Shri Sai Satcharitra - Chapter VIII - Part III

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Special Value of the Human Body

As we all know, four things are common to all the creatures, viz. food, sleep, fear and sexual union. In the case of man, he is endowed with a special faculty, viz. knowledge, with the help of which he can attain God-vision, which is impossible in any other birth. It is for this reasons that Gods envy man's fortune and aspire to be born as men on earth, so as to get their final deliverance.

Sai Ram. The human body has been given with a great purpose. It doesn't last as long as that of the Gods. And it is not as short-lived as that of the insects etc. And the humans have been given the special faculty of standing and walking erect, so that they can see each other in their full beauty. And the sense of beauty, intelligence etc., all considered higher faculties are more or less exclusive to human beings. Thus the ability to appreciate beauty is a gift. By appreciating beauty and by learning the pleasure from appreciating and enjoying that beauty, man was freed from the cycles of nature, which protect the other animals. Thus human beings are the only species that are FREE to enjoy sex throughout the year without the restrictions of estrus (heat).

But freedom always comes with responsibility. Thus the very desire to enjoy that beauty and pleasure again and again is bondage. One may look at it as a curse, but one can by Sai's grace look at that too as a gift. Since, without bondage, there cannot be liberation. The realization that one has bound oneself through desire is itself a great step forward, since without that realization, there would be no effort to get oneself free. The desire for liberation is in fact, the ultimate desire.

Who is bound and who is liberated? Only the individual ego. The Higher Self, The real Atma who is one with Paramatma is always free. The individual ego only goes through the concepts of bondage and liberation. Can the individual ego free itself? It is like asking the prisoner to free himself. Of course not. The ego is set free by the Guru, who has the key to the prison cell, the key of knowledge, not worldly knowledge, but the knowledge of the Self, that knowledge which sets the ego free forever. Sai showed through His life, through His Leelas, through His devotion that it is possible for the ego to get fully merged in the Higher Self and be thus liberated.

Liberation or Mukti, Moksha is of many types. What that means is freedom from the birth-and-death cycle. Freedom to take birth or not to take. Freedom from the inexorable laws of Destiny, Karma. The law, which is inviolable for us, which says that we have to reap what we sow. The law which is only broken when we stop sowing further seeds of desires in our fertile soil of minds. By not reacting even in our minds. By realizing that the apparent sense of separation which causes the feeling of I, you, they etc., is an illusion, a trick of the ego. Sai Ram.

Some say, that there is nothing worse than the human body, which is full of filth, mucus, phlegm and dirt, and which is subject to decay, disease and death. This is no doubt true to a certain extent; but in spite of these drawbacks and defects, the special value of the human body is - that man has got the capacity to acquire knowledge: it is only due to the human knowledge that one can think of the perishable and transitory nature of the body itself, and of the world and get a disgust for the sense-enjoyments and can discriminate between the unreal and the real, and thus attain God-vision. So, if we reject or neglect the body because it is filthy, we lose the chance of God-vision, and if we fondle it, and run after sense - enjoyments, because it is precious, we go to hell. The proper course, therefore, for us to pursue is the following; that the body should neither be neglected nor fondled, but should be properly cared for, just as a traveler on horse-back takes care of his pony on the way till he reaches his destination and returns home. Thus the body should ever be used or engaged to attain God-vision or self-realization, which is the supreme end of life.