This Body or Not?

What do we do with this body when we know we are not the body? How do we view this thing that we have loved and not loved, that has given us pleasure and pain, profit and loss? What do we do with our personality that we have built up around the body?

The Bhakti Sastras (wisdom books of devotion) teach that the soul is covered by the body, the soul being our real self and the body a temporary covering. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just unzip our body and material persona and fling it aside? But we can’t. Neither can our new found realizations stop the body from feeling emotions, hunger, pain and so on. It’s the same machine, affected by the same triggers, and powerful in its hold on us.

Bhakti yoga presents us the problem—we are caught in the body—and a solution…how to get out. And it is surprisingly simple. Make our body an ally on our spiritual journey. By using our body to perform devotional service a transformation happens.

Next week we will explore this topic more deeply and I will share three ways to lovingly accept who we are in this life and how, despite our imperfect body, we are perfectly equipped to achieve spiritual success.

In the meantime ask yourself—How can my material body touch, inform, or help my spiritual self?

Source:http://iskconofdc.org/this-body-or-not/

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