We can’t wish away our bodily identity – we have to work our way through it

Transcript

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Hare Krishna we can’t wish away our bodily identity, we have to work our way through it, wishing away means just desiring that something should go away and it goes away, whereas working our way means practically applying ourselves and then getting free from it now, our bodily identity is a misconception that is the fundamental teaching of the Gita, in 2.13 it says that we are not the body, we are the souls and now, after giving this teaching, right in the next verse, the Gita states it refers to Arjuna by bodily designations so why does the Gita refer to bodily connections of Arjuna after telling him that you are not the body and actually the Bhagavad Gita uses many names for Arjuna in connection with his body so he uses so what does this indicate basically the meanings are self-evident more or less but they these are all names connected with the body and some of them are very very inflammatory connected with the body inflammatory in the sense of inflaming the human ego male ego so why are such names used because these names serve a purpose the purpose is something which is very deep now is it just a functional purpose yes, we are not the body and the soul but as long as we are in the body we have to refer to a person by the bodily name is that the case if that were the case then the Gita could just have used one name instead of all these varieties of name and could have even chosen a name not connected with the body why names which are so much connected with the body actually the purpose we can understand if we look at 2.14 itself closely the verse is telling Arjuna to tolerate taam sthiti kshasubhaar now tolerance is not easy and to encourage Arjuna to tolerate it is telling that you are someone’s glorious you can tolerate who are you? you are konte you are bharata because of your lustrous connections you are meant to act honorably even when you are asked to do difficult things so tolerance is difficult but act honorably and tolerate and this example illustrates the principle that one’s honorable connections in this world can be used to encourage people to act honorably on the path of dharma and this example is not an exception it is a norm there are many places where the characters, central characters in the vedic literature are referred to by their honorable bodily connections and beyond that the vedic culture itself had varanashram and the whole purpose and principle of varanashram was to accommodate people’s bodily nature to engage them according to their bodily nature the vedic culture offers us the idea that we are not the body of the soul it also recognizes that we are at present in a particular body and we have to practice dharma the ultimate dharma of pure devotion by which we go beyond the bodily identity but to practice that dharma it is not just a wishing away thing that today i think i am not the body and tomorrow morning i wake up and realize that i am not the body even if i realize that i won’t realize that but even if i realize that i still have to stay in the body for my lifetime so how do i stay in the body for that we need to have inspiration encouragement, motivation for lifelong practice and that motivation often can come from either our practice of dharma or it can come even from our practice of our worldly accomplishments or our worldly respectable connections so now moving forward this principle in varanashram enables people to have a truce with their body so that they can work their way through the bodily identity towards their spiritual identity and going further we see a specific example of this somebody will say varanashram is also material we shouldn’t have to follow that but varanashram is very much central to the vedic culture and beyond that we see even an expert devotee uses this that is narada muni he when dhruva maharaj feels insulted and is unable to tolerate the insult what does narada muni say just see the glory of the kshatriyas that they cannot tolerate dishonor so now what is the point over here to say that they cannot tolerate dishonor the point is to indicate that actually they are meant to act that they are meant to use their sense of honor towards dharma so having that sense of honor is not bad it can channel towards dharma and what does narada muni do he uses that sense of dharma sense of honor in dhruva to encourage him towards intense devotional practice and that enables him to achieve lord Vishnu something which is difficult for yogis to achieve in after lifetimes of practice so again bodily identity is not wished away he doesn’t say dhruva why are you getting so insulted just be equipoised with honor and dishonor no you are feeling dishonor do something that will restore your honor but do the most honorable thing and that is practice devotional service even if it is difficult so we do in our practice of bhakti we need to be sensitive and we need to recognize that we can’t wish away our bodily nature when we feel discouraged we need appreciation when others feel discouraged they need appreciation how do we give that appreciation by various things which the devotee that particular individual that particular seeker is worth appreciating even if it be something bodily connections so when appreciation for things that make invoke our sense of honor come from spiritual teachers that inspires us to live according to the honorable principles that the spiritual teachers have taught that enables us to persevere on the path of dharma path of ultimately pure dharma pure devotional service lifelong by which we will ultimately work our way fully through the bodily identity and realize and reclaim our spiritual identity eternally thank you