing times although we may have a disposition towards one more than another in our way of thinking. 

The way that we fill our minds with thoughts is generally seen as a private affair. And in detail it is generally so. But the quality of thought will show itself and be read rather clearly in the body where although we keep our lips sealed the mind will speak: Your Body Speaks its Mind. A smile can be translated into many ideas but a real smile always shows a kind of pleasure and happiness. It may be a welcoming smile (thought: I am happy to see you) or a tight, satisfied smile (thought: there, I knew I would be right), an enigmatic smile (the Mona Lisa and who can guess her thought?) or a quiet secret smile of inner pleasure when we think of one we love. So too the mouth betrays our grief and sorrow, it may be twisted into a snarl of rage or contempt, it may pout or ponder: as our feelings and thoughts change so too the lips form and reform into an expressive pattern. In time the form of the habitual thought produces the form habitual to the mouth. 

What is true for the mouth is true for the rest of the face. In the eyes we read boredom, indifference, suspicion, detachment or deference. They blaze with anger, sparkle with interest, gaze with longing, are dull with fear. As the mind in fear is unsteady and hovers in apprehension so the eyes wander and will not settle. In the nose or chin we can read the thoughts too: why else do the proud look down their noses and the willful stick out their chin. Again the body responds to what is in the mind. Children are expert at learning this body language and before the thought can form, the instinctive responses interpret the signs and learn the vocabulary of this form of speech, as we have already discussed. 

Other parts of the body are as vocal in the declaration as the face. The stiffness of the neck and back display the thoughts of pride and self-esteem. The bombastic belly shows the urge to self-aggrandisement and power. A bowed back shows one bent by burdens, carrying guilt, grief, the cares of others or the load of responsibility. Hunched shoulders and a compressed chest speak of fears and lack of confidence. Those who suffer confusion in the mind display a confusion in the body and as the thoughts go without balance and direction like a chicken being chased so too the body shows arms and legs that lack the coordination of a clear purpose. As a body-builder has but the one thought of rippling muscle so we daily exercise and perform to create the outward expression of our life. A mind that is closed and patterned by obedience to a single thought shows as an automaton that marches like a drill soldier; a mind that is watchful and receptive demonstrates poise, balance and alertness... actively calm and calmly active. 

All of our life then speaks through our body and the way that we live. A man tortured in body or mind carries the scars. A fakir with his shrivelled arm held aloft demonstrates the result of fixed thought forms held perpetually in place. Each body speaks its life. The patterns of the past condition the way we act now - the karmic shells constrict and channel our life force into a moulded course of activity. Like a river that cuts and undercuts the bank as it meanders through the land so our life force flows within the channel of our behaviour. Where we meet soft shale or clay the river spreads and widens, where there is a band of hard rock it rebounds into a tight rush of turbulence. When the winter floods bring debris washing down from the upper reaches the river may burst its banks and reform its channel. The old water course may be left as stagnant pools; lakes and marshes may form behind a dam. If we examine the landscape we will see that it is in a state of change. It lives: it must change. That change displays structure, process and stage. The structure is the pattern of the idea form and its material; the process is the way that it now is being shaped, and the stage denotes the extent to which it has moved within the process. A river profile can be drawn that is like a life, the scenery like the thought forms that surround us, the rain and sun like the gifts of life. As the spring flows from the hillside, filled with water that fell upon the mountain so through all the villages and towns the river of life flows to come at last to unite with the sea.