...When Hinduism and Buddhism insist that the body is an illusion, they are using a metaphor to express what is a fact: Soul and body are one. 

When the Jews, the Christians, and the Muslims all insist that we are the light of the world, they are insisting in metaphor what is a fact: We are light, whether one uses the word soul or the word body to define us.

When Native tribes, aborigines, and members of Goddess religions and shamanic cultures insist that there is no separation among a human, a deer, a rock---for all these "things" are made of one materials, the Great Mother---they are insisting in metaphor what is a fact: Separations are illusions, especially separations between what is divine and what is material...

...Inherent in the idea of a soul that is not quite a body and a body that is not quite a soul is also another idea: We can only think of soul and body one way.  What if we could mature our minds to the point of realizing there is another way?  What if we could stretch our minds such that they could accept two seemingly opposing ideas at once and also realize that they are not contradictions?