Identification with the body (Lectures, BG)

Expressions researched:
"bodies" |"bodily" |"body" |"identification" |"identified" |"identifies" |"identify" |"identifying"

Notes from the compiler: VedaBase query: "identif* bod*"@8

Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures

So that thing happened to Arjuna. In the battlefield, he identified himself as the body. He thought himself that he belongs to the Kuru family, and his family relatives, his, other side, his brother, nephews, or his grandfather...

Lecture on BG 2.1 -- Ahmedabad, December 6, 1972:

This is the material world. There are 8,400,000 types or forms of this material body, and we are wandering, sarva-gata, in different planets, in different forms. This is material world. And in the material world, whatever form we may have, we have got attachment for this body. Not only attachment, we are under the impression that "I am this body." Everyone. That is material conception of life.

So that thing happened to Arjuna. In the battlefield, he identified himself as the body. He thought himself that he belongs to the Kuru family, and his family relatives, his, other side, his brother, nephews, or his grandfather... So he refused to fight. "My dear Kṛṣṇa..." After placing the chariot between the two parties, senayor ubhayor madhye rathaṁ sthāpaya me acyuta (BG 1.21). And then he become very much disturbed that "I have to kill the other side, my brother and my nephews, my grandfather. No, no. Kṛṣṇa, I cannot. No. This is not possible. I shall not fight." This is the stage of Bhagavad-gītā. Kṛṣṇa became very much dissatisfied. Of course, Arjuna played the part of a conditioned soul. A conditioned soul is under the impression that he's the body. That is animal life.

In the śāstra it is said, "Anyone who is identifying himself with this material body, he is animal."

Lecture on BG 2.1 -- Ahmedabad, December 6, 1972:

In the śāstra it is said, "Anyone who is identifying himself with this material body, he is animal." Go-kharaḥ. Sa eva go-kharaḥ. Go means cows, and khara means ass.

yasyātma-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke

sva-dhīḥ kalatrādiṣu bhauma ijya-dhīḥ

yat-tīrtha-buddhiḥ salile na karhicij

janeṣv abhijñeṣu sa eva go-kharaḥ

(SB 10.84.13)

Yasya. Anyone who is identifying this, himself, with this body, which is made of tri-dhātu... According to Āyur Vedic medical system, this body is production of kapha, pitta, vāyu. Or in our modern medical science, anatomy, physiology, this body is a combination of bones, muscles, skin, blood, urine, stool. That's all. So śāstra says, "If anyone thinks that he is this lump of bones, flesh, blood, urine and stool," yasyātma-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke (SB 10.84.13), and sva-dhīḥ kalatrādiṣu, "and the production of these bones and flesh, kalatrādiṣu..."

For spiritual advancement this first knowledge, that the body and the soul are different. This body cannot be identified with the soul.

Lecture on BG 2.7-11 -- New York, March 2, 1966:

So a paṇḍita, learned man, must know that this body and soul, the distinction, the difference between body and soul... The body is not soul, and the soul is not body, and one who knows, he is learned man. This instruction is given first. So for spiritual advancement this first knowledge, that the body and the soul is different... This body cannot be identified with the soul. You see? The soul is there, but body is not soul. Body is not soul. So every learned man knows it, and we should be...