Friday, March 7, 2008

Weaker the Body the Stronger the Mind grows

Q: We Europeans are accustomed to a particular diet; change of diet affects health and weakens the mind. Is it not necessary to keepup physical health?

M.: Quite necessary. The weaker the body the stronger the mind grows.

Will you please explain this weaker the body stronger the mind grows ??

Below is Explanation by Mr. Harbhajan ji : -

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H: Here, first a distinction needs to be made between brain and mind. Brain is to us as roots are to a tree and acts quite like them (how the roots in trees on evolution became brain in us you will come to know from my book Self Designed Universe, particularly from a picture therein).

Now we or the tree in fact also began right from big bang with the universe and evolved through clay to minerals to trees to animals to apes to man etc. That which links us to all this evolution is our mind. Obviously it is spread throughout the (past history of) earth and ultimately of the universe.

Imagine a cell in your body. It will also have an equivalent of our brain as its body part. But at the same time, apart from this, it (cell) will also be linked to you as a whole in some way right from your birth. What represents that link is its mind.

Now mind's effort is to advance or force the scheme of things of evolution upon us which began right from big bang, forcing our brain/bodies in the process to do its bidding while brain/body's job is to resist the change. It first tries to resist, then adapt what it cannot resist in the process changing into various forms we call species (in case of cells in our bodies into bone, marrow, blood, muscle and nerve cells etc).

In other words, brain/body act as per Darwinian notions of survival, natural sepection, adaptation, while mind or force of mind acts as per what now-a-days is coming to be known as design or intelligent design and which is the cause of what hitherto are understood to be chance mutations (to which species try to adapt or of which they make selections for survival).

Mind, in most simple terms throws us of center , leads us astray in a way, while brain/body try to keep us in the center, try to keep us to ourselves. In other words, mind goes on trying to separate us from the original light/oneness while brain/body keep on trying to revert to it. If the brain/body is strong it will quickly return to itself/its center and if it is weak mind will be comparatively strong and will lead it more and more astray.

Mind forces us to get up in childhood, brain/body tries to keep us in our center of gravity - a weak baby will fall more a strong baby less. Mind forces us to fall into loves, wars, hates in youth, brain/body tries to keep us in the center of our emotional being. Mind forces us to fall into various intellectual concepts/ideas brain/body tries us to not to lose ourselves in any particular ideology at the cost of forgetting ourselves (not to get brain-washed in other words).
It is in the above sense, in which brain/body and mind are pitted against each other that Ramana says that yes, body needs to be kept healthy otherwise mind will become comparatively stronger derailing in the process balanced growth or evolution.

Mind basically is that part of the original Superforce of the big bang which has now come to become our lot and which, when reacted upon by brain/body throws us into the ambit of four basic forces/interactions, more about which you will be able to know from my book Self-Designed Universe. It is the same to what Yogic philosophers call our kundlini shakti and acts through various force centers in our bodies also called chakras in Hindu Yogic philosophy.
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D:How long did it take Maharshi to realise the Self?

M.: This question is asked because the name and form are perceived.These are the perceptions consequent on the identification of the ego with the gross body.If the ego identifies itself with the subtle mind, as in dream, the perceptions are subtle also. But in sleep there are no perceptions.Was there not the ego still? Unless it was, there cannot be the memory of having slept. Who was it that slept? You did not say in your sleep that you slept. You say it now in your wakeful state. The ego therefore is the same in wakefulness, dream and sleep. Findout the underlying Reality behind these states. That is the Reality underlying these. In that state there is Being alone. There is no you,nor I, nor he; no present, nor past, nor future. It is beyond time and space, beyond expression.

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H: Ramana's emphasis has always been to realise the Self - that which is beyond relativity, beyond time and space, beyond intellectual analysis. All questions on the face of it, which certainly belong to the relative, timespace-ruled world, and are really asked to pander to intellect in one way or the other, are not of much use. By the above explanation Ramana has tried to show just that, that the question is not of much use for acheiving the real goal.

It is like you have to realise that you are, in fact, the Sea and the questions regarding the individual drops of water in it, or regarding the formation of waves or other formations of froth on it would be of no use. It is like you have to realise that you are Gold and the questions regarding the formations of various ornaments of it would be of no use.

All such questions belong to ego while we need to go beyond ego. This can be done either by surrendering - in which case you will do whatever comes to be your lot at any given point of time like a small child, that is, without questioning or intellectual analyses - or by enquiring "who am I?"- in which case you will find that you have in fact no separate existence apart from the whole (or from the scheme of things of the whole) and will again do whatever comes to be your lot at any given point of time without questioning or intellectual analyses. In the later case it is called flowing with the flow and sages are usually identfied with this state.

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