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The Nature of the Universe 123
various stages of this process, the outer appearances are also constantly changing.
Mahavir used a vivid word for matter: pudgala. Pud means to fill and gala means to empty or dissolve. Our body is filling and dissolving every minute. Old cells are dropped and new cells replace them. The process of cell-building and cell-disintegration is constantly active. Twenty-four hours a day this process goes on, even while we are asleep.
When we understand the body's pudgala nature, we become aware of how to take care of it. We learn to empty it properly before we fill it up again. Yoga postures are practiced to eliminate toxins from the body. We exhale fully so as to discard all carbon dioxide from the body. To keep the body clean and healthy, we must know how to eliminate waste. Then we are ready to fill it with the proper nutrients in food and water, and with fresh
air.
We see the body as a process. We understand the nature of its insentient energy. It is different from jiva, conscious energy. There is no reason to identify with it. There is no reason to praise or blame it. We see the body as it is.
The process of pudgala is true of our inner universe as well. Just as our cells are constantly changing, our emotions and thoughts are continually renewing themselves as well. Emotions and thoughts are fine forms of matter. They are the constructions of our inner loka. Thoughts are the bricks of the mind; emotions are the plaster cementing the bricks together.
You can transcend this process and see that whatever forms you create in your mind are capable of being dislodged, removed, or transmuted. Once you know this, you don't hold on to an old opinion of yourself or of any person. You are not the same now as you were a moment
