While there are people who are against mandatory vaccinations, shouting “My Body! My choice!!”, whether they are right or wrong about any side effects and control of money-making pharma behind it, is not the point of this blog, or to support one group over the other about vaccinations!
The point of this blog is about “My body..! My Choice..!!.”
1. My Body?
First of all, where did we get the idea that we are the owners of our bodies? Did we make our body by ourselves by knowing how to design, and produce it?
Some may say that our body is made and given by our parents. But that is not true, because they have absolutely no power to make even a single blade of grass! How can they make a human being which is the most difficult and astonishing thing in the entire creation? Forget about the complex organs and their miraculous functions behind, we cannot understand even a single cell (of trillion cells) in our body. Scientists say that inside a single cell of our body, a whole town planning is placed inside! Did we plan it? Did we do it? Did we even know about it? No.
Our body is actually not in our control either! It will go through so many diseases, old age and then finally dwindle and die without our permission!. What kind of owners are we?
So, in reality, it is foolish to say that we are the owner of our body, while the fact is that we are living in a body given by some intelligent arrangement. It is like someone giving a car to use, not of my choice, and I am just a driver moving around. But we, the drivers, are thinking that we are the owners of these cars! It is a big illusion.
This fact is clearly told in the Bhagavad Gita as well as in Srimad Bhagavatam, that our body is just a vehicle given by the Lord according to our karma. We never can make one like this and it does not belong to us. It belongs only to the Lord. So, it is NOT ‘our’ body! The truth about our body, about we the soul and the Lord who owns all these, is given in this sloka.
kṣhetra-jñaṁ chāpi māṁ viddhi sarva-kṣhetreṣhu bhārata
kṣhetra-kṣhetrajñayor jñānaṁ yat taj jñānaṁ mataṁ mama .. Gita 13.3
“The soul is just the knower of the individual field of its own body. Even the soul’s knowledge of its body is incomplete. I am the only knower and the owner of all souls, and their bodies. I am situated as the Supreme Soul in the heart of all living beings…”
So, Lord Krishna is the owner of our body and that is why as an owner, he is also sitting in our heart as it is His property. We (the jivas) are just renters who live temporarily and have to vacate the body when the owner gives the termination notice. When He gives the notice, we cannot live even for a single moment more! There is no way of extending the lease! We cannot petition to any court either!
It is actually an illusion to think that we own anything in this world. We only use His properties temporarily and never be the owner. How can a cashier who handles the money of a bank think that he owns the money? If he thinks, then he will be in jail.
So, we should be very clear that our body actually belongs to the Lord. Once Srila Sanatana Goswami was thinking of putting his body in front of the Jagannath chariot as he had an incurable skin disease. Seeing the intention, Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu said, “How can you destroy the property of another? Your body belongs to Me, as I am the owner. You can use it only to serve Me. Isn’t it a big crime you plan to commit?”
Then the Lord embraced Sanatana Goswami and all the blisters magically vanished! How? Because He is the owner of the body and He can fix it or leave it. It is His choice, and not our choice!.
2. My Choice
We are so fascinated about our little fake freedom we got and shout “My choice! My choice!” But actually what kind of choice do we have in our body and in our life?
Did we have any choice to be born in a certain country, or did we have any choice to select our parents, or even to choose to be a boy or a girl? Did we even have the choice to decide to be born as a human being among 8.4 million kinds of species that the scientists are finding out? What choice did we have to be born as a human being?
The fact is that depending on our karma, we will be rather ‘forced’ to be born as a species decided by the faculty of the Lord. We may be born as a worm, an insect, a tree, an animal, anything. We do not have any choice on our own.
So, we have been ‘forced’ to be born as some being somewhere. We had no choice at all. Also the fact is that our body owns us. It demands so many things such as comfort, sleep, tasty food, coffee, tea, intoxicants, movies, music, colorful sights, and so many things and we are the slaves to our body and mind. We hardly have any real freedom!
Being entrapped in our material body, we can do only very limited things. A worm cannot run, a tree cannot move, a horse cannot fly.. So, our choice is checked and controlled.
3. Kinds of Human Beings
Our scriptures say that there are two kinds of human beings:
1) Bodily conscious beings
2) Spiritually conscious beings
Bodily conscious beings are the ones with lowest consciousness. They are no better than animals. As animals do these 4 things such as eating, sleeping, mating and defending, they do the same things.
Spiritually conscious beings understand that they are actually not the material body, but spiritual beings. They understand that the purpose of our life is to get out from the cycle of repeated birth instead of going through an endless cycle of births of 8.4 million kinds of beings.
So, our right consciousness should be, “I am a soul, I belong to God (Krishna) and He is the owner of me (soul) and my body. His choice is my only choice!”
When we get this kind of elevated consciousness, we are considered to be in a higher stage.