We are not a body, we are a soul. Our soul is bound to matter through the breath. If we take the breath away, body and soul are separated from each other. It’s that simple. Without breath, our soul can not live in the body. Breath is not the air we breathe. Air is just the thing we inhale. Breathing itself is a complex process. Breath is what binds you (you as a soul) to your body. All Yogic practices give you a great experience, which is:
I am not the body, neither am I the mind. I am not the body
(Jaggi Vasudev, Sadhguru, 1957-today)
The source of our suffering, our problems is either the mortal frame or the mind. There is no other suffering, only bodily suffering and mental suffering. If we think this sentence ‘I am not the body, I am not even the mind’ and experience it at a deeper level, then our perspective will fundamentally change. We will approach our lives very differently.
How does this sentence change your perspective?
- If I am not my body then the other souls are not bodies either. If I’m not dependent on my own mortal frame, then I can not be dependent on anyone else.
- Our body is just a loan from Mother Earth for the period of our visit here. When our time is up, we have to give it back. If I do not understand that my mortal frame is only a loan or that I do not own this frame, then I think I AM this frame. Of course, this thought scares us to death. Because death would then mean that I have to give myself back to Mother Earth.
- If I am constantly aware that I am not the matter, then death is not an end, just the changing of my clothes. We only give back the piece of earth which we borrowed.
- Either we give our mortal frame back voluntarily, or Mother Earth takes it back forcefully. There is no way around it. But we can decide how to do this transformation. If I lead a meaninful life and fulfill all my wishes, I will end up giving my body with goodwill. But if I think that I am this matter and that I didn’t achieve enough in life yet, then I will compulsively cling to my mortal frame until Mother Earth snatches it from me.
- When I become aware that I am not my mind nor my thinking, we gain incredible freedom. If I no longer identify myself with my thoughts, then I can not feel bad about my thoughts either.
- Every experience we make is only experienced in our mind and body. For example:. We do not really see what’s on the table in front of us. We only see the upside down reflection of it with our optic nerve. So what I see is only in my head. Like this it is with all other senses as well. We experience everything only inside ourselves. The mind makes a record of our experience, which we call memory. The mind is just a machine, as is the body, that lets us experience our time here on Earth.
- The body and the mind are finite, I (as a soul) am infinite.
