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Video Information:
Myth Demolition tour, 20.2.20, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India

Context:

~ Is sickness obstacle to progress in spiritual path?
~ How to overcome though of physical sickness?
~ What is importance of healthy body in spiritual path?
~ What is sickness?
~ How to live truthfully?

Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ .
Transcript
00:00Pranam Acharyaji, somewhere I read in Osho's book that the body is sick, it will not help
00:15you to progress more in the spiritual path, because most of your attention will be on
00:19the body, then you will not progress like that.
00:21Is it so?
00:22It is true.
00:23So then if I am sick, then I cannot achieve freedom or…
00:29It is not absolutely true, you see.
00:32There is nobody who is absolutely sick in the body and there is nobody who is absolutely
00:40physically healthy.
00:47People are healthy in degrees.
00:53Similarly, people are sick to various extents.
00:59Now it depends on the extent of your inner resolve.
01:12How much weightage you want to give to your sickness.
01:20There might be somebody who would be perturbed by the common headache, oh I have a headache,
01:32I cannot live truthfully.
01:44Why did you miss your daily reading?
01:49Because I had a headache.
01:57And there might be someone who is very, very sick physically and yet decides not to deviate
02:16from the path of dharma.
02:19It depends on the depth of your love.
02:39In fact, physical sickness is a good way to test your resolve.
02:51Episodes of physical sickness are occasions when you can truly test how much spiritual
03:00metal you have.
03:07When all is hunky-dory, then one can develop the illusion that he is the most determined
03:27spiritual seeker.
03:34But one fractured bone and all determination vanishes.
03:52That is the reason why dharmic literature is full of unbelievable stories where people
04:04have fought holy wars carrying their severed heads in their hands.
04:15Somebody has fought for many days without a drop of water.
04:28Somebody has stood on one leg for an entire year or many years fasting and praying.
04:42All kinds of physical austerities are mentioned and they all sound so incredible, don't they?
04:58So there is this fellow who is sitting still under a tree and he is so still and he sits
05:08for so long that termites grow on all his body like termites occupy a tree.
05:24What do such stories indicate?
05:28They tell of the resolve of the spiritual seeker to not to listen to the body.
05:36I will not listen to the body.
05:39The body is a conditioned machine whose only job is to continue, continue, continue, seek
05:47pleasure, seek pleasure, seek pleasure and reproduce, reproduce, reproduce.
05:52That's what the body wants.
05:55I am not going to listen to the body so much.
06:13So when Osho says that you should have a healthy body, obviously that is preferable.
06:25You do not want to deliberately have a sick body.
06:32As far as possible, avoid sickness, good.
06:36But then sickness is inevitable, just as old age is inevitable.
06:44Sickness will come.
06:47You might have a case of coronavirus lurking somewhere around here.
06:55How will you avoid, tell me?
06:59And how much can you avoid?
07:05So sickness will strike and that's when your resolve will be tested.
07:16It's a love game, it's a love game.
07:21You need to have a heart to continue in spite of a heart attack, otherwise one episode of
07:43even a minor heart attack is enough to give up on all fancy claims towards spirituality.
07:59A little bit of physical trouble and vegetarians turn flesh eaters immediately.
08:06The doctor would say, you must have chicken soup, fine, fine, fine, yes, yes.
08:11And this fellow was a vegan since a decade and the doctor says, no, you know, chicken
08:17soup will be good for you.
08:33And it's an unfortunate situation when in the name of spirituality, people start cultivating
08:45the body.
08:50I'm referring to what yoga has come to mean today.
09:09L-shaped bodies, chiseled bodies, attractive bodies, sexy bodies.
09:31That's not yoga.

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