Body, a Product of Thoughts and Notions

Sage Vasishtha 

Vasishtha, who suddenly became silent when he found that Rama was completely absorbed in the self, resumed his discourse after an interval and after Rama had returned to normal consicousness:

O Rama, you are thoroughly awakened and you have gained self-knowledge. Remain forever in this exalted state; do not get involved in this world-appearance. This wheel of world-appearance (the wheel of birth and death of all things) has ideas, thoughts or notions for its hub. When these are arrested the world-appearance ceases, too. If one uses his will-force to arrest the wheel, it continues to revolve if the distractions caused by thoughts do not cease. Hence, one should restrain the hub (the thoughts and notions) having resort to supreme self-effort, strength, wisdom and commonsense. What is not achieved by such concerted action is not achieved by any other means. Hence, one should abandon the false dependence on divine intervention which is in fact the creation of the immature childish mind and, with one's intense self-effort, one should gain mastery over the mind. 

This world-appearance commenced with the thought-force of the Creator. But, it is false. In it these bodies born of the natural characteristics of various elements wander about. Hence, one should never again entertain the notion that the body exists and that pleasure and pain are factual states. 

The ignorant man who thinks he is suffering and whose face is streaming constantly with tears, is worse than a painting or a statue, for the latter is free from experience of sorrow! Nor is the statue is subject to illness and death. The statue is destroyed only when someone destroys it, but the human body is certainly doomed to die. If the statue is well-protected and preserved it lasts a long time in good condition: but even when well protected and preserved, the human body decays from day to day and does not remain in good condition. Hence the statue is better than the body created by thoughts and notions. Who will entertain any hopes based on such a human body?

The body is worse than even the body one dreams about. The dream body is created by a short-lived notion (the dream) and hence it is not subjected to long-standing sorrow; but the wakeful body is the product of long-standing ideas and notions and hence it is tormented by long-standing sorrow for a long time. Whether you think the body is real or unreal, it is certain that it is the product of thoughts and notions. Hence, there need be no sorrow in relation to it. 

Even as when a statue is broken, no life is lost, when the body born of thoughts and notions is dead, nothing is lost. It is like the loss of the second moon when one is cured of diplopia. This self which is infinite consciousness does not die nor does it undergo any change whatsoever.