But Ramakrishna said, ‘How is that possible, as the body can never become sadhu; only the mann can’. I was wondering, Alok da, isn’t the path of Integral Yoga challenging this notion that the body cannot change? Maybe not change in its present state, but ultimately, is it not so that the transformed state of the body will be able to rise beyond pain and suffering just like the mann can?
Absolutely so. The body too must and will one day share the joy and peace native to the soul. The body too has a divine destiny and must grow divine. As the Mother said, ‘Salvation is physical’. In fact, it is inevitable in the very logic of things. If creation has emerged from the Divine, it must one day grow Divine, including in its most physical parts. In fact, if it is destined, as the Vedic lore and the Puranas suggest, that the Divine Kingdom must one day be established here upon earth, then the transformation of the body into a divine body is an inevitable necessity.
But besides these logical reasonings, it has always been said that it is the earth that is engaged in Yoga. That is the inner basis or the secret driver of evolution. Man’s advent is itself part of the Divine Plan to take the yoga of the earth to its grand fulfilment through the meeting of Earth, the Mother, and Heavens, the Father. The lore of the Earth going to Narayana to remove her burden and bring the Light and Delight, the whole evolutionary progression of the Ten Avatars of Vishnu, all point in the same direction. So does the lore of Sita, Bhoomija, and Rama, of the joining of Shiva and Shakti in the Shivalingam are all clear indications of this secret aspiration nurtured in the bosom of the earth. One could go on multiplying the indications. Yet before the earth can arrive at this grand transformation, there must arise human intermediaries who join the human soul to the Divine. That is what has been going on in various ways through different parts which takes up something of the earth nature, – mind, heart, bodily life – as a means to enter into the Divine Union. The time has now come for the body itself to realise this union, which will be like a grand fulfilment of the earth’s aspiration and the ultimate redemption of earthly life and the material existence.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
