Volume
Vol. 4, Mental Purification
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6. The Control of the Body
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The Body, the Sacred Temple
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Vol. 4, Mental Purification
6. The Control of the Body
The Body, the Sacred Temple
Many people think that the physical has little to do with the spiritual. Why not, they ask, cast the idea of the physical aside in order to be entirely spiritual? If without the physical aspect of our being the purpose of life could be accomplished, the soul would not have taken a physical body and the spirit would not have produced the physical world.
A Hindustani poet says, "If the purpose of creation could have been fulfilled by the angels, who are entirely spiritual, God would not have created man."
That shows that there is a great purpose to be accomplished by what is called the physical body. If the light of God could have shone directly, there would not have been a manifestation such as that of Christ. It was necessary, so to speak, that God should walk on the earth in the physical body. And the conception that the physical body is made of sin, and that this is the lowest aspect of being, will very often prove to be a mistake, for it is through this physical body that the highest and the greatest purpose of life is to be achieved. A person only calls it his physical body in ignorance; once the knowledge has come to him he begins to look upon it as the sacred temple of God.
Our experience of life through the physical body has five aspects.
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