Body Alone is Real
By Karmayogi
Mind thinks, body acts.
The act yields results. This is not how Man has created our civilisation. He
worked, his body learnt. That alone was the route Man knew in earlier
millennia. As years passed, the human mind awoke. It began to think. The
thinking of the Mind that was awake inspired the Mind. One man's thinking
provoked an opposition from other men. The collective killed the pioneering
thinker, offering him hemlock or throwing him behind bars. When everyone saw
the sun going around the earth, one man's mind understanding that the sun
does not go around the earth but the earth goes around the sun, landed in jail.
His mind awoke and saw, but it remained in his mind. We see an experienced
typist not looking at the keys while typing. That happens when his mental
understanding sinks deeper down and reaches the very cells of the body.
The body refuses to begin unless it understands fully. When it understands
fully, it does not wait for a minute and its execution is flawless. In that
sense, the body is real, and body alone is real. Mind thinks of alternatives,
weighs the consequences, chooses and acts. Choosing arises as the knowledge has
two alternatives before it. Choosing one, one chooses a part. A part is always
partial. Its result too is partial. The body does not choose one out of the two
alternatives. Its knowledge is total. It awaits for total knowledge, refusing
to act till then. It acts when the total knowledge arises. Its results are
total. Not three out of five are right; the five are right. It continues to be
right even when the five rises to fifty or five hundred. The experienced shop
assistant weighing a kilo of sugar does not adjust the quantity of sugar in the
balance. He takes the weight once. It is exactly a kilo. The cook taking a
quantity of salt for sambar finds his hand taking the exact quantity.
In the chapter ‘Vedantic Knowledge' in The Life Divine, Sri
Aurobindo speaks of this phenomenon. One can teach the hand to know the weight
of objects. Mother did Her yoga in the Body. Jnana yoga is in the Mind. Hatha
yoga is in the body. The science of yoga perfected in the body is an exact
science. It can stop the heart. The spirit in the body is annamaya Purusha. It
is the unevolving Spirit. There is the Psychic in the body which is the
evolving Spirit. That Spirit moves Matter from the mind. It controls life
precisely. That is the capacity Man acquires when he invokes the Force or
Spirit. Anyone has the choice to conduct an experiment in his own life, if he
is willing to fulfil the primary condition of utter Truthfulness. It opens up the door of
‘Spiritual Opulence.'