Perfection of Body and Mind: A Goal of Right Education

Dr. Dinshah K. Mehta

Servant of Servants of God

Editorial Note

THE GOAL OF A LITTLE BOY

Years ago, a small boy, hardly five or six years old, began to ask himself: “What is the purpose of life?”

By the time this little boy reached seven years of age, the answer came to him from within: “The purpose of life is Perfection!”

It was an overpowering answer. And the little boy, at that time knowing only his physical body, started making it perfect. By the time he became a youth of 17 years, he had already achieved the goal of a perfect body.

AH! IT MOVES!!

His body was considered to be so perfect that at the age of 17, he could give performances to packed audiences in Bombay and Poona, posing as Greek statues. The enraptured audience would sit in suspense thrilled with the performance. Often, towards the end of a performance, as the Greek-statue-posing youth moved his head, a sigh of relief went up from the audience. In wonderment, they exclaimed: “Ah! It moves!!”

WHO WAS THIS LITTLE BOY?

Who was this young boy? And what is he like now?

That erstwhile young boy has now perfected not only his body but also his mind, both of which have since become instruments of his perfect soul in the service of humanity as Guided by God. Eminent personalities, including Mahatma Gandhi and Sir Stafford Cripps, held him in high regard.

Besides, he has helped innumerable people to regain health with his unique methods of Naturopathy as a system of medicine on modern lines and Nature Cure as a way of life.

Who is he?

He is none other than the one whom we now call Revered Dadaji, Dr. Dinshah K. Mehta, the Servant of Servants of God. For the benefit of our readers, we are reproducing elsewhere in this issue a few pictures of his statue-posing performances, which give an idea of the state of physical perfection achieved by him in his younger days.

He was born on June 5, 1903 and in spite of his age, his body has remained strong and supple and his muscles are soft when relaxed and hard when flexed. There are no creaky joints, no stiff limbs, no knotty tissues in his case. A flick of his hand can still fell a strong man!!

CONSCIOUSNESS BEHIND THE BODY

With this background, Revered Dadaji should know what he is talking about. He advises that the youth should set before them the goal of building up a perfect physical body. However, they should do so with a higher consciousness behind this goal and not merely a physical consciousness behind it.

Revered Dadaji has rightly pointed out that the High Beings like Zarathustra, Ram, Krishna, Moses, Buddha, Christ and Mohammed, all had strong and well-built bodies. Ram and Krishna even physically fought seemingly stronger enemies. Yet, Lord Ram vanquished Ravana and his Rakshasas, and Lord Krishna defeated Kansa and his Pahlwans. This is because their consciousness was linked with the highest of the High. So also, even before he became Gautama the Buddha, when he was just prince Siddharth, when challenged to feats of physical strength, the Buddha-to-be vanquished all the other suitors of the princess Yashodhara.

Thus, merely building a strong physical body is not enough. It must be linked with the higher consciousness.

How to grow unto the higher consciousness?

The fact is that throughout their lives, almost all people function within the three lower levels of the wakeful plane of human consciousness. The three lower levels are the levels of sense perception, emotion and reason. In this Discourse Revered Dadaji has explained that Right Education is that which teaches the children and the youth how to grow unto higher levels of consciousness which are the inspirational, the intuitional and other levels which are still higher through which they can ultimately rise unto the higher spiritual planes and at least grow to know one’s own soul directly and through that preferably grow to know the Source of their soul.

Sleep is often a great hindrance in one’s growth unto the higher levels of consciousness. In this Discourse, among other things, Revered Dadaji has given practical ways of transcending sleep unto wakefulness, and even super-wakefulness.

For most people, the right way to transcend from the lower levels unto the higher levels and planes of consciousness is through the principle of attachment, which is within each one of us. For this purpose, we need to increasingly transfer our attachment from our small self – including the thoughts, things and persons we are attached to – to a higher being, an Entity, an Ishta.

In this Discourse delivered on October 19, 1969, at the Delhi Branch of the Society of Servants of God, Revered Dadaji has given several other right ideas pertaining to Right Education. It is one of a series of 15 Discourses delivered on education, two of which have been published in our earlier issue*.

This Discourse and others of this series will be found particularly helpful by parents, teachers and professors and also by young boys and girls, many of whom today are floundering and drifting aimlessly. Ancient values all over the world are crumbling, and the youth do not know what the right values are that should be enthroned in their life. So, many wander hither and thither pursuing desire after desire in vain which ultimately ends in frustration and waste of another precious life.

-Sundri Vaswani

New Delhi November 10, 1975

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*Refer “The Discourse,” Vol. 2, Nos. 17-18 dated September 30, 1973, entitled “The Right Education: Its Basis and Goal”, and Vol. 3, Nos. 16-17 dated September 15, 1974, entitled “What is Right Education?”

Refer also “Living Truth”, Vol. 1, Nos. 11-13 dated July 15, 1966

Read the Full Discourse