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The Ninth Lesson: The Mental Planes.625
matter—chemical elements—and then building them into a single cell. Oh,
mystery of the cell! The intellect of man is unable to duplicate this wonderful
process. The Mind Principle on the Vegetative Plane, however, knows exactly
how to go to work to select and draw to itself just the elements needed to
build up the single cell. Then taking up its abode in that cell—using it as a
basis of operations, it proceeds to duplicate its previous performance, and
so cell after cell is added, by the simple reproductive process of division
and subdivision—the primitive and elemental sex process—until the mighty
plant is built up. From the humblest vegetable organism up to the greatest
oak the process is the same.
And it does not stop there. The body of man is also built up in just this
way, and he has this vegetative mind also within him, below the plane of
consciousness, of course. To many this thought of a vegetative mind may
be somewhat startling. But let us remember that every part of our body
has been built up from the vegetable cell. The unborn child starts with the
coalition of two cells. These cells begin to build up the new body for the
occupancy of the child—that is, the mind principle in the cells directs the
work, of course—drawing upon the body of the mother for nourishment
and supplies. The nourishment in the mother’s blood, which supplies the
material for the building up of the child’s body, is obtained by the mother
eating and assimilating the vegetable cells of plants, directly or indirectly. If
she eats fruit, nuts, vegetables, etc., she obtains the nourishment of the plant
life directly—if she eats meat she obtains it indirectly, for the animal from
which the meat was taken built up the meat from vegetables. There is no
two ways about this—all nourishment of the animal and human kingdom is
obtained from the vegetable kingdom, directly or indirectly.
And the cell action in the child is identical with the cell action in the plant.
Cells constantly reproducing themselves and building themselves up into
bodily organs, parts, etc., under the direction and guidance of the mind
principle. The child grows in this way until the hour of birth. It is born, and
then the process is but slightly changed. The child begins to take nourishment