Franco Columbu: What will be the percentage of change or help to the mind when one does bodybuilding?

Sri Chinmoy: Simply by bodybuilding, one cannot help the mind, since the mind is already far superior to the body. We can see many bodybuilders and weightlifters who are extremely, extremely strong, but their minds are not particularly brilliant. But if one can control the mind while bodybuilding, then the body can get tremendous help from the mind and the intuitive faculties.

Again, to some extent the mind does get satisfaction from the strength and dynamism of the body. But if we are talking about the mind that has to empty itself of uncomely thoughts, doubts, fears, anxieties, worries and negative forces, then mere bodybuilding cannot be of true importance from the spiritual point of view.

A strong mind is a mind that has conquered or can easily conquer the power of negative forces when they come to assail it. In order to have a mind that can be of real service to mankind, a mind that is illumined, one has to enter into the spiritual life. For the spiritual life has the secret of secrets to release the mind from the meshes of limitations and the prison cell of ignorance-night.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Aspiration-body, illumination-soul, part 2, Agni Press, 1993
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