“I am not this body”
Accompanied a friend to follow an invitation to meet Swami Veda Bharati, filling in for her husband who couldn’t go. Had just started making breakfast, so packed it up and went š and didn’t regret it. He was very moving.
We came towards the end of the class, right in the middle of meditation (don’t we hate those people?) and afterwards he answered questions. He was very funny and sweet. To a question about being so humble he answered jokingly, “I am very proud of my humility” and the room was filled with laughter.
Someone asked him how to teach children to meditate and he said, you don’t teach them, you show them by example. He then proceeded to wrap his shawl around him, pretending to hold his 6 month old son for a few quite moments and then continued explaining that he wasn’t able to impart his knowledge to them but was happy to have instilled in them a love for meditation just by meditating with them at a very young age. The rest will come from that.
What impressed me most was his respons to some questions about meditation while being in physical (or mental) pain. And he started talking about how he has been constantly traveling and teaching yoga and medition since 1947, but didn’t take much care of his health and consequently he developed diabetic about 30 years ago, has a serious heart condition for 20 years and doctors adviced him not to fly on an airplane or he will die. He is 76 years old now and has 4 or 5 herniated disks. He than asked, “Would you believe me if I told you that this body is in acute pain right now?” Everyone was really stunned, because he didn’t look like he was in pain at all. He attributed it all to his attitude, “I am not this body”.
Later I was thinking about Frieda Kahlo and wondered what her art would have looked like if she wouldn’t have been in so much pain all her life.