People in general, have a misconception about themselves. It often also happens to those who have already learnt about spirituality. In which case, they then find themselves in the most dangerous situation. When you learn spirituality and you have this misunderstanding about yourself, that is the most dangerous, because whatever you will do it will be covered up by “spirituality”. Not like when you are not in spirituality, whatever you do it is pure or naked materialism. 

In the real truth, we are the soul and not the body. The soul never takes birth and never dies. What is the soul? The soul is our real self. We are the soul. And this soul is eternal. It is never born, and it never dies. Neither in previous times, not now and not in the future. This never happens in the future and in the past. So, when we want to know our real selves, we need to understand that the soul is never born and never dies. This is the basis of understanding life. Who are we? We are the soul. Who am I? I am the soul. This should be in our consciousness, always.

The body is only a jacket and this jacket (body) consists of 5 elements and 3 inner elements. Five elements: earth, water, space, fire and air, and then the mind, intelligence and ego. These are all “different” to our real selves. This body is not eternal. It is only temporary. We are inside the body. We use this body, but we are not the body. Due to the power of illusion of God, we misunderstand that this body is not our true self. I am Sara, I am Lydia, I am Darmayasa, I am this body. So, I need whatever the body needs. We will fight with others only for the need of the body, only for the need of this “jacket”. Not for the need of our real self. 

When we live in this world, the first thing we need to understand is who am I? This is a must. Whether you are a manager of a company, a president, a minister, a priest. Whoever you are. You need to understand this from the beginning. Who am I? This understanding should make you come to a realisation. You should realise this. When you are working in the office, you should realise that you are the soul, you are the eternal one, not this “jacket”. You are not a Manager or Director of the company, you are not a Professor, you are not a Minister, but you are the soul. This “jacket” is a gift for you to realise who you are in reality. This “jacket” is only a gift, a special gift from God to realise this “secret” of life. 

Due to the power of illusion of God, we understood that this body is me. And whatever we try to do, through all types of efforts, is only to fulfill the needs of this outside body, and not the needs of the inner body, the real you. So, we will only fulfil this bodily happiness. This bodily “itching”. We will search only for that. So, this verse is telling us who we are in the reality, we are the soul, the eternal one. The body is only a clothing for the time being. If we will not use this body for the search of our real selves then we will miss this chance, because whatever you have experienced through this body, is only an imagination. 

To prove that it is only our imagination, and that it is nothing, try to think of or remember the happiest moments or most enjoyable things in the world. Now think, where has that enjoyment gone? Sometimes you experienced that enjoyment through fighting with your friends, brothers and sisters and even with your parents. Where has that happiness gone now? It is only a creation of the mind. We are adults here in this gathering. I can say that top most enjoyment in this world is sex. Where is that happiness? It’s like your body itching. The happiness is only an imagination in your mind. Now you think about other small enjoyments. They are nothing and they are nowhere. 

So, through this verse, we understand that we are not this body but our body is a tool to understand the inner self. You can still fulfil the needs of the body, because if you do not fulfil the needs of the body, you will be disturbed. Fulfil it in the proper way because it is the need of the body. When you are not controlling your food, reading, etc. then the need of the body will become strong. When you control food, control association, control so many things, then you will understand that people are trying to get through all kind of ways, - all of which are insignificant, and are very small things. But if you don’t realise that, you will also become deluded. You will spend your whole life fulfilling the needs of the body and you will miss the understanding to realise yourselves.