Physical Body, Mind & Consciousness: Relation

The give-and-take of ‘sanskaras’ or ‘impressions’ is constantly going on in the play of life. Where there is mutuality there is this give-and-take, but it is not a mechanical process. The same action can create different impressions according to the ‘MOTIVE’ which inspires that action.

• A man who, out of the motive of ‘doing good’ to another person, gives him food or clothes, at once catches his ‘good impressions’.
• The man who slanders another person with an ‘evil motive’ or steals his belongings at once catches his ‘evil impressions’.

Killing an animal for sport, pleasure or food means– catching all its bad impressions since the MOTIVE is “selfish”. But no such bad impressions are caught from snakes or germs and the like, which are a danger to humanity, when they are killed out of philanthropic motives and only when absolutely necessary. Such killing, when it is not a duty, will certainly create “binding impressions”.

Conversations, movies, books, radio, meetings, travels, crowds and so on are various mediums through which there is give-and-take of diverse types of impressions on a stupendous scale. In short, the cycle of impressions is interminable except when the aspirant slowly and patiently takes to the emancipatory, uphill spiritual path under the guidance of a Truth-realized Master, with his blessings.   

The impressions in the ego-minds of all, whether gross, subtle, mental are largely similar. But their ‘colors’ are different and of innumerable variety, according to the SPIRITUAL POSITION of different individuals. Consciousness gets committed to some illusion or other owing to these mental impressions which are ever active in spite of the daily respite of dream and sleep.
  The gross consciousness of the physical body gets dissolved in the dream-state of the subtle body; and the dream-state in its turn gets dissolved in the sleep-state of the mental body. But this daily dissolution of illusion is temporary. After sometime the impressions again begin to prick and clamour, “Spend us! Spend us!” Thus LATENT CONSCIOUSNESS is again brought back to its gross illusion.

If the whole world were to go to sleep, it would be the great dissolution of the entire world. All the individuals would recede into their ‘mental bodies’ and be absorbed in utter oblivion for some time until they re-enter the panorama of the threefold world in a new cycle of existence. The impressions of the unrealized individuals remain exactly the same, even during this universal dissolution, which takes place by the Divine Will. In the new cycle, they take up their evolution where they had left it. Universal dissolution is not without some purpose. The usual theories of evolution advanced by scientists are based only upon intellectual data. They never do justice to God’s hand in the game.

When the world is put to sleep with all its current ideas, theories, beliefs, ideals and modes of individual and collective life, it is easier for the world to change its direction of search and fulfillment in the next cycle of creation. It has to start where it left off, but it can RE-ORIENT itself in a new direction from the place where things had previously stopped. This means that, in the new cycle of existence, the

• ideas,
• theories,
• beliefs and ideals and
• modes of individual and collective life

begin to develop entirely on new lines, according to what has been planned by the Truth-realized Masters. The old modes disappear, yielding place to new ones.
  The Masters plan not only for humanity in general, but also for the new Circle-to-be for which the seeds are sown hundreds of years before the time when they actually manifest themselves. 

The physical body is nothing but the gross form of impressions. The mental impression in the mind of the male parent first takes a subtle form, which then is released in the gross form of mating. The mass of sanskaras or impressions thus released ultimately reach the ‘mind’ of the female parent; and it is from the ‘mind’ of the female parent that the process of physical incarnation starts.

The soul, which is awaiting reincarnation in the gross body can descend only if– during the process of sanskaric or impressional exchange between male and the female, their minds have come as near to stopping as possible.

The physical body is produced by the working of many impressions and is the result of their very embodiment. It is therefore no wonder that it has a TENDENCY to bind the soul which inhabits it.

Love for the physical body is only a form of deep ignorance. Swine take delight in refuse- and so do the ignorant ones take delight in the body.

From the spiritual point of view, there is nothing more pitiable than slavish submission to the ‘desires’ and ‘demands’ of the physical body. Because of its incessant claims on the attention of the mind, the ‘physical body’ often becomes a hindrance to real life; it is like a cage to the soul. But

the soul cannot find its real freedom by putting an end to the physical body. The ‘physical body’ itself has to be INTELLIGENTLY USED and made to subserve spiritual ends. What is the use of a body which resists the dictates of the mind?

It is no use clinging to the comforts of the ‘body’ which one day must be given up. It is only an INSTRUMENT and one should make the maximum use of it.

“Impressions” are contagious.

• Eating meat is prohibited in many spiritual disciplines because the person thereby catches the impressions of the animal, thus rendering himself more susceptible to lust and anger.
• Sometimes, innumerable strong impressions are transmitted through the mere touch of the physical body of another person. A gross body, even a corpse, can quickly impart numberless impressions to the person who touches it.
• Sex contact outside wedlock is the worst form of exposure to heavy and binding impressions of lust. In wedlock, the impressions exchanged are much lighter and less binding.

But just as bad and binding impressions can be caught from others, good and emancipatory impressions can also be caught from others.

• Food or edibles prepared or given by others bring their sanskaras with them.
• The “prasad”– some sweet, fruit or drink given as a VEHICLE OF GRACE by saints and Masters– gives spiritual and emancipatory impressions to the recipient.
• The custom of touching the feet of the Master with the head is based upon the fact that the spiritual and emancipatory impressions from the Master thereby go to the very mind-heart of the recipient in a fraction of a second.

The Truth-realized Master transmits dynamic impressions of ‘faith’ and ‘love’ for God through appropriate spiritual experience. Faith of any kind is, in a way, ultimately based upon intellect. There can be no faith without some form of intellectual conviction, which again is founded on ‘experience.’

Many people say that they believe in God or that they have faith in Him; but though they say this out of conventional fear of God, what they say is far from being true.

If they really believed in God, their actions would be different from what they are. They fear God as something unknown, a power which they have been taught to respect and obey through tradition and mythology. They fear Him as one who is supposed to give due rewards to the virtuous and punishments to the wicked. But neither their fear nor their beliefs are deep-rooted or sincere.

If their belief in God were sincere, they would earnestly start to find out what God is. They would want to have God, and realize Him; and all their actions would be entirely different.
  If they were really to take God seriously and want to know what He is, their very first glimpse of divinity would disarm them of all their unjustified fear. It would reveal to them that God is Love and that His plan for all, including themselves, is to raise them to the highest pinnacle of ‘perfection’ and ‘bliss’, of which the earthly pleasures and even the happiness and joys of the subtle and mental worlds are but poor, faint shadows.

The very first descent of divinity into the heart awakens love for God. When love for God comes, fear of God disappears. Love for God removes all fear and prepares the aspirant to be lost in Him. The intensity of their love unites the aspirants with God. They thus eventually get the supreme “I am God” state.
  Those who persist until the end, get there. Those who get there are, however, very few; though many, without getting there, feel tempted to claim that they are God. To be an honest atheist is no fraud. But to claim that one is God before attaining real unity with Him is definitely a fraud.

• There are two types who do not have any use for ‘religion’: the materialist and the one who is Self-realized;
• There are two who are indifferent to ‘money’: the brute, and the one who is Self-realized.
• There are two who are free from ‘lust’: the child and the one who has attained Truth.

Though the ‘Truth-realized person’ is, in the above respects, like the materialist, the brute, and the child– he stands completely apart from all these. He has attained unity with the infinite existence of God, while the others have not.

The Master enjoys the Madhur Bhava at will– that is, the sweet mood of Love, where duality is illumined by the realization of the immensity of the One in the duality. Or He enjoys the Maha Bhava, the vast consciousness of unlimited Oneness, which has no room at all for any apprehension of manyness.
  Maha Bhava, or the vast consciousness of unlimited Oneness, is much rarer than Madhur Bhava. But the Master can enjoy it even when he is engaged in acts like eating, talking and so on.