Found this on a Question/Answer board.
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=3067582100&topic=2673
The great Greek hero Jason had built a fabulous ship called the Argos, with which
he and fifty other heroes went in search of the famed Golden Fleece.
Jason prized his ship highly, and took extraordinary care of it. Whenever a plank
rotted or a piece of equipment broke down, he immediately had it replaced with a
new one. Thus he maintained his magnificent ship for years.
One day, a strange thought entered his mind. During the journey, every single
piece of the boat had been replaced at least once. So he wondered whether this
was still his original boat he was sailing with, or a new one. And if the latter was
the case, then at what exact moment did it stop being his old ship, and when did it
become the new one?
It was answered thus:
The ancient Greek philosophers enjoyed telling this riddle, because they thought it had no answer.
They had created, in their view, the perfect irresolvable riddle.
Now comes the message
And yet, had they turned their attention to the East, they would have realized
that this riddle had already been answered thousands of years before by the
ancient Vedic rishis (divine seers of India).
Let us compare the boat to our existence. According to the teaching of the rishis,
the “planks” are the ever-changing characteristics and attributes with which we
commonly identify. The body is born, grows, matures, and decays.
Medical science has established that the human body renews all of its cells every
seven years. Yet we are still the same person, even though we keep changing
bodies. Even our sense of self keeps evolving as we grow older, yet we remain
the same person.
If we keep stripping away all the “planks” of our body-mind complex, what
remains? In other words, what is the real “boat” that keeps on existing?
It is the soul, the unchanging Self within us that is unaffected by the changing
of the “planks.”
The Vedas boldly declare: “The inspired Self is not born nor does He die; He
springs from nothing and becomes nothing. Unborn, permanent, unchanging,
primordial, He is not destroyed when the body is destroyed.”
(Katha Upanishad 2:18)
Huh! What a load of old hogwash.
the perfect irresolvable riddle....
My 'Mad Mary' answers it without it all the spiritual mumbo-jumbo.
"Let us compare the boat to our existence...."
No. Let us NOT compare the boat to our existence.
Let us see the boat for what it is. A boat called the Mad Mary that has
undergone a major re-fit and it is still the Mad Mary.