Jnana-Yoga :2-10.

CHAPTER -2. THE REAL NATURE OF MAN : 10.

(Delivered in London)

Thus, when people cease to think of the past or future, when they give up the idea of body, because the body comes and goes and is limited, then they have risen to a higher ideal.

The body is not the Real Man, neither is the mind, for the mind waxes and wanes.

It is the Spirit beyond, which alone can live for ever.

The body and mind are continually changing, and are, in fact, only names of series of changeful phenomena, like rivers whose waters are in a constant state of flux, yet presenting the appearance of unbroken streams.

Every particle in this body is continually changing; no one has the same body for many minutes together, and yet we think of it as the same body.

So with the mind; one moment it is happy, another moment unhappy; one moment strong, another weak; an ever-changing whirlpool.

That cannot be the Spirit which is infinite.

Change can only be in the limited.

To say that the infinite changes in any way is absurd; it cannot be.

You can move and I can move, as limited bodies; every particle in this universe is in a constant state of flux, but taking the universe as a unit, as one whole, it cannot move, it cannot change.

Motion is always a relative thing.

I move in relation to something else.

Any particle in this universe can change in relation to any other particle; but take the whole universe as one, and in relation to what can it move?

There is nothing besides it. So this infinite Unit is unchangeable, immovable, absolute, and this is the Real Man. Our reality, therefore, consists in the Universal and not in the limited.

These are old delusions, however comfortable they are, to think that we are little limited beings, constantly changing. People are frightened when they are told that they are Universal Being, everywhere present.

Through everything you work, through every foot you move, through every lip you talk, through every heart you feel.

Swami Vivekananda
To be continued  ...