Answer
Knowing is not enough. Knowing is only the first step.
You may know intellectually that you are not the body, yet you still feel that you are the body. Knowledge alone is not realization. Realization means thinking according to that knowledge, feeling according to that knowledge, and acting according to that knowledge.
Realization involves thinking, feeling, and willing.
When you understand, "I am not this body," that is realization at the level of thinking. Many people do not even have that much understanding. So that is already one step forward. But the journey does not end there.
The next question is: How do we feel and act based on that understanding?
That is why, although we know we are not the body, we engage the body in Kṛṣṇa's service. Through devotional service, the willing aspect becomes purified and freed from sense gratification. Gradually this creates genuine detachment from the body.
Detachment is not merely an intellectual conclusion; it is a feeling. Simultaneously, positive attachment develops—the feeling, "I am a spiritual person. I am not this body."
Consider this example. I have no desire to satisfy your senses. Why? Because I do not identify myself as you. In the same way, when one truly realizes, "I am not this body," the urge for bodily sense gratification naturally diminishes.
When I walk past another person, it is completely natural for me not to be concerned with satisfying that person's senses. Similarly, when I truly understand that I am distinct from this body, it becomes natural not to live for the body's demands.
Therefore, the fundamental realization is: I am not this body.
As that realization deepens, wholesale sense gratification begins to stop.
At the same time, there is a positive realization:
I am the eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa.
By continuously engaging in devotional service, the ego of being a servant of Kṛṣṇa develops naturally. One gains the dignity of understanding:
"I am not a servant of my senses. I am not a servant of this illusory bodily identity. I am a servant of Kṛṣṇa."
Kṛṣṇa consciousness means moving beyond mere knowledge.
Jñāna is knowledge, but vijñāna is realized knowledge—thinking, feeling, and willing in harmony with the truth.
First the thinking changes. Then the feeling changes. Then the willing changes. Finally, one's entire life and all external actions change.
At that stage, one naturally lives as a spiritual person who is using the body as an instrument.
A person can drive a car while thinking, "I am the car," or he can drive the car understanding, "This car is meant to serve me."
Similarly, the devotee understands:
"This body should serve me."
Who is the "me"?
The eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa.
That is why the next instruction is that one who is capable of making all his senses his first disciples can become a pure devotee.
We are not the body, but we do have a relationship with the body. What is that relationship?
Due to our past desires, we have become trapped within material existence and have received this body. But now we should use this body as a machine—a thinking, feeling, and willing instrument—to serve our real interest.
And what is our real interest?
To please Kṛṣṇa.
My real happiness is not found in bodily pleasure. My happiness comes when Guru and Kṛṣṇa are pleased. When I act according to guru, sādhu, and śāstra and that action gives pleasure to Kṛṣṇa, that becomes my standard of success.
Therefore, we should learn to take pleasure in chanting. We should learn to take pleasure in devotional service itself.
At the same time, we should develop distaste for sense gratification.
Not hatred for people.
If you hate another person, you are still absorbed in the same illusion. For example, if one claims to hate the opposite sex, that very hatred indicates continued absorption in bodily identification. The reality is that the soul is neither male nor female.
Therefore, śāstra does not teach us to hate people. It teaches us to reject lust, reject illusion, and reject false perception.
Nothing in creation needs to be hated. Everything is Kṛṣṇa's creation.
What must be rejected is our illusion.
That is the practice of devotional service.
Simply follow the instructions of the previous ācāryas and engage steadily in devotional service. Gradually one becomes free from bodily identification and sense gratification. Realization then arises naturally.
At that stage, one can clearly see the distinction between the spiritual person and the bodily person.
Today the spiritual person has become the servant of the bodily identity.
The goal of spiritual life is to reverse that situation.
The body should become the servant, and the spirit soul—the eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa—should once again become the master.
