Sri Paduka Sahasram Intro

Apotheosis of physical body is illusion.
Body-culture sense-culture and soul-fulfilment.

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That the biological body is per se sacrosanct is a fallacy and an illusion that has to be dispelled. It is with the explosion of that fallacy that the Lord's Song begins. While it explodes the fallacy it also emphasises the fact of the soul being incorporated in biological body and the consequent need of the soul functioning in the context of that body. Every soul is embodied in a particular context and has therefore to function in that context in accordance with the will of God who permeates all souls alike in their various biological integuments. The body is the soul's karma in configuration and it is in that configuration that the soul has to function. All attempts at jumping out of one's own integument are but attempts at jumping out of one's own life. That configuration, that embodiment is no more automatic than optional. The tenacious heresy of spontaneous generation has long ago received a death-blow at the hands of eminent men of science. Birth is not a blind accident of the bedroom. All embodiments are karmic and karmic law has to be obeyed. Man sins against God in sinning against his body; for the body is given by God in His justice to man as man. The greatest of human tragedy is the havoc and violence which man is committing on his own body and on his own senses, not to speak of those that he is committing on those of others. Hence his frustration. Body culture and sense-culture are the very foundation on which the fulfilment of the soul depends. Physical culture is not mere physical exercise. Mere physical 'exercise' is usually a variety of physical exhaustion. The body and the senses have to be disciplined and cultured and not merely physically exercised. Each body, with the senses functioning in that body , has an individuality, and therefore, a value of its own. It is in that individuality that we have the foundation of human culture in all its variety. That culture is virtue. It is virtue that constitutes the vir (man). Whatever is not culture in the sense of "virtue" is violence to the body and the senses. That violence is sin. Man is a vir in culture and a beast in violence. He effects his fulfilment in culture and his frustration in violence. That is God's justice. Man, therefore, to the extent to which he does violence either to the body or to the senses of his own or to those of others or to the needs and equipments of that body and those senses, whether of his own or of others, effects the frustration of himself and of others. That frustration is sin, and in that sin he suffers justice. It is from that frustration that he has to be redeemed. Redemption is the one need of man, and God in mercy is the one Redeamer of man. Justice is not mere vindictive retaliation, but is the reaction to the sin committed. That reaction is penalty. The apotheosis of the physical body is repugnant to Divine Justice. That that body is by itself sacrosanct is the creed of hard fanatics. Justice can not be understood in terms of materialistic biology. Of carnal bodies the sinner has had many , and will have plenty in succession. The plenitude of his carnel bodies is but the plenitude of his sins. If one goes many will follow in succession. Man instead of clinging to the carnal body with fanatical avidity and becoming a slave to the body has, in the context of that body, to free himself for ever from the bondage of Karmic embodiment. The body has to be so disciplined and cultured, and the senses so controlled and subdued as to make them subserve the end of soul-fulfilment the fulfilment of its freedom from the liability to karmic embodiment. If man's bondage is effected in God's justice, his freedom is achieved in God's mercy. The very survival of the sinner in justice is the pointer to the supremacy of God's mercy. It reminds the sinner of the infinite kindliness of God and goads him on to contrition and submission. The purpose of justice is to awaken the sinner to his sin - the one sin of his defiance of the will of God, and to make him a penitent supplicant at the foot of Mercy. Only the sinner would not listen to the voice of justice. Hence his contumacious persistence in his own frustration. That voice being the voice of Divine justice will one day make itself heard by the sinner and take him in contrition to the "foot" of God - the spring and abode of all- forgiving mercy and fulfill itself in that mercy [Dayasataka 64, 79, 90, 91, 98.] The "foot" redeems the supplicant in all its love and affliates him for ever to itself as its Paduka in all its rosy hue of grace.