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Re: Liquid Beauty



Richard Kerr <R.Kerr@perspolicy.usyd.edu.au> wrote:

>madhudvisa@krishna.org (Madhudvisa dasa       ) wrote:

>[Story deleted]

>>   This is the  story of  liquid beauty,  and it  is a  fact. That is
>>   actually the beauty  of the  material body,  it's simply  a bag of
>>   pus, stool, urine, blood, mucus,  horrible things. And we are just
>>   attached to  the  skin  and  as  soon as  the  skin  is  no longer
>>   beautiful we are not attracted any more.

>Charming story. And really trivially wrong. The princess induced an
>illness in herself and kept the results of the illness in a bucket.
>If she called the contents of the bucket "beauty" wasn't being profound,
>just wrong.

  The story is not wrong. It shows the body which we are so attached to
  is a combination of things which are not at all attractive in
  themselves... You can't argue against this. If we are only attached to
  someone because of their beautiful body [or "skin"] we are attached to
  a temporary combination of matter which is only manifest for a fleeting
  moment in time... But we have a desire for permanent happiness. So when
  that fleeting moment ends [when the "skin" is no longer beautiful] we
  become frustrated...

  Of course not all relationships are based on the skin only. Some people
  have intellectual relationships based on the mind... But that is not
  being encouraged any more. The powers that be want us to have more sex,
  because that fuels the economy...

>Physical beauty is the interplay of the parts of the body. If any of
>the parts are taken in isolation of course it will not be beautiful,
>you have removed it from the interplay.

  Exactly. That is my point! Material beauty is very fleeting.

>>   This is why in Western society, which is simply going on the basis
>>   of this "skin  disease," there  are so  many divorces  and so many
>>   marriages.

>I agree that we are too concerned with physical beauty.

  Good. That's the main point. We are not the body, we are the eternal
  spirit soul, the person "driving" the body. The body is a machine and
  we are the driver of that machine. Trying to become satisfied by 
  satisfying the body is like trying to satisfy the driver of a motorcar 
  by putting petrol in the car!

>[...]

>>   Everything is based on the skin, and the skin is temporary. We can
>>   never be  satisfied, we  can  never be  happy with  a relationship
>>   based on the skin only because our skin is a very temporary thing.
>>   A beautiful girl  is beautiful for  a few years  only, young girls
>>   sixteen, seventeen are very beautiful, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-
>>   two, twenty-three, twenty-four,  twenty-five, then finished. She's
>>   not beautiful any  more. So this  is a fleeting  moment only. It's
>>   the same  with  a man,  a  man is  beautiful,  sixteen, seventeen,
>>   eighteen, nineteen then the beauty is gone.

>The older I get the less beautiful young women look to me. I am
>usually attracted to women around my age. I think you are being
>unnecessarily  pessimistic.

  You are not an ordinary man then! Young men and young women are
  physically beautiful, there's no doubt about it. Not only are they
  beautiful but the have so much energy and enthusiasm... Physically an
  18 year old man or women is a much more attractive proposal than a 40
  year old or a 50 year old!

  You are an exception. Perhaps you are more interested in the person
  than the body. This is a higher platform. You may have already realized
  the futility of trying to catch that fleeting moment when the "skin" is
  beautiful.

  Of course, while the spirit soul is in the body, the beauty of the
  person shines through. An old person is not different from a young
  person... The "person" doesn't get old, only the body. If one is on the
  bodily platform, however, he can't see this, he is preoccupied with the
  "skin disease".
  
>[...]

>>   In the beginning we have a child's body, then we get a boy's body,
>>   then a man's body  then we get  an old man's body,  so the time of
>>   death is simply another  change of body.  A self-realized soul can
>>   understand this, he can  see this.

>Since I'm about to argue that you are fundamentally mistaken, I guess
>I am not self-realised. On the other hand you might just be wrong.
  
  No I am not wrong. The body is changing. The body I have now is 
  completely different from the body I had as a child. There is no room 
  for argument, it has changed completely. But it's still me inside!
  
>>   This is  a fact. Our bodies are
>>   always changing. You  can see.  No one  can argue  with this. It's
>>   simply a statement  of a very  plain fact. I have  this man's body
>>   now, previously I had a boy's body,  prior to that I had a child's
>>   body and before that a babies body. They are all different bodies.

>Nope. They are all one single subtly impermanent body.

  This doesn't make any sense at all! The body is clearly changing. My
  childs body is gone, my baby's body is gone... But I am still here. And
  what's this nonsense about "subtly impermanent". There is nothing 
  subtle about it. It is impermanent! What is subtle is the changing. The
  body is changing at every moment [subtly].

>The atoms and
>molecules that go into your body have changed

  The material body IS the atoms and molecules that constitute it! If the
  atoms and molecules [the components of the body] have changed then of
  course the body has changed.

>over time and the shape
>of your body has changed

  See you agree your self. "The shape of your body has changed..." If the
  shape has changed the body has changed!

>because of the way that process is carried
>out. There isn't a single atom in your body that won't be replaced
>in five years (although some cells, such as eye cells, stick with you
>to your grave.)

  So it's changed!

>It is the pattern of the atoms of which you are made
>that is important.

  The "pattern of atoms" has also changed. If the "pattern of atoms"
  didn't change my "replacement body" would be the same as my "original
  body". I would never have changed from a childs body. I have changed
  bodies ONLY because the pattern of atoms HAS changed!

>Like beauty you are not any single thing

  You are the person, the spirit soul, the occupier of the body, the
  driver of the body... You are eternal, you are spiritual, you never
  die, you never get old, you never get sick... All these things happen
  to the body and because we think we are the body. But this is not our
  natural position. 
  
  There is another world beyond this material sky where we can exist in
  our original spiritual body... there everything is eternally youthful,
  full of knowledge and full of pleasure. This is our natural position.
  To be in this material body and be full of anxiety, to be forced to get
  old and die and to be full of ignorance is NOT NATURAL. We will find
  real happiness, real permanent beauty in the spiritual world. But to
  get there we have to give up this "skin disease" first.

> , you are
>the result of the interplay of all your parts.

  You are NOT the "result of the interplay of all your parts"! THE
  INTERPLAY OF ALL YOUR PARTS IS THE RESULT OF YOU. This body is
  constructed according to my consciousness. There are 8,400,000 types of
  bodies and depending on my consciousness at the time of death I am
  placed into the womb of my next mother. If I'm in animal consciousness,
  I am put into an animals womb, if I am in human consciousness I a
  placed in a human mother's womb but if I am God conscious, Krishna
  conscious I don't have to come back to this material world again.
  Instead of being placed within the womb of a mother in this miserable
  material world, I go back home, back to Godhead, to the spiritual world
  and regain my original, eternal spiritual nature...

>You don't have a
>different body now

  I think you can see by now that you certainly do.

>you have the same body in a different point in
>the process of that interplay.

  This is nonsense. The "process of interplay" is just another way of
  saying "the change of the body".

>The difference is subtle but important,
>you are too attached to the notion of the body as a "thing".
>[...]

  There is no difference, you are just trying to support your own "faith"
  that there is no soul, everything is chemicals, there is no God...

>>   This is the process of life  in the material world. The bodies are
>>   changing but the soul is not changing. I the person, I am the same
>>   person I was in the babies body,  I'm the same person I was in the
>>   child's body, I'm the  same person I  was in the  boys body. I can
>>   remember things, I can remember  my childhood body, I can remember
>>   my boys body. I  can remember the activities  I performed in these
>>   bodies. These activities are  performed by me, but  the body I had
>>   then is gone. So we can understand that I, the self, the person, I
>>   am permanent, I am eternal, but  the body is always changing.

>You sound very sure of that.

  It's a fact. Any thoughtful person can see it [you can easily perceive
  that "you" are different from "your" body. "You" are also different
  from "your" mind.. This is going on in another thread with Marian. You
  might also be interested in that.

>When you get right down to it, though. Your mind, the bit which thinks
>of itself as "me",

  Well at least you accept there is a mind and a "me". That's a relief.
  But even the mind is not "me". There is matter, higher than matter is
  the senses, higher than the senses is the mind, higher than the mind is
  intelligence, higher than the intelligence is the spirit-soul. You are
  the spirit-soul. And higher than you, the spirit-soul, is the Supreme
  Personality of Godhead, Krishna. So ultimately our business is to serve
  God, to serve Krishna.

>displays the same kind of subtle impermanence that
>your body does. Far from being the same person that you were 20 years
>ago, you are less recognisable mentally than you are physically.

  The mind is also material and it does, as you have noted, change. 
  There are three bodies. The "gross" body consists of earth, water,
  fire, air and either. It is the gross body we have concentrated on in
  this presentation. It is changing at every moment. It is changing
  BECAUSE OF changes in the subtle body. The subtle body is the mind,
  intelligence and false ego [identifying the body as the self]. Changes
  in the subtle body [ie: mental changes] are REFLECTED as changes in the
  gross body.

  What you have said here is completely correct. You have come to the 
  point of understanding the mental platform which is a great advance 
  from the physical platform. Now you just have to contemplate the 
  intellectual platform and the spiritual platform.

>Even
>your memories, which you think are so permanent, turn out only to be
>clever reconstructions from primitive clues.

  Yes. We have memories stored from many, many lifetimes, but we can't
  "remember" those life times. The data is there but we can't access 
  it. A symptom of our material existence is forgetfulness. We have to 
  be able to forget to continue our quest for happiness in the material 
  world. So we forget all the difficulties, all the suffering in the 
  past... It makes it easier for us to believe we can be happy in the 
  future....
  
>As beauty is, so is your body and so is your mind. All of it displays
>subtle impermanence. 
 
  Not everything! Only everything MATERIAL. Spiritual things are of a 
  completely different nature. Sat, cit, ananda. Eternal, full of 
  knowledge and full of pleasure. Matter is the opposite: asat, acit and
  nirananda; temporary, full of ignorance and full of anxiety.

>Everything is constantly in a process of change
 
  Not the soul.. The soul is unchanging.

        na jayate mriyate va kadacin nayam bhutva va na bhuyah
        ajo nityah sasvato 'yam purano na hanyamane sarire
                                                        
"For the soul their is neither birth nor death at any time. He has not 
come into being, does not come into being, and will not come into being. 
He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing and primeval. He is not slain when 
the body is slain." (Bhagavad-gita 2.20)

>and as beaty fades and bodies die there is absolutely no reason to
>suspect that your mind will transmigrate.

  The process is not to "suspect". What is the use of your suspicions? If
  there are 100 students in a lecture theater and there is a sound coming
  through the roof from outside they may all "suspect" it was caused by
  different things. But someone outside on the roof can tell us ACTUALLY
  what happened. So if you want to find out what the position really is
  your "suspicions" are not very useful. You have to find a proper
  authority. I recommend you read "Bhagavad-gita As It Is" with
  translations and purports by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
  Prabhupada. I'm sure you will find it an amazing book.

>If you survive death at all
>it will be by the intervention of something outside of our normal
>experience.

  In the material world we are normally in the "bodily" concept of life.
  We think "I am an Australian man..." But my body is an Australian man's
  body. I'm the person, the eternal spirit-soul within the machine of the
  body. I am controlling the body. I AM NOT THE BODY. I am not an
  Australian man. My next body could be a womans body! I'm not a man, I'm
  not a woman, I'm not an Austrailan. I'm the spirit-soul, the living
  force and my business is to serve Krishna of God. Because I didn't want
  to do that, I wanted to be an independent god, I am now here, in the
  material world. BUT IT'S NOT VERY COMFORTABLE HERE! It's not my home. I
  belong in the spiritual world.

  So chant Hare Krishna and be happy in this life and then go back home, 
  back to Godhead!!!

     vasamsi jirnani yatha vihaya navani grhnati naro 'parani
     tatha sarirani vihaya jirnany anyani samyati navani dehi

"As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, the soul similarly
accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones."
(Bhagavad-gita 2.22)

Thank you very much.


Thank you. Hare Krishna!

Madhudvisa dasa       
(madhudvisa@krishna.org)     /sudarsana 
                                
All glories to His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada!



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