Beyond Body

If there is one thing in human beings, which can be considered the center of all good and evil, it is undoubtedly the physical body; all that men do may be ultimately linked to some aspect of the human body. There is another element which can predominate if the physical needs are fulfilled: the mind looks for avenues to satisfy. The last element that we may think of is the spirit or the soul. But I am baffled at thinking the most complicated mechanism that God has created that it would take quite a few millennia for the human mind to just comprehend the intricacies involved with this, leave alone recreating it.

There is such an amount of energy stored into the human body that we seldom realize it; at moments when we least expect, this energy may flow out, even without our realizing it. We often hear of unimaginable things done by feeble and fragile persons; at the spur of a moment, their bodies become a store house of energy which is beyond human comprehension. We cannot explain this phenomena in human logic; it is something which is a blessing of nature (or call it God). But at the same time, the body is also the cause of much of the evil we see in the world. If only we had no bodies, life would be so very different.

The two elements which dominate the media in today’s world are violence and sex, and both are involved with the physical body. Both last only for a short while and the pleasure or the pain involved with these acts are just momentary. Even before we realize that something had happened, the harm is already done. There are several ways of looking at the double-edged sword that media thrives on; remove these two elements, and the entire media, especially television and cinema, will fall flat. But what makes the human mind to seek after violence and sex, not only in literature and in silver screen, not to mention the cinema.

The answer to that question is not too difficult to find; there is something so very basic and fundamental to the human psyche, and it is related to the fact of our bodies, the perishable entity of our selves. It is just an external layer, which undergoes decay once the hour comes, and then the soul is freed. That is the notion which is proposed in the Second chapter of Srimad Bhagavad Gita. It is only the soul which is imperishable. But it would be dangerous to think that the body is just a dispensable entity, because it is in and through the physical body that the human person is to find his/her own path to salvation.

How do we explain the craving for the physical pleasures, and what is its function in a person? Is it possible to forego the physical realities and live in a realm which is above all speculation and imagination? The mind and the spirit cannot be duped as easily as the human body could be, and that is the reason why often we find people seeking to end their lives, because they feel with the loss of the battle on the physical grounds, their lives have come to an end. They cannot think that there are two other layers which can be the center of their existence. The body is a wonderful creature, and it is only who has understood the nuances and the science of it, can really enter into the world of the inner spirit!