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and everything has both, the body and the soul. The body is the world and the soul is God, but the body is not AGAINST the soul, the world is not against the God. The world manifests God, expresses God. God is silence and the world is the song of that silence. And the same is true about you. Every person has both: the manifest, the bodymind structure, and the unmanifest, your consciousness.
Religion consists in discovering the unmanifest in the manifest. It is not a question of escaping anywhere; it is exploring your innermost depths. It is exploring the silent center, the center of the cyclone. And it is always there; any moment you can find it. It is not something that has to be found somewhere else, in the Himalayas or in a monastery. It is within YOU! YOU can discover it in the Himalayas, you can discover it in the marketplace.
The Upanishads say that to choose between the absolute and the relative is wrong. Any choice will make you partial; you will not be whole. And without whole there is no bliss, without whole there is no holiness; without whole you are always going to be a little bit lopsided, insane. When you are whole you are healthy because you are total.
The relative means the world, the changing, phenomenal world, and the absolute means the unchanging center of the changing world. Find the unchanging in the changing. And it is there so there is no question; just you have to know the technique of discovering it. That technique is meditation.
Meditation simply means becoming attuned to the unmanifest. The body is there, you can see it; the mind is there, you can see it too. If you close your eyes you will see the mind with all its activity, with all its working. Thoughts are passing, desires are arising, memories surfacing, and the whole activity of the mind will be there; you can watch it.
One thing is certain: the watcher is not the mind. The one who is conscious of the activities of the mind is not part of the mind. The watcher is separate, the witness is separate. To become aware of this witness is to have found the essential, the central, the absolute, the unchanging.
The body changes: once you were a child,
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