Daily Meditation: Friday, July 29, 2011

Body, the physical - is only an instrument for our desires, good or bad

07/29/2011

The physical body is only an instrument, and it carries out what our thoughts, feelings and desires order it to do. Cutting off his own member will not rid a man of the desires that torment him. Our limbs merely carry out orders from above. Think about it: with your arm you can hit someone or you can stroke them; you can murder them or you can rescue them. Why blame the arm? It is not guilty, not responsible; it receives orders, good or bad, and it carries them out. Supposing a man wants to cut off his genitals. He will no longer be able to satisfy his appetites and desires, and yet they will not have disappeared. And what crimes of madness this man may be driven to commit! There have been people in history whose ardent faith and aspiration to purity led them to mutilate themselves, supposedly to be saved from hell. But they were in another hell, and a much fiercer one! Limbs should be left alone: the work of purification is to be done in the realms of thought and feeling and in the soul.