 The one with the glasses and then the one with the beard. Or do they both have a beard? No. After him you. I just have a very direct question. Are you just your body, yourself? Are you speaking about me in particular or about yourself also? I just want to understand, it's my first satsang. Yes. I heard you saying that you are just your body. So I just want to understand it correctly. So it's pertaining to you. I think this pertains to everyone, myself included certainly, yes. I mean if I'm saying that to you then I'm saying that because it's an experience. So yeah, not just me but all of us, we have to identify with the body and give that body an identity which is very slim because if we don't do that then the ego takes over completely. It's like a defence mechanism to keep the ego at bay. I am the body. I am this. Yes. I've heard the other way around quite a lot. So when somebody says you are the body, you know, find it slightly misleading. Sometimes I feel I'm just the body but sometimes I feel I'm not the body. Well, it's just about understanding that, you know, what's your name? Marimuttu. This Marimuttu is a name given to something. It's a name given to this body. And it is this Marimuttu, this body that has to take actions in a life. So the motivating force that makes those actions happen or let's say the impulse comes either from the source, from the soul, or it comes from the ego. This is an attempt to simplify this entire spiritual quest because what has happened is that there has been an aberration that has taken place where increasing numbers of spiritual seekers are identifying with the supreme source, Atman, and detaching from the actions also from the suffering which results in absolving themselves of the responsibility for whatever happens in an attempt to escape the pain that life presents. So what is being said is that take on a simple identity. Take on the responsibility for your actions by discerning between the impulse that comes from the truth and the demandings and clamorings of the ego. Dishon, go with the truth. What happens after a while of this sadhana is that the eye falls away actually, but there is no identification with the supreme soul. So there is complete responsibility without an experience of eye. And that is something which keeps you present, keeps you real, keeps you focused, and keeps you actually in touch with that which is around you. You see what I mean? It keeps you here and now. Identifying with the body, the limited body, as you said, is there not an aberration in itself to start from there? Identifying with the supreme soul, I can understand that it could lead to a responsibility in its aberration. But identifying with the body also is it not an aberration in itself, as Advaita says, you are more than the body? This is a tool, it's a spiritual tool. It's not an aberration because there is a certain reality about the experience of the body. In fact, strangely enough, the experience of the body is actually much more real and much more present than the experience of the supreme self. That is an experience that happens in the conceptual. I can physically feel my body. I can't physically feel the supreme self. But I know that there is that because I feel it as an impulse within. I feel it's individualized impulse or presence, sending an impulse. So to actually go with this reality as the base station is not an aberration because it leads me into the understanding that the surrender has to happen from here. If I'm going to tune out into the cosmic states and take on Samadhi-like experiences, what am I doing in that process? I'm dissolving identity. So the first stage is I start to feel that the body doesn't have contours. Those of you who have been in those states will know exactly what I'm talking about. Then at one point there is absolutely no contour anymore. I'm just like a blob somewhere. And at one point there's just identity of something. And at one point I'm here again but I have no idea where I was because there was complete dissolution of identity. And then gradually as I step back into the body, the contours take on a greater and greater shape. If I do that a few times, up and down, at one point I start detaching from the very perception of the body. And that is when the actions start to, when the body starts to be incapable of actually living in this world. And if I've done that long enough, everyone has to look after me or a die. If, however, I stay in the here and the now, and I say, I'm Mari Muthu and I'm, you know, son of... What's your mother's name? Devendra and my dad. Mother, Pungari. Why do you bring up your dad? Usually they son of... Yeah, that is usual but this is unusual. That's your patriarchal imprint. Son of Pungudi. Mari Muthu son of Pungudi from Tiruvannamalai. From Salem. That's that identity with which you function. And if this Mari Muthu is here and now, and instead of tuning in into the cosmic experience of Atman, he says, I have the Atman inside. It's like you're present, you're here and now, you're tuning in to your soul, and you're circumventing the pressure of the ego. One of the things being that you're the son of the father. It's also something society has told you. The only thing you know for sure is who the mother is. So you go with that and you start to bend to this soul. What happens after a while is that you become like a servant of this soul. You're just going with what the truth is telling you to do. And the joy is increasing in your life. It will not decrease, it will increase. Because you're present, you're aware of your soul, you're also beautifully so aware of the soul of the other. Not in a cosmic sense, but in a terrestrial, corporeal, present sense. You're aware of the other. So your actions with the other are much more precise and informed than when you're in that larger picture. Because if you are actually out there identified in a Samadhi state, you are actually like a spirit. There is no experience of body anymore. And then the question arises, why not just be a spirit? If you are here in this terrestrial experience, then be in this experience. And just because spirituality has been saying this for a few hundred years, not even a thousand actually, doesn't mean that it's necessarily the only way. That one point, Marimutu falls away. Because what is left is this body in servitude, not this body observing itself, this body in servitude, in action, not as an observer, but as the doer. As the doer, it's a bit of a shake-up, conceptually. Time for the shake-up. That's very interesting. Yes. I've been identified with my body so far, and all I'm interested is eating, sleeping, and very rarely, I think, beyond it. So spirituality is not beyond the body? It's not beyond, it's beyond. It's beyond, not beyond. It's simply a shift in the direction. It's a diametrically opposite direction. That's all. That is the way to go because we know now that the experiences of the cosmos and the cosmic experiences and the Samadhi states result very, very, very rarely in a state of oneness with the Supreme, which is complete joyousness. Most of the time and most of the people, it results in physical damage to the brain, to the body, an inability to be connected with anything around, a detachment from everything, including the body and its needs. And if that were the aim, then why are we in this body in the first place? This is the temple, it has to be taken as the temple and treated as the temple. The temple of the soul doesn't have to be demolished by leaving it to take care of itself. It's inward, it's samarpan. You know this word? You're of Tamil origin, so you probably don't know the word. Do you have it in Tamil as a samarpan? It's surrender, bend down, down, down, samarpan, samarpan, a Sanskrit word. I don't know what the word in Tamil is, but it would be... Saranagati. Saranagati, beautiful word. That is your... that is the word that you have to pronounce every morning. Saranagati, Saranagati. You can chant that. Saranagati, Saranagati, Saranagati. Surrender to the antaratna, the soul.