Body consciousness

“Your body consciousness is like the consciousness of any animal.  A pet cat running up and down the [cellar] stairs, is an example of the love of excitement and activity with which man and animals are innately endowed.  Animals enjoy being petted, stroked, and loved.  They react in their own ways to suggestion, and in that regard your body consciousness responds to your conscious treatment of it.  Think of your body, for the purpose of this discussion, as a healthy animal … Animals and your own body consciousness have little concept of age.  In a fashion almost impossible to describe, [those] consciousnesses – of the body and the animals – are ‘young’ in each moment of their existences.  I am taking it for granted that you understand that I am referring to the ‘mental attitude’ of animals and of the body consciousness, for they do possess their own mental attributes – psychological colorations – and above all, emotional ‘states’.”

(Dreams, “Evolution” and Value Fulfillment, Session 898)