The last message that I posted, which dealt with the issue of control, turned out to be a useful meditation for a challenge that I would face. I slipped on ice and broke my pelvis in the process.
Though I often write of the nature of our divine Self and emphasize its invulnerability, I do not typically write about the vulnerability of the human body. We all know too well about the multitude of ailments and diseases to which the body may succumb, and of course, the fact that death is the ultimate conclusion.
Spiritual teachers point to the body’s frailty in effort to get us to refocus our attention from the changing to the unchanging, and to get us to pursue spiritual knowledge in lieu of merely sensory enjoyment. As a young sadhak hearing a lecture by Swami Vishnudevanda, who spoke of many unpleasant subjects concerning the body, such as the process of elimination and bodily odors. I walked away from the talk thinking that it was too negative in nature. However, today looking back from my current vantage point I see the objective of his approach.
At that time in my life I was trying to straddle the two worlds–the relative materialistic world of ordinary existence and the spiritual. I think we all travel through that domain of consciousness, although spiritual progress is necessarily limited until we take the next step. In time we must come to the realization that the spiritual is our true home, and no longer invest our desire nature in this material realm, realizing that lasting happiness comes from within.
