In a similar vein, the Ship of Theseus is a thought experiment: King Theseus of Athens rescued children of Athens after slaying the minotaur and then escaped by ship to Delos – the birthplace of Apollo. Each year thereafter, Athenians made a pilgrimage to Delos on the same ship. The wooden planks of the ship would need to be replaced, as they rotted away, over time. Greek philosophers asked themselves – after years of such maintenance, was the Ship of Theseus still the same ship?
Each of us is a host organism, comprising trillions of cells and bacteria, viruses and fungi that keep dying and are being constantly replaced throughout our life cycle. But the scientific identity of the host does not change during its lifetime. On a spiritual plane, one could call it a continuity of the individual soul, the consciousness. Hence, Swami Vivekananda had given a clarion call to us, ‘Awake and arise!’ It is the duty of each individual to remember that he is a Delphic Boat, a Ship of Theseus.
