Description
Perhaps, in our much seeking, we have looked too far abroad. One of the errors of our search for that which would satisfy our soul and make us whole has been that we have looked outside of ourselves rather than within ourselves for the answer to our needs. If each of us truly knew himself as what he really is, he could at once arrive at a place of dominion in his life where never again would he be subject to the turmoils of the world.
The two means by which we know ourselves are simple, but each must be followed. First, we come to know ourselves through the teachings of those who have devoted their lives to the study of the human being. We have come to know the nature and function of our physical being through those who have studied the human body. This has given us a knowledge of what the modern physician calls the soma. The soma is a word that comes from the Greek and means the physical body.
With the advancement of the knowledge of the physical body we have discovered that there is no point where the physical body can actually be separated from the mind. Even the individual cell, science tells us, is alive with intelligence. Since we have learned that there is intelligence in the body, this is the first way we come to understand ourselves.
The second way we come to understand ourselves is through the psyche. Now we see where the modern physician arrives at the term “psychosomatic.” He has joined to the Greek word “soma” the Greek term “Psyche,” which means the mind. This has caused an entirely new concept of ourselves. We are coming to know that we are whole persons only when we think of ourselves, not alone in terms of physical beings, but also in terms of mental beings.