The first step towards knowledge is to consider the body as the seen. Look at the body as you look at rivers and mountains.
Chapter 4 - Honour Desires
Day 29
Sit and observe that you are the seer and your body the object of sight. If one identifies himself with the seen, he will be unhappy.
A foolish man while watching a movie identifies himself with every character in the film. If the villain approaches the hero to beat him, the man watching the movie starts shouting.
If the heroine starts crying, he also starts crying. Some throw stones at the screen, which even gets torn when enthusiastic fans of certain heroes and heroines throw tomatoes, eggs and so on at the screen.
Generally, this happens in villages. Since the screen is torn, no further films can be screened. So the hero must win.
Otherwise, if the person who the audience loves gets defeated the screen will be torn. This happened when MG Ramchandran acted in Tamil Nadu.
People lost their minds by identifying with the characters. Their feelings went out of control. Life is a mixture of intellect and feelings.
You have to maintain the right balance. Normally, intellectual people sacrifice their feelings, and they resemble the living dead.
They do not have even a bit of feeling in them though they may appear educated. They are dry and withered. They do not love and lack emotions and sensitivity.
On the contrary, sensitive people, who are full of love, cry at every step. Their mind never works, and emotions sweep them away.
People in both categories wind up lonely. Fullness comes only when there is a balance between emotions and intellect.
The reason for misery is becoming one with the seen. If what is seen changes, then one also changes, and if something happens to the seen, the person is lost.
The way out of misery is to detach oneself from the object of sight and establish oneself as the seer. If you consider your body as the seer, then you hurt when the body aches, and when the body feels pleasure, you feel happy.
So the first step towards knowledge is to consider the body as the seen. Look at the body as you look at rivers and mountains.
It is also beautiful and pure. Honour the body. Go further and honour the mind too. We have not only a physical body, but also a manomaya, mental body and a sukhmay, subtle body.
The mind is also a body. Look at it. So many thoughts start and also end in the mind. The thoughts of the last 10 years started there and ended there.
You will realise your foolishness if you write down all your thoughts and read them after a while. The thoughts that arose 20 years ago vanished after 5 years.
Not only did they vanish, but thoughts opposite to them developed. Thoughts go on changing. Waves of thoughts keep arising.
Never identify yourself with your thoughts. Witness them as though they do not belong to you. Thoughts change according to place and situation.
They have their own dimension. Consider thoughts as the seen, and in a similar way, look at feelings as the seen. Who is the seer once everything else becomes the seen?
You yourself will understand who the seer is. This is one meaning of the sutra. The second meaning is that whatever you see, is your body. If the air is polluted, your body will perish.
Is it possible to stay in a polluted atmosphere? If you are surrounded by poisonous gas, can the body survive? Therefore, even the air is your body.
Similarly, the sun is also your body because without the sun, the earth could not have been created. Your scope is not limited only to your body, but includes the earth, sun and the whole creation.
Do you know the meaning of "vishva"? "shva" means past or future, and "vishva" means that which is without a past or a future.
However, yesterday was there, and tomorrow will also be there. That means it will be forever. The meaning is - That which has not passed away or has not yet come, but which
exists in the present moment, and so it is called "vishva."
If you are travelling by car from Rishikesh to Delhi, which is a 6 hour journey. You can see the road clearly as you go. If you drive 1 km, you can see that 1 km of road.
As you go farther, how far ahead can you see the road When you look back, you can see only as far as your eyes let you.
However, if you travel by helicopter, you can see the full stretch of road. You can see the road you have travelled and also the road you will travel, in
other words,
you can see the past, present and future in the moment. Today we see light from the stars, but that light is not coming from the stars today.
The light we see today may be as old as 4000 years. Therefore, "vishva" means without a past or a future, or in which everything is present in a special way.
This vishva is your body, whatever you see is your own body, is as good as seeing your body. Similarly, look around the world and consider nature as your own body.
You massage your body, decorate it and protect it. In the same way, look after nature because all of nature is your body. Look at a vegetable, which will become your body tomorrow.
The food, which is in the market today, will be in your house tomorrow and will be eaten by you the next day. It all becomes your body. The world which was seen by you is your body now.
So do not see any difference between your body and what you see. Or, look at your body as a witness.
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