The Goal of Yoga 19

crashing? It is due to the body. The soul cannot be affected by
crashes. But you are always afraid.

The soul is ever-existing, and the body will not exist. And
lecause you are existing and the soul has accepted the non-
existing body, therefore you suffer.

The problem, then, is how to get out, just as you try to get
oul of a fever. The fevered condition is not your permanent
life. Permanent life is enjoyment, but due to the fever you
cannot enjoy life. When you are sick you cannot go out; you
have to rest and take so many medicines and formulas. But we
don’t want that—‘‘Why should I be a sick person?” But you are
diseased. Similarly, we should always know that this bodily
conditional stage of the pure soul is a diseased condition. And
anyone who does not know that he is suffering from disease is
uw fool. He is Fool Number One.

The sastra says, everyone is born a fool: because he has this
hody, therefore he was born a fool. No being, either American
or Indian, cat or dog, is free from this. You have come to
disease, that’s all. If you feel, “I am an American,” that is a
kind of disease; if you feel, “I am an Indian,” that is also a
disease; if you feel, “I am a cat,” that is a disease. You are not
a cat, you are not a dog, you are not Indian, you are not fair,
you are not black. You are your soul—that is your identity!
And one who does not understand this truth, that “I am pure
soul,” is defeated in all his activities.

Lord Jesus Christ taught like that: If you lose your soul and
gain the whole world, what do you gain? People do not know
what they are, and yet they work just like madmen. Just see,
ull these people are working, and they are madmen. They are
not Americans or Indians, Germans or Japanese. They are
nothing of the kind. They have been given a chance to come to
thisnaughty place, this Earth;and so, being born in a particular
place, they have a particular kind of body—and they are mad
after it.

