The Awakening Body & Somatic Spirituality

by Jessica Girija Jewell

I’ve been reading a book I’ve owned for years — The Awakening Body by Reginald A. Ray.

I’ve picked it up before. Underlined it. Put it down. Returned to what I thought was “real” spiritual work — refining the mind, disciplining attention, chanting mantra.

But this time, something landed differently.

Ray describes what he calls somatic spirituality — a Vajrayana Buddhist approach in which the body itself becomes the field of awakening.

Not the mind controlling the body.

Not the body as preparation for something “higher.”

The body as the path.

And as I read, I felt something unexpected: relief.

For years, I’ve carried a subtle guilt about how much of my practice — and my teaching — centers on asana.

Yes, I practice pranayama.Yes, I chant mantras.

Yes, I meditate.

But again and again, I come back to the body.

To sensation.To breath massaging tissues.To the way the diaphragm dips and lifts.To the tension in the upper palate.To the space between the toes.To the way emotion shows up in the heart and belly.

Even in meditation, what draws my attention is not abstraction but the feeling of prana moving, breath shaping space, the body's sounds and sensations.

And somewhere along the way, I absorbed the idea that this meant I wasn’t progressing on the spiritual path fast enough.

Asana is the third of eight limbs of yoga. It’s considered “external.” Surely we are meant to move beyond it.

But what if we misunderstand what “beyond” means?

Ray writes:

“Somatic meditation develops a meditative consciousness that is accessed through the spontaneous feelings, sensations, visceral intuitions, and felt senses of the body itself.”

A bottom-up path.

Quite literal, if you’re sitting.

Reading this, something sparked in me. I realized I have been practicing this way for a long time. Slowly. Quietly. Attentively.

There’s been much time spent breathing into tight quadriceps.Noticing the gripping in the jaw.Aligning the spine and feeling the subtle currents that follow.

And now I realize, this counts. 

This is not preliminary.This is not remedial spirituality.This is bona fide practice.

I don’t consider myself a Buddhist. I love the yogic philosophy of Purusha and Prakriti — the dance between Witnessing Presence and Mother Nature. I am devotional by temperament. But I also recognize truth when it resonates regardless of lineage.

Perhaps different traditions simply emphasize different doorways.

Some refine the mind through precision.

Some dissolve into devotion.

Some awaken through a long, patient conversation with the body.

And maybe we are not behind if our path is embodied. Maybe we are simply walking the path that is actually ours.

I’ve been tired this week. Family storms. Work without a full day off. My body has felt it.

And maybe that is part of why this teaching feels so timely.

Because the body is honest. In the present.

When I turn the mind to the body and simply breathe and feel, when I have an inner conversation, something reorganizes itself without force.

There is intelligence there. Guidance there.

A subtle but real shift. An awakening to peace woven through the fabric of experience.

So if you love asana — not as a performance, not as achievement, but as a listening — you are not spiritually behind.

If you linger in postures and feel more interested in sensation than transcendence, you are not missing the point.

If you breathe and notice and soften and begin again — that is a valid path.

For some of us, the body is not the obstacle.

It is the teacher.

And I feel grateful to rediscover that.

If this resonates, come practice. We’ll explore this embodied path together — slowly, attentively, imperfectly, faithfully.

🧘‍♀️🌿