The Great Rope Trick

 

He was a Vedantin. He believed he lived mostly in his mind. Body was just an appendage he ignored. He would like to ignore his mind too. But he felt he had not yet reached that stage. He kept to himself most of the time. He didn’t despise the world. But he saw that most of his fellow humans in the world lived in a lower plane of existence. They would have to exhaust their Karma to come up higher. What if some of them wear the robes of a committed Vedantin? Let them be. He would better keep to himself and his thoughts of Vedanta.

That was him at his healthiest best when he went to his neatly made bed (which he made himself) in his spick and span room (which also he maintained).

 

Morning 6.30 a.m. will see him working at maintaining his considerable muscles. The body was all-in-all then. How enjoyable this working out his body! He pitied those who were still in their bed then. He loved to watch in TV, people working out their body in different games.

 

Now watch him when he is ill. Normally he did justice to his food. But now he has his own discoveries about which food agrees with him. Damn the dieticians. Their science is so imperfect. They’d have no chance with him.

 

A man mistook a rope for a snake. When light dawned, he saw the rope. But his reflexes did not yet ebb. He pounded away at the rope with a stick.

Perhaps he is right. Maybe, external action catharsizes and kills the snake relentlessly biting away in the mind.

 

Swami Sampurnananda, 29 October 2003, Genre 273, No. 20