' The Human Body '

P.Natarajan.

The physical body stands as a wonder even to the medical world as its continuing researches prove only more of its enigma. People all around the world try to keep the body look beautiful and young but not so much to keep it healthy. There are two kinds of thinking - some take pride that their physical structure has taken a good shape while others feel sorry that their physique is becoming less attractive.

Match making or selecting the bride or groom, tend to deal more with mundane characteristics like heights and weights than the values that are held dear by the respective humans. Seldom there arises thoughts that we are not just 'physical bodies' - but with life in it and when we cease to live, even one's spouse is afraid to look at the body. Alas !, the life may depart anytime from the body without one's knowledge.

' I saw him hale and healthy yesterday evening - can't even imagine that he is no more today' - such versions are common. We also say at once ' time only could heal one's grief ' without realizing that the same ' TIME ' rules our real life. also.

Dharmaputra according to Mahabharata says that the biggest wonder he considers is that when he sees many dying, he also gets amazed that he is alive or living !

A tale goes like this - a king who got a child after long years, lost the child suddenly after a lapse of five months. The king could not bear the loss and started weeping profusely. The sage Narada who happened to come that side took pity on the king and used his prolific strength owing to his penance, to bring back the child alive. He then asked the child to look at its father weeping on the demise of the child. The child replied Narada " In which birth was I born to the king - may be that it was fate that I might have been born to him sometime - otherwise there existed no connection at all between the two'. The King realized the moral and significance of life and death. To the king, the child appeared as the father of the man. As we change our clothes, the life also roles from body to body as and when it takes new births.



The human body is made of 'pancha bhoothas' - it undergoes changes perpetually though people may not digest such changes like shrinking and darkening of the skin, hair going gray, myopia of the eyes and in general the ag(e)'ing process. It is necessary that we learn quickly to realize that it is God's gift that we possess this physical body. In other words our life rests in this body just like we take a house on rent. We do house keeping whether the house is own or rented. In a similar manner we perform exercises, go on diet, try to beget good sleep every day and so on to maintain its health.

We have least doubts that we are born as human beings owing to our good 'prarabdha' or fate. We long to perform good deeds while the body is alive with life. We should at the same time realize that there is no use of pampering with the physical body lest more we look at the body, more the worries.

We are not the creator of the body. We should learn to accept it as it is. We will have less worries. The 'sastras' emphasize that the body is only a means for an orderly living and there will be no use if we develop feelings of the kind, either to like or dislike the body. Some even think of suicides under inferiority complex or likes of that. Consider that the body is like a temple and houses the divine being inside it. Sane thoughts of this kind may take an individual to attain everlasting peace.

Many cities face intensive traffic and building over bridges to lesson its impact. Likewise, treat the physical body as a road and the mind as a over-bridge. Whenever you face problems with the physical body use the over bridge (mind) to cross the hurdles.

If there is a will, there is a way !

pn