Part III — Health and physical well-being

Question: Is it true in your philosophy that the body always has to be a hindrance in the communication with God and can never be a part of your offering of yourself to God?

Sri Chinmoy: No, the body need not always be an obstacle or a hindrance to God-realisation. A baby is unconscious, but that does not mean he will not grow into adolescence and manhood. He will. Let us take the body right now as an unconscious child. But the body will grow. It will grow through the light which it is getting from our soul. A child gains outer knowledge and inner wisdom day by day. Similarly, when we pray and meditate, we bring light to the fore inside us, and this light tries to permeate our whole outer existence.

You are absolutely right when you say that the body is a hindrance. It is, until the light of the soul comes forward and takes charge of the body. But if you say that the body will constantly and permanently stand against the soul, then you are making a mistake. In that case nobody will be able to realise God. God-realisation takes place only on earth, in the physical body. If the body stands permanently against the soul's possibilities, then how can one ever have realisation on earth?

In order to realise the Highest we have to have the body. But the body has to be made into a perfect instrument. It is like the piano and the pianist. Both of them are equally needed. If there is no piano, how can the player play? And again, if there is no pianist, who will play the instrument? So the soul needs the body and the body needs the soul. The soul needs the body because without the body it cannot fulfil its highest mission: God-manifestation on earth. The body needs the soul in order to realise the highest transcendental Truth.

In the beginning it is absolutely true that the body stands against the soul's inevitabilities. But there comes a time when the soul comes to the fore and compels the body to become its faithful instrument. This is the victory of both the body and the soul. When the soul consciously makes the body feel what it should do, and the body is willing to listen to the dictates of the soul, then the body and the soul go together. When the body and the soul go together, realisation, revelation and manifestation take place. In the beginning this body stands against us. But when we are advanced, when we are nearing our journey's Goal, we see that the physical consciousness is totally merged in the psychic consciousness. We see the physical in its transformed luminosity. The soul and the body become part and parcel of one Truth, and that Truth is God the Infinite.