Beauty, body and soul

Q. What do you mean by 'body's beauty fails; soul's beauty sails'?
A. Let me tell you a story. In order to achieve liberation, Nigamananda had been practicing severe austerities in Benares for quite a few months.

One day, he was hungry but had nothing to eat. In silence, he said to the goddess of plenitude, Annapurna, how is it that I do not have any food to eat?


Just then an ugly, elderly woman with filthy clothes brought him a bag and said, 'Please hold this bag of food. Let me go and bathe in the pond nearby. Then we shall eat together.' Nigamananda waited 2-3 hours, but there was no sign of her returning. Finally, he opened the bag and saw delicious food and fruit inside. He ate everything himself.

That night in a dream, Nigamananda saw Goddess Annapurna. She said, 'So, you see, nobody remains hungry. I feed everyone.'

'You feed everyone?' Nigamananda exclaimed. 'When did you feed me? I invoked you when I was hungry, but an ugly, dirty, old woman gave me food. You are so beautiful and luminous!'

The goddess explained, 'It was I who came to you in that form. Since you care more for physical beauty than for the soul's beauty, I wanted to show you that even ugly people can have a good heart.' The beauty of the body ultimately fails. The beauty of the soul eventually sails in the boat of perfection-oneness towards God's Satisfaction-Shore.