The third aspect of our physical existence is the perfecting of our body, in other words the fineness, the sensitiveness, of the body. There is a spiritual temperament, and that temperament you can see from a person's body. There are sensitive people, maybe a little bit nervous, and then there are dense people who have quite a different aspect.

A sensitive person who can appreciate music,
who can respond to the beauty of line and color,
who can enjoy a salt and sweet, a sour and bitter taste fully,
who can feel cold and heat,
who can perceive fragrance, distinguish all these,

It is he who is born with a spiritual temperament.

The person who has no love for music,
who cannot appreciate fragrance,
who cannot understand the beauty of line and color,

That person is dense, and it will take time for him to develop.

Therefore the experience of all the joy and pleasure that life offers is not in materiality, it is in spirituality. It is not the material person who experiences life fully; it is the spiritual person who does so.

One might ask, "Then what about these ascetics who lived the life of a hermit in solitude, who did not eat proper food, who kept themselves away from all the comfort and beauty of life?" These are not for everyone to follow. At the same time it is a mistake to criticize them. Such people are the ones who make experiments of life by the sacrifice of all the joy and pleasure that the earth can give. By their solitude they experiment, just as a scientist shuts himself up in his laboratory for years and years; and these ascetics who left everything in the world also attained a certain knowledge which they give us. It is not a principle for everyone to follow, for spirituality does not depend upon such things.

Why are the eyes given if not to appreciate all that is beautiful; why are the ears given if one may not enjoy music; why has one been sent on to the earth if one cannot look at the earth for fear of being called materialist? Those who make spirituality out to be something like this make a bogey of God, something frightening. In point of fact spirituality is the fullness of life.