We often say, “This is my hand, my leg, my mind - this is my body.” Whose body is it? Who are we referring to? When we say, “This is my body, my hand and my foot,” who is this ‘me’ speaking? Have we ever stopped to think that we are actually not the body? It is our body of course, but we are not the body. It is so simple!
What happens at death? The body lies there decaying, rotting because we left the body. The moment we leave the body, the body is nothing but five elements of nature: air, earth, water, space and fire. It disintegrates into ashes. Is it so difficult to realize the truth that we are not this body? Although we can see that we are not this body; although we know that at death, we leave the body and move on, and that the body is cremated or buried; still, we want to fool ourselves in to believing that we are the body. Such is this world; such is the suffering of this world! Unfortunately, until we realize this truth, we will continue to be on this journey of death and rebirth, death and rebirth. Why not stop and realize the truth? - that I am not the body but the fact that I am embodied, I am capsuled into this physical form. I am a Spirit that has human experience, but I am not the body and neither am I the mind. I am the Atman, the Soul, the Divine Power that gives life to the body – that’s why the body is born. It is because I enter the body that it is conceived on earth, is born and grows up and then eventually dies. I leave the body, but all along my ego continues to fool me and tells me that I am the body, I am the mind.
Is it not time to stop, to reflect, to think that I am not the body, but the Atman, the Spirit, the Soul?
AiR