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are one. Therefore, one of the most precious lessons an Avatar can teach is how to rise above bodily aachment.
In June 2003 Swami fell and broke his le hip. He underwent surgery and lessened his contact with devotees. Initially he didn’t come out for darshan at all, then at times once a day, and later in a motorized cart or chair. By January 2004 Swami came to his devotees in a small red car and regularly sat in a chair in front of them for long periods. Swami said that with less accessibility externally he would come to us hundred- fold times more internally. This assurance was in line with my understanding that detaching from external objects and the body brought a heightened intensity to our inner life. I knew that giving up aachment to the body meant giving up aachment to all outer objects, including Swami’s physical form. Yet it was hard to accept that I might lose physical nearness to Swami.
Doctors made every effort to protect the body. They did their duty. But I did not think of this body at all. I demonstrated the ideal that one should not have body aachment. Not only now, I have been repeatedly exhorting you to give up body aachment for the last two years. Gradually reduce your body consciousness and develop Atmic consciousness.
You are not the body; you are the embodiment of the Atma. The physical body comes and goes. Only the body has suffering, not the Atma. (SSB, Sanathana Sarathi, August 2003)
Intensification of Inner Experience
As I prepared for my September 2003 trip to Swami and knowing that I wouldn’t see much of him because of his hip injury, I began having an intensification of an inner exhilaration. At times waves of bliss would radiate through my body up into my head and out into the infinite. I could regulate the intensity and the direction of inner energy by slightly shiing
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