The body is a chrysalis in which something else can emerge.
When we usually think of the physical body (the lower part of the Soul), we think in terms of muscles, bones and skin - something quite solid. For anyone who has worked with cadavers, the body is anything but solid - it is riddled with empty spaces, holes and chambers. Combined with the fact that we are 70% or more water, the physical body is better likened to an array of slippery and loosely connected 'bits' held together by 'something' in dynamic movement.
If I can't connect to my body, the most intimate and tangible thing I can know, how can I connect to anything else?
The dynamic movement, of which, in some part, we can experience in our consciousness as the 'organic sensations of the body', are not the body at all - but a representation, a resonant image of that movement in a different dimension. In other words, we never experience the physical body directly - we can only experience the physical body as it is impressed on the film of consciousness, focussed through the act of attention.
We are seldom conscious of the energies and forces of the body - expressed as 'organic sensations' - except when something involuntarily 'shocks' us into it. The ability to intentionally connect with the sensations of the body through the power of attention under all conditions (from the favourable to the unfavourable) is a key metric in Soul formation.
We constantly 'mix-up' the consciousness of the body with the actual body because we are unable to separate them - our faculty of attention is to feeble. When the power of attention is trained to be strong and sustained enough, a natural understanding emerges that the physical body is separate, yet related to, the physical body 'sensed' in one's consciousness. This is a wonderful stage in Soul creation as it ushers in a critical feeling-state of 'liberation' - that is, that I concretely and unequivocally 'know' that I am no longer just flesh and bones.
The 'disembodied state', so prevalent in today's world, in which conscious connection to the body is almost lost entirely, is the true definition of Hell. When this connection can consciously endure, it nourishes a Heavenly experience like no other.