Everything Is Metaphor: The Mental Body

Most humans reading this will have trouble untangling a Mental Body from an emotional one as we are pretty well conditioned to lump the two together in the category we call "psychology." However, there is an intellectual domain in which thoughts, beliefs, values, and systems of these are created and destroyed, replaced over time by way of incoming information that, when processed, becomes more favored or favorable to the individual's current perception and interpretation of their circumstances. This intellectual domain is part of what can be called the "Mental Body" and, when looked at from the higher, more spiritually-reflective aspects of the individual, the "Manasic Body" (or "sheath"). All thoughts, dreams, imaginings, logical conclusions, and not-so-logical meanderings of the individual mind take place through the filters of the Mental Body, Causal Body, and Manasic Body. Any and every thought, belief, value, memory, or imagining is the reflection of something your Monad has either planned for your Earth-based human experience (in order to experience growth toward, and expansion of, Spiritual Self-Awareness) or has attracted to you (both consciously and unconsciously) in order to prompt or provoke heightened vigilance in order to lead you toward more opportunities for reflection and, (hopefully), expanded consciousness. When one does not give the appropriate attention and deep reflection to events, thoughts, dreams, and coincidences that keep occurring and recurring in your life, then the Causal Body will trigger a less-than-healthy response: a "spilling over" of the unattended issue into the emotional and/or physical aspects of being a human being. These are the occasions in which one will eventually have to pay attention to the issue(s) or else suffer discord, pain, disease, and, possibly, death (of the host physical body).
     The aspect of the above revelation that involves giving attention (and credit) to dreams and imagination (symbolism and creativity) as well as likes and dislikes, may seem far-fetched or hokey to the properly conditioned (brainwashed), socialized, and indoctrinated human, but this more holistic perspective of the human experience takes into account information that occupies, for some, somewhere between 10 and 40 percent of one's conscious awareness. There are whole approaches to psychology and medicine that involve giving very serious attention to these matters: approaches that have been far more prevalent and rehearsed for far longer than our own sciences of "psychology" and allopathic medicine. In fact, there are cultures and even sciences that spend far more time paying attention to, sharing, and discussing dreams, imaginings, symbolism, and (changing) individual preferences than our own mainstream society. Noted Swiss psychologist Carl Jung spent a lifetime collecting and practicing the treatment of the human psyche through interpretation (and repeated revisitation for further (re-)interpretation) of significant, often repetitive, highly- (emotionally)-charged events, visions, and dreams.
     The practice of shamanism was developed, used, and valued as an important health tool in almost all societies over the past 20,000 years. Even art, oral tradition of storytelling, "history" (and mythology and its politicized offspring, religion), and sophisticated systems of astronomy and astrology were developed and used for applications of individual and group "health and healing." All of these numinous human creations find their strength and regulation through the mental bodies of the human form. Every thought, idea, interpretation, belief, value, dream, vision, and preference has its role as a reflection of (a metaphor for) an area or issue whose attention would serve you in your task of trying to unveil the layers of Ignorance that you have immersed yourselves into (through culture, society, family, media, and Ego construction) in order to have some chance at "returning" to Spiritual awareness, Self-awareness, Self-actualization, and even Self-Realization (which would be the reunification of Ego perspective with that of Spiritual or Monadic perspective--though true and ultimate Self-Realization would entail full and ever-lasting reunion with the Oneness consciousness of The All, the Great Cosmic Creator).