The body is made up of mineral elements and fundamental particles. Combined together it functions as a self-sustaining unit. However, to consider this body as I—i.e. one’s own self—is classified as an inert mind, according to the Vivekachoodamani of Sri Adi Sankaracharya. The one who knows the truth may have a sense of identity with the body and life as one’s own self. When the sense of discrimination of what is the self and what is not self arises, for such a great soul, the awareness that I am the Brahman is always there.
So the master implores the seeker to drop the dull thought that the body is the self as the body is nothing but a neat package of skin, flesh, fat, bones and excretory matter. When that thought is taken off the body, the identification can be made with the supreme self, Brahman, which is free of any modifications. With that peace of mind, worship the supreme. While the mind dwells on the body and the sense organs, the nature of thoughts is delusory. However, as long as the knower of truth does not give up this delusion, until that time there is not even a word called liberation.
This idea of self as the body alone is the cause of confusion in the mind. It is the cause of sorrow of births in the future. Just as we do not have the sense of I when we see our shadow, reflection or the body in a dream, let there be no identification with the body as I during the waking state too.This identification of the body as the self alone is the cause for illusion in the intellect of humans. It is an identification that has to be given up with great effort if one has the hope of not being born again in the same set-up of objects, beings and circumstances.
The invisible covering of vital energy combined with the sense organs of action, which fills up the physical body completely, compels the individual to perform many actions. This vital body, which is nothing but a modification of air, is not the self as it is always filled with the incoming and outgoing breath. It does not know anything that is likeable or dislikeable for one’s own self or for others.
The mind-body is a combination of the five sense organs of perception and the ability to know and understand names, forms and qualities called the mind. There is no ignorance other than the mind. Mind alone is ignorance and the cause of bondage in existence. If the mind is destroyed, then everything is lost. If the mind expands, then the whole universe is existing in its expanded state.