Question:

Dear Ektaji, why do we hear that a human body is essential to attain enlightenment? How much attention do we need to pay to keep ourselves healthy?

Answer:

Dear One,

This is a Dvaitam concept that a human body is essential to attain enlightenment.

Dvaitam means duality. Most paths that separate man & God are based on Dvaitam or duality. Most religions and spiritual paths are Dvaitam paths. Even though Buddha’s main teachings are non-dual, most Buddhist sectarian paths are Dvaitam (duality-based). Dvaitam or Duality, being based on blind belief, is easy to follow as there is no accountability required for ‘faith in another’. The basic principle of every Dvaitam seeker is ‘I believe because you (the one in authority) say so! I don’t want to apply my mind hence I will follow an authoritarian figure blindly’. May I bring your attention to the fact that ‘blind faith’ is the mentality of the masses not the direct seeing of the rare earnest spiritual seeker?

The Non-dual paths like Advaita Vedanta, Suttavadin Bodhic path, Ramana Maharashi’s teachings, Nisargadatta Maharaj’s teachings, and the pure Upanishad paths like that of Mandukya are the only non-dual paths. It is very very very very very hard for the mass mentality to move away from the duality path and embrace non-duality because they do NOT want to use critical reasoning and astute seeing. These are the 2 non-negotiables for transitioning from duality to non-duality dear. 

On the Path of Non-duality as a Beginner: 

• • At first, there is a clear glimpse that one is beyond the body. There might not be complete clarity in the beginning but there is an intuitive seeing that one is not the body.
  • When there is this first recognition (even if it is a tiny glimpse) that one is not the body, it automatically kindles the curiosity to find out what am I. That begins the true inquiry!
  • The inquiry helps one SEE that one had self-blind-folded. That honest acknowledgment is required to proclaim ‘I am not the body’.
  • Intellectually discussing without that first direct SEEING only creates concepts like on the Dvaitam path. Hence Direct Seeing must be the one and only goal.

Hence I would encourage you to first SEE for yourself that you are not the body. Advaita Level I videos will help you with the same step-by-step [https://gnyanasangha.com/courses/enrolled/908276] 

As you progress on the Path of Non-duality: 

• • There is a direct seeing that ‘I am not the body’ along with the clarity that ‘there is no body’.
  • Only an impermanent sensation that appears and disappears, labeled as the body by the memory, in hindsight.

Once you see this, the belief that ‘one needs a body to attain enlightenment’ becomes a joke to be laughed at because there is no body, there is no mind, and there is no world. 

On the Path of Buddha:

• • Buddha called it a series of 12 arisings (Dependent Origination), one flowing into the other. When one arises, the other arises. When one dissolves the other dissolves. The seeing of this truth is Vipassana (special seeing).
  • When there is clarity that there is no body, there is only the appearance of a body, then there is the arising of the next automatic link ‘care taken of the body’ OR ‘care not taken of the body’. There is no doer. There is no experiencer. 

Buddha Level I videos can be accessed here – https://gnyanasangha.com/courses/enrolled/477924

Those walking the path of Buddha & Advaita can put these two nuggets of direct seeing together. Those who are still at the commencement, don’t worry, keep chugging, I am right by your side. We will get there together!

#AdvaitaVedanta #Non-Duality