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Chapter X: The Yogi Theory and Practice of Prana Absorption from Food.1811
the food that it may be more easily swallowed, and also that it may be mixed
with the saliva and the digestive juices of the stomach and small intestines.
It promotes the flow of saliva, which is a most necessary part of the process
of digestion. Insalivation of food is part of the digestive process, and certain
work is done by the saliva which can not be performed by the other digestive
juices. Physiologists teach most positively that thorough mastication and
proper insalivation of the food are prerequisites of normal digestion, and
form a most necessary part of the process. Certain specialists have gone
much further and have given to the process of mastication and insalivation
much more importance than have the general run of physiologists. One
particular authority, Mr. Horace Fletcher, an American writer, has written
most forcibly upon this subject, and has given startling proofs of the
importance of this function and process of the physical body; in fact, Mr.
Fletcher advises a particular form of mastication which corresponds very
closely to the Yogi custom, although he advises it because of its wonderful
effect upon the digestion, whereas the Yogis practice a similar system upon
the theory of the absorption of food-prana. The truth is that both results
are accomplished, it being a part of Nature’s strategy that the grinding of
the food into small bits; the digestive process attending the insalivation,
and the absorption of food-prana, are accomplished at the same time—an
economy of force most remarkable.
In the natural state of man, mastication was a most pleasant process, and
so it is in the case of the lower animals, and the children of the human race
to-day. The animal chews and munches his food with the greatest relish, and
the child sucks, chews and holds in the mouth the food much longer than
does the adult, until it begins to take lessons from its parents and acquires
the custom of bolting its food. Mr. Fletcher, in his books on the subject,
takes the position that it is taste which affords the pleasure of this chewing
and sucking process. The Yogi theory is that while taste has much to do
with it, still there is a something else, an indescribable sense of satisfaction
obtained from holding the food in the mouth, rolling it around with the