Imagine a bottle filled with water and floating in an ocean. Now try to understand this. The bottle is our Body. The water inside is our Soul. The water in ocean is the higher Spirit or Universe.
All the time we think that we are the bottle, the outer covering. This is because of presence of ego which helps us recognise our bottle i.e, the body. Ego lives as long as body is alive. This body will have a name, color, creed, religion, family, relatives, friends. The body will experience all the pleasures and sorrows in the illusionary world alongwith other bottles floating in the ocean. The body will live, interact and will have social life. Thus the body with the help of physical mind will start having desires, possessions and more desires. Now the feeling of 'I'ness and 'My'ness will arise and ego will start to grow and the growth will be of such a magnitude that the body will be not be able to see the clarity of water/soul inside. The bottle will be so engrossed competing and floating with other bottles that ultimately the water outside will also become invisible to it. Now the bottle will only see the other bottles but no water.
In every bottle the color of glass is ego which alerts us to take necessary measures time to time to keep it fit. As long as ‘spirit’ is inside us we cannot ignore the body because the ‘water’ inside us knows that it is not different from the water outside. It is only body which cannot see the water inside and outside due to its overgrown ego. Just because you cannot see, it doesnot mean that it does not exist. The water is all around us. It is just a matter of being aware of the truth and make efforts to find it.
For a body to experience the human life and creation around, presence of ego is must. The darker the colour of bottle the denser the state of ego is in that individual body. The dark colored bottle will take longer time to see and realize the clarity of the inner ‘water’. Inflated ego creates desires, possessions, separatedness and ultimately pain.
All the activities taken up on behalf of the body represent our material life while all the efforts made to bring out the brilliance of the soul within represents our spiritual journey. The spiritual journey is nothing but removing the veils of ignorance of this reality and to finally experience the ‘oneness’ of water inside and outside and bottle being a mere illusion.
Ego represents our false fear (False Evidence Appearing Real) while Spirit represents love. The journey of the soul is to realise that fear is illusion which was created because of presence of body. Once we understand this illusion/Maya we realise that universe is nothing but love. Fear is nothing but absence of love.
Once we become aware and conscious of this role of ego, it would not take long to make the ‘bottle’ colorless, transparent, shiny and ‘one’ with the water outside.
A balance between material and spiritual life is must if we want to live a happy and contented life.
A wise man lives on the earth without losing sight of his space and place in the universe.
Vandana Ritik
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