The Body's Importance

Well, in any case, first of all, in every culture, strong emphasis that one needs a healthy body. For example, you read the yoga sutra Asanas is regarded as one of the limbs of yoga or pranayama asana meaning postures receptor. So even though no specific posture is mentioned, but very strong emphasis on maintaining the right body and the right mind and right breathing, etcetera. Because this is what allows one to pursue anything at all. So that emphasis is there everywhere But in the Western tradition, as I just said earlier too, that individuality is much more intimately connected with my body than with anything else that I can think of. And not with my ideas or with my mind, but with my body. And then that individuality will continue even after death.

And then initially in the, for example, in the Christian tradition, initially that one was going to be judged right immediately after death. One may be in permanently heaven or permanently in hell. But gradually then the whole notion of purgatory or limbo developed so that maybe one could have a chance to improve oneself. One could be in purgatory for a little while. And then and then one will be judged at the end of the world was a way of saying it or when Christ is born again, and then the god and devil are fight with each other and the devil is killed kinda thing.

So at that time, the ultimate judgment takes place, and you may still be then permanently in heaven or permanently in hell. So the emphasis on the preservation of the body largely really come from that. That in one form or the other of this body, which is the form of my individuality. Whatever I mean by Ravi is ultimately connected with the body rather than what his thinking is, etcetera. Of course, one may want to say that from a scholarly point of view, but the actual preservation of the body becomes very important because that is what preserves robbery in future forever.

So the death of the body of Ravi is the end. And therefore, naturally, a strong tendency to keep preserving it for longer and longer. From a spiritual point of view, the death of the body is not the end of Ravi. Now, but whether the body is in some form going to be renewed, that's a different matter. But from the usual contemporary scientific perspective, this is the reason why, especially those who die in a hospital, I actually highly recommend people not to die in the hospital because the moment you are declared dead, you are just like a sack of potatoes.

Put in on a trolley and put on the side there with other many dead bodies whereas traditionally from the spiritual point of view in every tradition, including in Christianity, and much more emphasized in Tibetan Buddhism or in Hinduism that there will be many, many spiritual practices undertaken for the body. The soul that is leaving the body, to go to the right place, etcetera, etcetera. So but contemporary understanding largely driven by the scientific world doesn't accept any of this. So for them, if they are going to be helpful to Ravi simply means to keep him living longer and longer as Ravi. And personally for me, from whatever I have seen with some of my old friends, actually preserving one staying alive is essentially extending death as far as I can see.

These people are not able to do anything. They cannot even walk around. They're mostly lying in bed, but they're being kept alive. Just from the medical point of view. And so personally, I think it's just extending death.

But on the other hand, as you quite rightly said, I mean, many of these people have large amounts of money, and they have to spend somewhere or the other. And they can also in turn, they spend money in order to make more money. It's not only just they're spending it just out of goodness of it. If somebody can be persuaded that if they take this particular medicine produced by some one of these big companies, they can live a few years longer. So they will buy these medicines or buy these liquids so that they can live longer because of this whole tendency that I am essentially this body and nothing else. So my own impression is that certainly from any spiritual point of view, very strong call to this is true in both traditions, not only in the Indian tradition, very wrong call that Ravi is not simply the body that the body of the Ravi is to assist the evolution of the spiritual element in Ravi.

That's the call. So in that sense, the body needs to be good and healthy to be able to do this. But, obviously, almost inevitably, it's not going to last for more than a certain amount of time. And when it is unable to assist, it will die.