The Body is a Beautiful Instrument, But It´s Not Me - 14th Sept. 2016

Yeah, big yes then. So it's very good what you say, because you say that 'I see that there is no individual me like this anyway, and this body is just functioning in a very normal, true sort of way.' And if exercise is happening, then exercise is happening and it's good. Does it mean that I am over-attached to the body? You see, let's use our car example again. Because for most of us, the car is not me. The car is an instrument that we have for that actual particular task, an instrument, and it is not me. Doesn't mean that I don't give it fuel? So are we saying I don't take care of the car, really? So all this can happen. But let us see, some of us, their identities are deeply in the car. So if something scratches their car, for example, on the road, then they're more furious than if somebody were to scratch their body even, you see? Someone can be so attached to their instrument. So that is something we just have to look at and to see whether in my eye this instrument, in my wanting to make sure it is functioning right, that'll be me in here using it. And if it is clear that no, no, it's not me, it is just an instrument and it is being taken care of naturally, then no problem. Then no trouble.

Again, it happened this morning. So the other thought was that I guess because for so long the feeling here has been like identifying with the body. This, I mean obviously, because if you think of a partner or a person, you automatically think of the body because, you know, that's physically present and you're like, 'Okay, that partner,' you know, like if somebody were to say, 'Okay, that's her,' right? So the point is that technically I guess we are all bigger than that in a way. I mean, we're not just the body or we are not the body. So does that mean that consciousness basically decides to take on any body? And I guess again, again, seriously, I don't even know, this is mental, I'm just gonna say it out loud. But so does that even mean that anyway the whole purpose of this is to kind of shed any attachment to the movie scenes that may have happened in this life, which is like a storybook, and have like deep sense of 'Oh, that happened to me,' which is really bad, or 'This happened to me,' which is really good? And again, just attempt to be, for lack of better words, and you know, and again just to just be as clean as possible. Again, I'm for lack of better words, you know, to not... and it's not to say to throw away the parts that you don't like because I think you know about yourself or about your story and keep the ones that you like, but it's just literally kind of going, 'Hey, this is a moving train, none of this is me.' My job is just to make sure that whatever shows up I do the best of it and you know, if it's bad, breathe, you know, because eventually it goes away. And if it's good, you know, experience or whatever the convention is. Because even the notion of good and bad is kind of changing because it's a matter of perspective, you know? I don't have to make sense, I'm just rambling if you like, just saying things. But even that actually has shifted here, and I don't know if it's because I'm like, you know, just old now, but because you can't truly say anything is good or bad for a fact. Yes, it truly depends on what side of the table you are on. Because if you are thinking only of yourself, then it's good or bad. If you start looking at it from the other person's perspective, then you know what I mean? So even that is like, okay, that doesn't even hold. I'm sorry, I'm gonna shut up now.

Yeah, it's good. So a few points you made which were: firstly, there can be a sense that because something happened to the body, it happened to me. But if you look at this, even this, a little more closely, and you find that, okay, something happened to the body when I was five years old, something happened to the body when it was in school, something happens to the body in later years, and something is happening to the body now. But if you look at the body itself, every cell of this body which is here now is different from every cell in that body which was there when you were five years old or ten years old. Exactly, you see? So there is nothing in the body which is anything or feeling pride about something that happened. It is only coming from this 'me' as a person which is called upon, where this sense of something happening to the 'me' comes from.

You see, now you are absolutely right when you say that in terms of the phenomenal evidence, this sense of 'me' says this body is the 'me'. What do you mean there is no 'me'? This is only the 'me'. But if you look at most of the things which have happened in this life which have bothered us in some way, most of those things have not had anything to do with the body. The body is not concerned about, like I say, the money in the bank. The body is not concerned about how the neighbor is behaving. The body is not concerned with any of this. All this mind way of giving evidence of the existence of a 'me' pointing to the body—saying 'See, I exist'—is not true, because the things that the mind makes us feel proud, guilty, or regretful about mostly aren't the body.

So this 'me' that we have been carrying about through our belief in our separate existence, that is the root of all this trouble. Even this one doesn't say mostly, doesn't say 'I am the body.' It says 'This is my body,' you see? So who is the one that claimed that 'This is my body'? This false owner of our life, this non-existent owner of our life, which only the mind is representing. The body is not representing it; only the mind is representing. That is the one that we are giving up our belief on. Then we see that the true owner of this body-life is consciousness itself, is being itself, as God itself.