Mind and Body

Gabriel had a dream. His mind somehow became separated from his body. He was in a maze, but it was a maze without limit or time. The body wandered off.

Because it no longer had a mind, it was happy. It rushed two and fro, sometimes just the other side of the hedge from mind, sometimes miles away. The mind had no body and could not move for countless ages it sat on the stone bench at the centre of the maze. Because it had no body, it never grew old. It was never hungry of thirsty, nor cold.

But in its body, it had no pleasure. Eventually, Body returned. By now, those legs which had walked so briskly were bent and frail. Its once handsome face old and ugly. And body said to mind ‘come with me again, I have seen all things, been to all continents and have felt every pleasures, whereas you lie alone, unmoving, on your stone bench.’

Because mind could not talk or move, it could only pray. Mind’s whole was just prayer with and about God, who, like mind, was formless. And mind answered with no voice.

‘Leave me, I have no past or future or present; no movement; only stillness. Dead to the world, I am content.’