The Body Is the Temple of God

The Body Is the Temple of God
by Deana Tareshawty

Sadgurunath Maharaj Ki Jay

What does it really mean to honor the body as the temple of God?

I have heard Kedarji share many times that the body is the temple of God. Over the years of my Sadhana, I have taken that utterance in and tried to understand it through contemplation. But this was hard for me to understand because I was not living it. I was not embracing the 4th Pillar of Joy in Daily Living, vibrant health. This pillar was one I shied away from because I couldn’t wrap my mind around the truth that I am God and God dwells in this body as me.

For most of my life, I abused and disregarded my body. I said and thought disparaging things about my body because I compared it to others. Because I didn’t fully understand how my body and cells functioned, I let it become overweight and out of shape. I exposed myself to toxins. I neglected to get good rest and sleep.

So, when I hit rock bottom with my health and weight a few years ago, I was stunned to learn that my metabolic health was compromised. But I shouldn’t have been. Balanced blood sugar and optimal metabolic health are the foundation for health of the body. When these are out of balance, it impacts all other body systems, and it sets up the cascade for many illnesses and diseases to manifest.

Going deeper into this contemplation over the last year of Sadhana, it never occurred to me that what was on my plate also influenced the thoughts in my mind and my emotional resilience. It certainly never occurred to me that any of it had to do with imbibing The Spiritual Power and my Sadhana.

Yet, it has everything to do with it. Kedarji shared with me just recently that taking care of my body and health is also my GuruSeva.

The Dwelling Place of the Lord

Our lineage has always taught that God is not far away. Baba Muktananda said it simply: God dwells within you as you. In Play of Consciousness, he shares, “The indulgent man will go on satisfying his senses until his body becomes useless. In the end, his worn-out body torments him, and he begins to hate it. The renunciant, too, wears out his body with his unnatural forms of austerity. He develops enmity toward the body and tortures it, making it useless, yet desires the happiness of liberation. First understand your body, which is the vehicle for your journey toward liberation, maintaining it carefully, and then look on it with love and respect. Your body is a marvelous work of art created by God, a beautiful storehouse full of intelligence, a mine of secret knowledge. To enter the court of God, to journey to Vaikuntha, to see Kailas, or to roam in the city of stillness, you are going to use the body.”

He continues by telling of a saint near the end of his life who thanks his Guru, the four directions, and the five elements, and then, last of all, thanks and honors his own body by saying ” my beloved body, by your grace and help I have reached God. I thank you.  I have often inconvenienced and frightened you. I have made you go through so much anguish and torment on my behalf. But no matter what I did, you always helped me. Truly, I am in your debt. Oh my dear body! You endowed me with a quick and perceptive mind. Through you I attained the nirvikalpa state in meditation, the highest of all. So, my dear friend, I shall be indebted to you. Knowingly and unknowingly, I wronged you many times, but you always helped me and always did everything you could for me. Whatever I did to you, you never gave me anything but your friendship and your companionship in return. But for you, I could not have done good Sadhana and could not have reached God.” Having said this to his body, the saint merged with the Absolute.

In How to Live Strong and Be Happy, Kedarji writes that his own Guru, Baba, taught him that the body is the temple in which God resides. Kedarji asks a simple question: who wants to live in a broken-down, diseased temple? He speaks of the body as a gift of Grace, given for a limited time, a vehicle we are meant to honor while it is ours.

Having read these utterances, I contemplated that the body I am in is the walking, moving, speaking temple of God.  It is where I meet the Divine and experience the Joy of the Self.

When I honor this vehicle, I honor my Guru, God and the Self who dwells in it. Each meal, each night of rest, each breath can become an offering. This body is the foundation of my Sadhana, and it asks to be tended with devotion.

Strong Enough to Say Yes

Whatever weakens the foundation weakens my Sadhana. Vibrant health is not the goal of our practice. Liberation is: the joy of the Self, moment to moment, no matter what we may be experiencing. But the body is the instrument I sit in to meditate, the voice I chant with, the hands I serve with. When it is inflamed, exhausted, or swinging between highs and lows, it pulls my attention away from that Joy. When my body becomes a distraction, my Sadhana suffers.

I see this clearly in Seva. Seva asks me to show up and perform the task with Joy and one-pointedness. It can mean hours on my feet in the kitchen preparing food for retreats, playing harmonium through a long chant, weeding the flower beds or basement Seva at Mehlo. When the body is strong, I can say yes to whatever the Guru asks and do it with joy. When it isn’t, part of me is always mentally negotiating or complaining. Will I have the energy? Will my back hurt by noon? How can I perform this Seva with the least physical impact on my body? All these mental negotiations lead me to decreased spiritual witnessing awareness. When that happens, I can cut corners for my personal comfort. In the end, it is me that suffers from this not Kedarji or the School.  Seva is offered for me to experience the Joy of the Self, to practice surrendering the ego and focus on one pointedness. When I show up for Seva distracted by the body’s issues, I block the Guru’s Grace because my mind is not present with the Self.

What Was on My Plate

When I looked honestly at why my body so often became a distraction in Seva, I kept coming back to what I learned when I hit rock bottom with my health. What began as a journey to heal my blood sugar and metabolic health, reminded me that all 4 Pillars of Joy in daily living are connected.

So much of that negotiating, I later realized, started with what was on my plate. I ate for comfort and convenience, and in this I was not honoring my body. Looking upstream at that pattern, my mind was restless, I was emotionally sensitive, and I was not as attentive to harnessing The Spiritual Power as I could be, as in keeping Japa going, remembering the form of my Guru, making sure I was sitting for meditation, and working to experience joy in the moment.

When I ate chips, sugary desserts, or refined foods, my blood sugar spiked quickly and then crashed. The crash brought fatigue, fog, and irritability, and sent me rummaging in the cabinets for more sugar or caffeine.

Each spike was like a distracting thought stuck in the mind, one that consumed my whole body and pulled my attention away from the Self.

This impacted my Sadhana and my GuruSeva. During that time, I had a lot of trouble remembering things that needed done for Seva. I had a difficult time writing blogs and talks because I was so tired every time I sat to write- I was exhausted before I even started. I found it difficult to hold conversations or speak to newcomers about my experiences because the words were not there- I was foggy and forgetful.

It impacted my Sadhana in how I honored my daily practice. If I was too tired and less energized in the morning, I put off sitting for meditation until after the cup of coffee gave me a boost. By then the morning was fading and the “to do” list was calling so mediation began taking a backseat.

It was all connected and I failed to see that.

Food is only one kind of fuel. Baba Muktananda taught, “Every cell in your body should be filled with God’s love.” The same cells I feed at every meal are the cells Baba wants filled with God’s love. And what fills them is not only what is on my plate. It is also my thoughts, my emotional equipoise, and the spiritual power I imbibe through Sadhana: Kedarji’s 4 Pillars of Joy in Daily Living. When my blood sugar is steady, my thoughts are clearer, my emotions stay in balance, and I have more room to receive The Spiritual Power that flows through the practices.

In How to Live Strong and Be Happy, Kedarji shares that science has found our cells give off light, and that this light points back to The Spiritual Power. He writes:

“Modern science, particularly the science aimed at measuring energy transmission inside and outside of cells, continues to substantiate what the sages of steady wisdom of spiritual lineages have been stating for millennia; we are all energetic beings with the same energy substratum I speak about in Chapters 1 and 2 as the core, the foundation of life and well-being – The Spiritual Power. The science engaged in the study of biophotons is yet another means to substantiate this fact.”

If the light of The Spiritual Power lives in every cell, then the temple is not only this body as a whole. It is in every cell. What I put on my plate either supports that temple or burdens it. Just as what I think and how I feel impact the health of my cells, which impact the body’s wellbeing.

Now that I am paying more attention to my health, it is supporting my Sadhana. Eating to support my health and exercising help my body rest properly at night so when I wake up in the morning, it is so much easier for me to honor all 4 pillars of Joy in daily living.

When I start my meals with gratitude, offering my food to the Lord reminds me of my commitment to honor my body as a temple.

That, for me, is the heart of it. I cannot tend the body and ignore the mind or tend the mind and ignore the body.

Keeping the Temple Ready

Now I understand what Kedarji meant when he told me that caring for my body is also my GuruSeva.

At the end of his life, the saint thanked and honored his body.  I don’t want to wait until the end of my life to offer that gratitude. A temple is not kept clean for its own sake. It is kept clean for the One who lives there. When I care for the body in this way, it becomes an offering, a Seva to the Lord within.

The journey home to the Self is walked in this body. Let it be strong enough to sit, to sing, to serve, and to say yes when the Guru asks, so that nothing stands between me and the Joy of the Self.

Deana Tareshawty performs her selfless service as Vice President of our public charity, The Bhakta School, in addition to serving as a program leader and harmonium player. She also serves on our Board of Directors. Additionally, she holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications and a double minor in Biology and Chemistry. She is a certified Ecology of Well-Being practitioner and the owner of Inspired Wholeness. She is also a trained Reiki Master in Usui Reiki.