Becoming free from the illusory attraction to the body

Everything in this material world is composed of dead matter. This world is beautiful because it’s created by Krsna; however, it’s a dead type of beauty, created from matter, just like plastic flowers

Imagine a child playing with dolls. The dolls move, talk, and even interact with each other. Whole conversations happen between the dolls. They get “married”, constitute families, sometimes even “die”. Sometimes two or more children play together, each one with their own dolls. Instead of interacting directly, the children interact through the dolls. The dolls build relationships, “fight”, and so on.

However, the dolls are just dead matter. They are not alive and don’t have the power to move by themselves. Everything happens due to the manipulation of the children. The energy and the imagination of the children are the only things that make the dolls look alive. Apart from his imagination and his attachment to the play, there is no real relationship between the dolls, or even between the dolls and the children.

Keeping this idea in mind, we can examine this citation from Srila Prabhupada:

“The material body and mind are bad bargains for the spiritual living entity. The living entity has actual functions in the living, spiritual world, but this material world is dead. As long as the living spiritual sparks manipulate the dead lumps of matter, the dead world appears to be a living world. Actually it is the living souls, the parts and parcels of the supreme living being, who move the world.” (Isopanisad 10)

Everything in this material world is composed of just dead matter. This world is beautiful because it’s created by Krsna; however, it’s a dead type of beauty, created from matter, different from the real beauty of the spiritual world. It’s an imitation beauty we could say, just like plastic flowers.

One can imagine a beautiful woman or a beautiful man, for example. The form is certainly beautiful, with beautiful hair, beautiful teeth, beautiful eyes, and so on. However, if we were to separate the hair from the rest of the body, would it look attractive? In the floor of a barber shop or a beauty salon, we can find the hair of many beautiful men and women, but one will certainly not be attracted by this hair; quite the opposite. Similarly, the teeth, the eye, the skin, and other components that make the body beautiful look extremely ghastly when separated from the rest of the body.

Once, a policeman in the US was called to attend to a serious accident on the road. The car was destroyed, and the driver, a young girl, was dead. Somehow, her face was more or less intact, but the impact completely destroyed her body. Her thorax ripped open, and the intestines scattered around. The policeman was so affected by this ghastly scene that days later, he committed suicide.

The image of a disfigured, dead body is probably the most terrifying image one can see. It can somehow affect us in a deeper way than most other horrors. Maybe it’s because it forces us to confront ourselves with the reality of this material world and the fact that we ourselves will have to face death at a certain point, things that we try our best to forget in day-to-day life.

Isolated, all components of the body look ghastly. However, when everything is together, the combination looks attractive. This happens because of the presence of the soul. The soul is what makes the body look attractive.

This is a point explained in the Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upanisad, in the teachings of Yājñavalkya to his wife Maitreyī:

“It is not for the sake of the husband that the husband is dear; it is because of the Self (ātmā) that he becomes dear. It is not for the sake of the wife that the wife is dear; it is because of the Self that she becomes dear. It is not for the sake of the children that the children are dear; it is because of the Self that they become dear. It is not for the sake of wealth that wealth is dear; it is because of the Self that wealth becomes dear. It is not for the sake of the brāhmana that the brāhmana is dear; it is because of the Self that he becomes dear. It is not for the sake of the kṣatriya that the kṣatriya is dear; it is because of the Self that he becomes dear. It is not for the sake of the worlds themselves that the worlds are dear; it is because of the Self that the worlds become dear. It is not for the sake of the demigods that the demigods are dear; it is because of the Self that they become dear. It is not for the sake of the beings themselves that the different beings are dear; it is because of the Self [the Supreme Lord] that they become dear. Indeed, it is not because of the objects themselves that all things are dear; it is because of the Supreme Self that all becomes dear.” (Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upanisad 2.4.5)

We can see how the gopis reveal this same principle in their prayers to Krsna:

“Our husbands, friends, family members and children are all dear and pleasing to us only because of Your presence, for You are the Supersoul of all living creatures. Without Your presence, one is worthless. When You leave the body, the body immediately dies, and according to the injunction of the śāstras, a dead body must immediately be thrown into a river or burned. Therefore, ultimately You are the dearmost personality in this world. By placing our faith and love in Your personality, we are assured of never being bereft of husband, friends, sons or daughters. If a woman accepts You as the supreme husband, then she will never be bereft of her husband, as in the bodily concept of life. If we accept You as our ultimate husband, then there is no question of being separated, divorced or widowed. You are the eternal husband, eternal son, eternal friend and eternal master, and one who enters into a relationship with You is eternally happy.” (Kṛṣṇa Book ch. 29)

When we see a beautiful woman or a beautiful man, we are actually being attracted to the energy of the soul, which is manifested through this material body. The soul, in turn, is the energy of Krsna, so in reality one is being attracted to Krsna in the form of His energy. The mistake is that instead of using Krsna’s energy in the service of Krsna, we want to steal this energy and use it to our own enjoyment.

To build relationships is the very nature of the soul. The problem is that in this material world, we express these relationships through matter, and thus we are subjected to birth, death, and all the problems of material existence. We strive for a permanent, happy situation, but we forget that this is just not possible to attain in this world. All the relationships we build in the material platform are going to inevitably end in frustration, because the object of the relationship (the body) is temporary by nature. Real relationships are eternal, and such eternal relationships can be built only on the spiritual platform, with Krsna and His devotees, who are also eternal.

Only when we can somehow get rid of this attraction to the temporary and instead start to focus on the eternal, will we be able to find real happiness.

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