The physical body is what we have for our soul to exist on earth, in the physical realm. It was given to share feelings and emotions. We can “see” the physical body. We have 5 senses: sight, sound, taste, touch and smell. Through these sensory experiences we can interact with the world realizing pain and pleasure. This is how the physical body communicates with us.
In order to be maintained the physical body needs to be subject to discipline.
Three ways we can do this is through nutrition, exercise, and exercising the brain (no surprise here!).
We have to eat healthy nutritious foods if we want our body to feel good and be at peak performance. As a rule, we should only eat what our body can digest and excrete in 24 hours. If you are curious, just eat a bunch of beets at the end of a meal and see when your stool turns red!
The other aspect of a healthy body is exercise. We should exercise and sweat for at least 45 minutes to an hour each day. This helps to regulate the chakras and stimulates the endocrine glands, which are guardians of your health. Exercise is a must for the physical body no matter how old or how wealthy you are.
In Kundalini Yoga classes we exercise the body through kriyas moving through a sequence of physical yoga postures or asanas. Whether you practice Kundalini Yoga or not, you should still exercise the physical body every day in some way.
The physical body also requires one hour of mental exercise, such as meditation, each day. When you meditate you become calm, relaxed and can open towards infinity. We also can exercise the physical body through pranayam! This rejuvenates the physical body.
One of my favorite quotes about the physical body is, “the physical body is where the other ten bodies play out their parts.” For example, when someone’s soul is radiating then they “look” beautiful because that excitement or fulfillment with life just bursts through their skin and eyes. If your pranic body is weak you may be grumpy all the time. If your auric body is imbalanced you fail to achieve anything in life. Without awareness of the subtle body you can be devious and untrustworthy.
Our physical body will be happier if we take care of it. But, as yogis, we should also balance and have awareness of our 10 bodies, their capacities, and how these correlate to the physical body. If we want to master the self we need to train our physical body to relate to and balance in coordination with our other 10 bodies.
Blessings,
Prabhusukh Singh, PhD
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