In the previous episode, we had witnessed the final accord from the “Avadhoota” Sanyasin to King Yadu. He had described key lessons that can be learnt from twenty-four diferent aspects in the world, but King Yadu had insisted him to talk about the twenty’fifth as well. This is where the Sanyasin talks about the human body as the twenty-fifth and the ultimate item to end the accord with. He explains how this human body is transient in nature and spending too much of time getting attached to it is only going to prove a waste of time, money and effort. Of course, we should take care of our human body and make sure it is fit and fine. Only if we are fit, will we be able to perform our spiritual practices. Bhagawan has gifted us with this body as a “vehicle” to attain His feet. However, we should be very careful in understanding this point – There is a thin line of difference between taking care of our physical body and health and getting too much carried away in “beautifying” it. The moment we’re getting into the beautification process, it means that we’re getting carried away in attachment to our physical body. Whereas, if we’re taking adequate care of our physical health only and not involving ourselves in giving the “Shareera” too much of pleasures, we’re tending to be detached.
We might be wondering why is the Sanyasin taking up this human body as an important point for discussion towards the end of all the other items put together. The reason behind it is that, the human body is the biggest example of how we get too much attached to things, and also it serves as the biggest example for the quality of detachment if we’re treating it that way. Rest of all the items we’ve witnessed before this – We might only have seen one side of the story – Detachment. But here, the human body is an embodiment of “Maya” (Illusion) that can pull us down easily from our meticulous spiritual progress that we’re trying to make. This is where we’ve to be extremely careful. We’ve to give importance to our human body only until the “permissible limit”. If we’re starting to give too much importance to it beyond the permissible limit, the body will start asking for more and more importance and pleasures. This is where our mind also plays an important role to make us get carried away with the worldly pleasures. This is where Bhagawan Krishna repeatedly advises both here as well as in the Bhagawad Gita that we should not get carried away by worldly attachments that our “Shareera” is trying to pull us constantly into. This is where we should use our “Viveka” (Intellect) to understand which is right and wrong for our “Shareera” to be given.
For instance, if we’re having just two dhotis (or pants or shirts or whatever clothing), we would silently rotate both of them by washing them regularly every day. By this, our personal hygiene would also be well-maintained as we’re washing our clothes everyday and wearing clean attires. However, once the third clothing comes inside, what do we tend to do? We start becoming lazy and complacent and would postpone washing our clothes! We get carried away by the fact that this extra clothing that we have, can take us through the third day also, without washing. And if more and more pairs of clothes come in, we totally stop washing our clothes! J We can witness here what is happening – Unless and until there were only two attires, everything went on smoothly. The moment the third one creeps in, problems start, and subsequently when more and more clothes come in, we start becoming totally complacent. Nowadays to add on to this, we’re wearing a variety of “thick” pant that we take immense pride of – The reason being, we do not need to wash this pant for days or months together! 🙂 Because of this reason, we go and buy two or three such “thick pants” and use it time and again without washing them! Ultimately our personal hygiene is taken for a toss, isn’t it? This is what happens when we’re giving ourselves the luxury of having such clothes in larger numbers!
This is where Bhagawan Krishna and also the “Avadhoota” Sanyasin is advising us to be very vigilant about ourselves! Thus, from today’s episode, the extended message is that, we should give adequate and due importance to our “Shareera”, on the pretext that we should maintain our physical health and personal hygiene properly. This would serve us better in performing our spiritual duties correctly without any problem. However, if we’re going to give more and more luxuries to our “Shareera”, apart from what is needed, we need to understand that our “Shareera” is going to get engulfed into pleasures that are going to pull us down from our spiritual pursuit. Thus with this important message, we conclude the discussion on the twenty-five different aspects and the key learnings from them. We shall wait till the next episode to move on with the next important aspect of discussion – Bhagawan Krishna’s important advice to Bhagawan Brahma! Stay tuned! 🙂
The Indian Dharma 