A Simple Test for Thoughtful People. Am I my head or my face? No, - TopicsExpress



          

A Simple Test for Thoughtful People. Am I my head or my face? No, it is my face. Am I my chest ? No, it is my chest. Am I my arm or my hand ? Am I my leg ? No, it is my leg. All the parts of my body—indeed, my entire body—is mine. But who am I, the owner of the body? Am I my head or my face ? No, it is my face. Am I my chest ? No, it is my chest. Am I my arm or my hand ? Am I my leg ? No, it is my leg. All the parts of my body—indeed, my entire body—is mine. But who am I, the owner of the body? If we perform the experiment as above, we can immediately come to the very first understanding in spiritual life: we are not our bodies; rather we are conscious of them. Under the influence of illusion, however, we falsely identify ourselves with our bodies and think we belong to a certain family, nation, race, religion, political party, and so on. The goal of human life is to awaken from this illusion and become reinstated in our real identities as fully conscious spiritual beings. Our daily lives can be compared to acting in a play. We have become so absorbed with our temporary roles in this play that we have completely forgotten our true offstage identities. Someone is taking the part of our parent, another person is acting as our lover, another as our friend or foe, but actually it is all simply a performance; our real identities are something else. Our very bodies are nothing more than costumes, but out of illusion we identify ourselves with them and try to relate to others on the basis of these costumes. The resulting relationships are not false; they are real, but they are temporary and therefore illusory. When the curtain falls on our play—when death comes—all the different relationships we have cultivated during our lives will be finished, and our real self, an individually conscious spirit soul, will be transferred to a new situation.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Jun 2013 17:41:51 +0000

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