510. Body Alone is Real

Mind thinks, body acts. The act yields results. This is not how Man has created our civilisation. He worked, his body learnt. That alone was the route Man knew in earlier millennia. As years passed, the human mind awoke. It began to think. The thinking of the Mind that was awake inspired the Mind. One man's thinking provoked an opposition from other men. The collective killed the pioneering thinker, offering him hemlock or throwing him behind bars. When everyone saw the sun going around the earth, one man's mind understanding that the sun does not go around the earth but the earth goes around the sun, landed in jail. His mind awoke and saw, but it remained in his mind. We see an experienced typist not looking at the keys while typing. That happens when his mental understanding sinks deeper down and reaches the very cells of the body.

The body refuses to begin unless it understands fully. When it understands fully, it does not wait for a minute and its execution is flawless. In that sense, the body is real, and body alone is real. Mind thinks of alternatives, weighs the consequences, chooses and acts. Choosing arises as the knowledge has two alternatives before it. Choosing one, one chooses a part. A part is always partial. Its result too is partial. The body does not choose one out of the two alternatives. Its knowledge is total. It awaits for total knowledge, refusing to act till then. It acts when the total knowledge arises. Its results are total. Not three out of five are right; the five are right. It continues to be right even when the five rises to fifty or five hundred. The experienced shop assistant weighing a kilo of sugar does not adjust the quantity of sugar in the balance. He takes the weight once. It is exactly a kilo. The cook taking a quantity of salt for sambar finds his hand taking the exact quantity.

In the chapter of ‘Vedantic Knowledge' in The Life Divine, Sri Aurobindo speaks of this phenomenon. One can teach the hand to know the weight of objects. Mother did Her yoga in the Body. Jnana yoga is in the Mind. Hatha yoga is in the body. The science of yoga perfected in the body is an exact science. It can stop the heart. The spirit in the body is annamaya Purusha. It is the unevolving Spirit. There is the Psychic in the body which is the evolving Spirit. That Spirit moves Matter from the mind. It controls life precisely. That is the capacity Man acquires when he invokes the Force or Spirit. Anyone has the choice to conduct an experiment in his own life, if he is willing to fulfil the primary condition of utter Truthfulness. It opens up the door of ‘Spiritual Opulence.'