(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 2005)
In the spiritual world, the body is made of pure consciousness – pure spirit – there is no difference between the self and the body. Here there is the self and the body. Prabhupada did these kind of exercises, such as asking the most intelligent boy in the school program to come forward. So this one boy comes forward, with little round glasses and his hair is parted in the middle with some brylcreem in there – its all glued onto his head…nicely parted. He looked very intelligent…and he is about 12 or 11 years old.
Prabhupada asks him if he can ask him a question. The boy said:
“Yes….yes”
So Prabhupada points at his nose and he says:
“What is this?”
And the boy looks at him like totally incredulous and thinks:
“It cannot be true, that he is asking me this question! He’s asking me a question as if I am a five year old. What is this?”
Prabhupada again, prods him and asks:
“What is this?”
Whilst in Prabhpupada’s presence he said:
“The boy must point”.
So the boy said whilst pointing:
“ My nose….my chest…..my arm”. And he goes like that around the body. Prabhupada said:
“Then where are you?”
Then he appeared to look lost, so Prabhupada said:
“Ok, now you can sit down.”
It’s like there is a total tension in the class. Everyone is shocked…you know! The genius of the class has just been smashed! And it’s just like – he lost it, and everyone is in total suspense and thinking:
“ What’s going to happen next?”
Then Prabhupada is establishing that if the self is not the body, then who are we? He begins to introduce the concept of the spirit soul. So here in this world we are separate from the body. It s very dramatic the way Prabhupada did it!
