Hi Kim,

There are several descriptions of how the body and spirit interact. Your analogy of the body's being an instrument is one of them. The instrument is inanimate and fragile. It will eventually corrode and crumble. The artist playing it is eternal, and uses the instrument when she wills to use it. The melody coming from the instrument isn't part of the instrument either. It's an experience that comes, is enjoyed by the eternal artist, and is finished, making way for other notes, meaning other experiences.

Another interpretation is that the spirit animates the body and gives it energy to act. The body then fulfills the willed desires of the eternal self.

Another is the interpretation I believe is true. Only experiences are real. There is no body, just the experience of a body. We have the experience of sight, so we can "see" an arm and a leg and a face looking back in a mirror. But there is no arm, no leg, and no face. Only the experience is real.

We know that's true because we know the body reacts seconds before the experience occurs. The experience and the body then are formed together. When someone has an out-of-body experience or near-death experience, the experiences continue, even though the person has left the body. People appear to loved ones thousands of miles away right after their transitions off of the Earth plane, but they're clothed in the clothes they were wearing or new sets of clothes. After the transition, the person is perfectly fine, seeing, hearing, and otherwise having experiences, but the old body is left behind. However, we know that people have the experience of a new body, which is young and healthy. It's the experience of the body that's real, not a physical body.

That's a short explanation of something more difficult to grasp. The concept of the mind or spirit using the body like an instrument is easier to get our minds around.

Love and peace, Craig