Bodybuilding Tips

Nowadays, beauty, body fitness and bodybuilding are a passion for many – men and women alike. However, many aspire well-groomed body with well-defined muscles but fail and then many quit the process. Instead of quitting, we must understand what are we lacking or doing wrong.

If we analyze the routine of “serious fitness conscious person” or any “serious beauty conscious person” we will find, their entire life is based on a strict routine.

Instead of spending an extra hour in a cozy bed or in front of TV or gossip nonsense, they spend hours sweating and voluntarily taking the pain to shape their muscles, they do not eat anything and everything that is available, rather they consciously choose what to eat and drink. They consciously choose not to intoxicate themselves, for they know intoxication will make all their hard work go in vain.

There is also another kind of people (or bodybuilders) who also invests their precious time and energy to develop and beautify another kind of body, which we all have, but not known to many.

Confused? 

For this, we need a slight insight to our Vedic Wisdom. Veda says we (the spirit soul) are having two bodies –

1. Gross Body – that we are able to see and feel.
2. Subtle Body – as the name indicates, it is subtle hence cannot be perceived by our gross senses (eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin or touch). 

A mundane bodybuilder or beauty conscious person is mainly interested in the Muscle or Skin of the gross body, but for a transcendentalist – the prime focus is on three units of subtle body –

-          Mind

-          Intelligence

-          False Ego

They spend their entire life following strict regulation and focus primarily on building a stronger and much beautiful Subtle Body. Their basic approach is almost same as mundane people but still different, as described below.

For a lazy person, the hard work & sacrifice of time by a bodybuilder or a beauty conscious person might seem to be too overwhelming. Even though they admire the end result and at times might dream to get similar body but not at the cost of their bodily comfort. Thus many of them take to various "Short Cut Products & Methods" being sold. For these class of human, the end result normally always remain a dream.

Similarly, people who are not knowledgeable will never be able to understand and appreciate the purpose and benefit of a disciplined life of a devotee.

Why focus on Subtle Body than Gross Body?

There is one problem with the life of a mundane body builder or beauty conscious person. To understand that, let us look into the below images (there are innumerable other images flooding the internet)

Here we can clearly see – once a mesmerizingly beautiful face is now hidden behind deep wrinkles, once a body with well-groomed muscles is now fat packed in a sack of loose skin. How much ever we might try to retain the beauty & health of our gross body, the bitter truth is that eventually, our body will perish. This body is asasvatam or temporary and they will deteriorate by each passing moment.

Material bodies generally pass through six stages: they are born, they grow, they remain for some duration, they produce some by-products, they dwindle, and then they vanish.

[Bhagavad Gita – 8.4 Purport]

In The Mahabharata, when Yaksha asked: “What is the greatest wonder in the world?” Yudhishthira replied: “That no man, though he sees others dying all around him, believes that he himself will die...” People find difficult to accept that with each passing second, his body is dying and due to this fallacy, the cosmetic industry is making false promises made to an already bewildered mind, thus generating all their revenue.

People in utter ignorance assumes that they are actually the gross body. Because of this ignorance, they at times decide to end their life due to a reason as insignificant as "Color of Their Hair". In Jan 2014, Frankie Warren (age: 26)  committed suicide by hanging herself in woodland. The reason was that her stylist dyed bleached blonde hair brown but she “hated it”. Before committing suicide she texted a friend saying: “I really don’t feel good about anything, it is all taking its toll with my hair. I cannot cope.”
[Source: http://www.express.co.uk]

As the body perishes, the entire energy, effort, time, money invested behind it becomes useless and it rots with the rotting dead body. A materialist focus and care only about the Gross Body – for they are not aware of the qualities of a Subtle Body.

Unlike the gross body, the subtle body is not perishable. It basically constitutes the conceptions of a living entity (or consciousness) - what we at times crudely refer to as "Mentality of a person". When a soul passes from one gross body to another, they are being carried in their subtle body.

Transcendentalist (or a Spiritual Body Builder) focuses on their Subtle Bodies because they are cognizant of the fact that gross bodies are perishable (only a matter of time) instead they will have to carry their Subtle Body throughout the next journeys of life which will decide his next body.

The living entity in the material world carries his different conceptions of life from one body to another as the air carries aromas.

[Bhagavad Gita – 15.8]

At the time of death, the consciousness he has created will carry him on to the next type of body. If he has made his consciousness like that of a cat or dog, he is sure to change to a cat’s or dog’s body. And if he has fixed his consciousness on godly qualities, he will change into the form of a demigod. And if he is in Krishna consciousness, he will be transferred to Krishnaloka in the spiritual world and will associate with Krishna. It is a false claim that after the annihilation of this body everything is finished.

[Bhagavad Gita – 15.8 Purport]

Build for a Higher Goal

It will be such a pitiful condition for a soul that he has wasted entire life pampering the body, polishing the skin, being proud of its beauty and falsely assuming that it will stay back with him forever. At last, when he is surprised by death, he will be forced to leave his overly pampered body and leave it forever. An Even more pathetic condition will be - after wasting the entire human life, he gets a body of any lower species animal which is incapable of attaining the highest goal.

We must know what is the higher Goal of our Human Life. Higher goal is beyond the skin and muscle of this gross body. Higher goal is beyond the applause of general mass. Higher goal is beyond this life.

So if we need to build our gross body, we will build it so that we may use our gross body to attain the Higher Goal and not to exhibit our skin and muscle for attracting opposite gender.

Scriptures mention Higher Goal is nothing other than The Supreme Personality of Godhead - Krishna and to render service unto  Krishna.

Thus being fixed, one must render service unto the Supersoul situated in one's own heart by His omnipotency. Because He [Krishna] is the Almighty Personality of Godhead, eternal and unlimited, He is the ultimate goal of life, and by worshiping Him one can end the cause of the conditioned state of existence.

[Srimad Bhagavatam – 2.2.6]

Krishna says in Bhagavad Gita:

I am the goal, the sustainer, the master, the witness, the abode, the refuge, and the most dear friend. I am the creation and the annihilation, the basis of everything, the resting place and the eternal seed.

[Bhagavad Gita – 9.18]

Gati means the destination where we want to go. But the ultimate goal is Krishna, although people do not know it. One who does not know Krishna is misled, and his so-called progressive march is either partial or hallucinatory.

[Bhagavad Gita – 9.18 Purport]

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Therefore we must understand that The Highest Goal of one's Life is attaining Krishna. Hence we must not ignore our Subtle Body (mind, intelligence and ego) at any time. This subtle body constitute our consciousness. Based on our consciousness - we will get our next body or next destination which can be as high as Krishnaloka, Back to Godhead - Krishna, Back to our Eternal Home.

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