Excerpts from books, lectures, and videos by Jagad Guru Chris Butler (Siddhaswarupananda Paramahamsa).

The body is yours—but it is not you. The body is a garment you are wearing, a machine you are using, a vehicle you are driving.

The body is your possession.

Just as a person does not identify himself as being the shirt he is wearing, he also should not identify himself with the body that he is wearing.

A retired professional football player in the United States once discussed the particular event that made him decide to quit playing. He had been running with the football toward the goal, with two tacklers chasing him. As his legs started giving out, he thought, “Come on, you old legs—don’t give out on me now!” This is like a race car driver who talks to his car: “Keep on going, Betsy—don’t let me down now!” In other words, you use your body as a type of vehicle; but like all vehicles, your body is certain to break down sooner or later.

And just as any other garment, tool, machine, or vehicle is subject to wear and tear, sometimes malfunctioning and sometimes breaking down completely, so your body undergoes such changes during its existence. Yet despite the loss, dysfunction, or transformation of different body parts, you, the self, remain a constant factor throughout. You, the self, use the body.

The body is not you—rather, it is yours.