Meditation on Swami Muktananda’s Words
Siddha Yoga Satsang in Honor of Easter
by Eesha Sardesai
Befriend the Body
In the story we are focusing on, Baba Muktananda tells us what the saint says to his body as the time of his death approaches. The saint expresses regret for the suffering he has inflicted on his body. “I have often inconvenienced and frightened you,” he says. “Knowingly and unknowingly, I wronged you many times.”1 He acknowledges how his body remained steadfast all the while, and he thanks his body for what it allowed him to attain—namely, the experience of God, through sadhana.
In the pursuit of God, people have subjected their bodies to all manner of hardship. Often they are simply following the practices prescribed or advised by the religious tradition they belong to. They stand on one leg on a mountaintop. They fast for days on end; they deny themselves sleep. They walk barefoot to sites of pilgrimage—sometimes for hundreds of miles, sometimes up steep and rocky mountains, their limbs sore, their feet bleeding. In his own search for God, the saint in Baba’s story may well have done one or more of these things.
I’d imagine that even those who do not consider themselves to be particularly religious or spiritual can relate on some level. Most people are using their bodies to achieve some form of perfection or self-actualization for which they need to become new, better, more improved versions of themselves. And the ideal they seek always seems to be just out of reach. Or maybe it is achievable in their view, but not, perhaps, without their pushing themselves beyond a reasonable limit.
The issue I see with this approach—and I understand the saint to be implying as much—is that it tends to be premised on a rejection of ourselves. Our bodies cannot just be what they are. We cannot just be who we are. Instead of accepting the form we’ve been given as our baseline, and from there, discovering—and rediscovering, and continuing to rediscover—its many innate quirks and capabilities, we view it as a hindrance. An obstacle to overcome. All of the many tests we put it through seem to arise from the same unspoken question: “Can I be this, do this, accomplish this in spite of my body?”
On the Siddha Yoga path, Gurumayi and Baba Muktananda have encouraged us to ask a different question of ourselves. How can we make use of this body, and the many gifts it has endowed us with, to realize our goals? Specifically, how can we use our body to know God? Siddha Yoga sadhana absolutely requires discipline. It takes effort. But this is an effort that has us work with, rather than against, our bodies. As Gurumayi has said, “You don’t need to become someone or something else to follow the Siddha Yoga path. You don’t need to be anyone other than yourself to love the Guru.”
I therefore wish to ask: Do you have any indicators for yourself of when you might be pushing yourself too far in the name of perfection? Do you have a barometer by which you gauge the intensity of your efforts and assess those efforts against the results they produce? In the midst of all this, are you still making time to breathe in the spirit of spring—to let its essence touch, and soothe, every part of your being?
- 1Swami Muktananda, Play of Consciousness: A Spiritual Autobiography, 3rd ed. (S. Fallsburg, NY: SYDA Foundation, 2000), p. 270.
Audio recording by Eesha Sardesai