WHAT IS BONDAGE? - -2

June 27, 2009

Dear Friends,

Bondage arises because of our preoccupations with our physical body. All our activities since we get up from bed till we go to sleep are all body-oriented.

We have to attend to our own physical body constantly, all the twnty-four hours on all the three hundred and sixty-five days of year, nay, one day more in a leap year. Is there any escape? You have to be with it all the time, without any holiday. Alas! You have become a full-time servant of your own body. You can take a vacation from your office, home, friends, society,business,from everything, but not from this body-catering mission in life. Can you? When this body is not only considered as real,but in total identification with it when a man asserts that the body alone is real, then there can only be one duty in life for him. That duty is to fatten, to nourish, to feed it and to enjoy himself thoroughly. This is the true to life picture of most of us here. Because of this identification you must preserve this body,feed it,clothe it, treat it when ill, and when necessary it must get a blood transfusion or a heart or kidney transplant etc. It is not sufficient that we look after and preserve the body, we have to run after all the objects desired by it-------house, car,TV,air-conditioner and what not! Do we ever think as to why we are living so contendedly in this slavery? The answer will be, ' Because this body is me. My body`s happiness is my happiness.' Am I talking something incorrect? Once we are under the hallucination that we are worms, we certainly become afraid of all insectivorous birds. The fear will vanish only when we are convinced that we are human beings and not worms. No matter how many times the psychtriatist may tell us that we are not worms, it will not

help us if we do not realise that we are human beings.

Similarly, however much our Gurus, may tell us that we are the PARAMATMA, however much we may read and study the scriptures and other religious literature and despite discussing threadbare in study circles and hearing Vedantic discourses and attending satsangs regularly for any length of period, deep in ourselves we are convinced that we are this body only. Why? Because of ignorance, nescience,

avidya, the non-apprehension of our Real, Divine, Spiritual Nature. The Upanishads and the Gita declare that" the 'unreal' is that which was not and that which shall never be, but only apparently exists. This is otherwise called an illusion. The body which was not there before birth and which shall not be there after death, but is only temporarily existent, must fall under the category of the 'unreal'. But because of our spiirtual ignorance, and our consequential bondages, we consider our body which is mortal as our real nature. What a tragedy!

(to be continued)

G.Balasubramanian

June 27, 2009

HariOm

This bodyly attachment is only called MOH=MAMATA which one should leave & it is a difficult task

mggarga--- On Sat, 6/27/09, G Balasubramanian <gbsub wrote:

G Balasubramanian <gbsub WHAT IS BONDAGE? - -2 Cc: USBrahmins , Aryakrishti-Vedic-Dharma , "Bhagavataseva Bagavataseva" <BhagavataSeva >Saturday, June 27, 2009, 4:38 AM

Dear Friends, Bondage arises because of our preoccupations with our physical body. All our activities since we get up from bed till we go to sleep are all body-oriented. We have to attend to our own physical body constantly, all the twnty-four hours on all the three hundred and sixty-five days of year, nay, one day more in a leap year. Is there any escape? You have to be with it all the time, without any holiday. Alas! You have become a full-time servant of your own body. You can take a vacation from your office, home, friends, society,business, from everything, but not from this body-catering mission in life. Can you? When this body is not only considered as real,but in total identification with it when a man asserts that the body alone is real, then there can only be one duty in life for him. That duty is to fatten, to nourish, to feed it

and to enjoy himself thoroughly. This is the true to life picture of most of us here. Because of this identification you must preserve this body,feed it,clothe it, treat it when ill, and when necessary it must get a blood transfusion or a heart or kidney transplant etc. It is not sufficient that we look after and preserve the body, we have to run after all the objects desired by it-------house, car,TV,air-conditio ner and what not! Do we ever think as to why we are living so contendedly in this slavery? The answer will be, ' Because this body is me. My body`s happiness is my happiness.' Am I talking something incorrect? Once we are under the hallucination that we are worms, we certainly become afraid of all insectivorous birds. The fear will vanish only when we are convinced that we are human beings and not

worms. No matter how many times the psychtriatist may tell us that we are not worms, it will not help us if we do not realise that we are human beings. Similarly, however much our Gurus, may tell us that we are the PARAMATMA, however much we may read and study the scriptures and other religious literature and despite discussing threadbare in study circles and hearing Vedantic discourses and attending satsangs regularly for any length of period, deep in ourselves we are convinced that we are this body only. Why? Because of ignorance, nescience, avidya, the non-apprehension of our Real, Divine, Spiritual Nature. The Upanishads and the Gita declare that" the 'unreal' is that which was not and that which shall never be, but only apparently exists. This is otherwise called an illusion.

The body which was not there before birth and which shall not be there after death, but is only temporarily existent, must fall under the category of the 'unreal'. But because of our spiirtual ignorance, and our consequential bondages, we consider our body which is mortal as our real nature. What a tragedy! (to be continued)

G.Balasubramanian