Thank you for your honesty, RF. It is truly inspiring to read how your practice has transformed your relationship to your past trauma. I certainly would not want to minimize that, and that was not my intention when I critiqued Osho's teaching on the body.
In the end, I can only speak from my own experience. And my own experience has led me to see the body as conditioned. This is my simple truth.
What arises in my body is not a fixed reality. It is not in itself good or bad, painful or pleasant, wise or unwise.
I neither venerate nor disparage sensations. They simply arise because of certain conditions: my nutrition, my sleep, my past experiences, and yes, my thoughts and awareness (etc.).
All of those factors determine which sensations I experience. By understanding (and practicing) this simple truth, I have found alot of freedom and happiness.
You seem defensive after my last post. Is this a good or bad thing ?
I wasn't really bothered by your post. I swear.

When I said our conversation was becoming "unskillful," I was just calling it like it is. In my view, speech is
skillful when it respectfully explores our "truths." Speech tends to become
unskillful when it focuses on the speaker rather than what they are saying.
Unfortunately, that's what we did. You ignored my main point (The body plays a fundamental role in the arising of clinging/attachment) and instead focused on a turn of phrase ("I can't help but think...") to imply that I was not speaking from experience. Similarly, I spoke unskillfully when I stopped talking about Osho's teachings, and started attacking his character. That's why I deleted it. When I say this, I'm not trying to put us down. But I think by being aware of this tendecy, our conversations can be more fruitful.
skillful and unskillful.This again seems like a creation of the mind, judging things to be skillful or unskillful ... this is spiritual materialism ... i.e. moving your attachments into the spiritual realm. The mind is very tricky.
I would say drop all concepts and begin at the beginning, with your experience.
I use the terms in their typical Buddhist sense:
Skillful = conducive to long-term happiness
Unskillful= not conducive to long-term happinessIf you're interested in being happy, I wouldn't suggest dropping these concepts. Not yet, anyway.
Love it the way a parent loves a child.
If you split your experience into (1) parent and (2) child, you are generating a new problem for yourself. You have made 2 people within you.
One of them (the mind) thinks it is a good parent - it has sucked you in to its madness, and given you a nice rationalisation (you are superior to the body). The mind has gained power, and the path home is distrusted.
This is just the nature of language to "split experience." We can't speak without doing so. Indeed, Osho's examples fall prey to the same problem if we analyze them like this. (i.e., The mind is trusting while the body is being trusted. Or the mind is revering, while the body is revered).
The truth is that as awareness is brought to the body, the distinction between mind/body falls away. It doesn't matter what you believe or how you try to relate to it. Keep you awareness there long enough, and the division disappears. However, in my experience, real happiness isn't about simply having that non-dual moment.
Rather, real happiness lies in learning how to relate to your experience in a way that is skillful.
Thus, my concern is that "trusting" and "revering" the body can easily be construed to mean, "Do what your body tells you." And where does that lead? The person filled with anger will hear their body say, "Fight!" The person filled with lust will hear their body say, "Do it!" You can try surrendering to these impulses, but that doesn't bring real freedom. The choices that you make plants seeds in the body/mind, leading you to make the same choices again and again, even if those choices make you suffer. Sometimes, your choices might make you happy, but that's still bondage. That's what I call misery.
For me, real freedom comes not from simply loving the body, but from lovingly paying attention to it, and understanding how the choices you make will determine which impulses arise in the body, and how long they will remain. Then, you can make the choices that lead to real happiness.
With metta,
KN