Not The Body

By Staff

Tuesday, July 7, 2009, 16:48

The ancient Hindu scriptures point out that one is not circumscribed to the body. One actually extends beyond the body. So say the great masters too whose life itself is the very essence of the scriptural teachings. They represented the ultimate truth and truth only, though embodied.

Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa says that as long as one has a body, one will have to take care of it. However for Him it was a different issue. He found the body to be different from the self. He says that when a man is devoid of his desires for women and gold, then he can perceive the highest truth of realizing the distinction between the body and the self. Illustrating the fact, the master says, when the milk inside the coconut gets dry, the kernel rattles getting departed from the shell. The shell of the coconut stands for the body while the kernel stands for the self. It is like the sword and the sheath, where the former is distinct from the latter.

Sri Ramakrishna abiding in the exalted state, being detached from His body, could not come to ask the divine Mother directly for curing His illness once when His body was ailing. He however sought to ask Her indirectly as Hriday (His nephew who was serving Him) wanted Him to report the malady to Her. Immediately at that time, the skeleton being strung together with the wire in the museum of the Asiatic society sprung up in His mind. His prayer to the Divine Mother changed its course immediately. He prayed, "Mother please tighten the wire of my body like that, so that I may go about singing your names and glories"

Such was the Master's abidance in the self.

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