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A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga626
either from the mother’s milk or from the milk of the cow, or other forms of
food. And as it grows larger it partakes of many different varieties of food.
But always it obtains building material from the cell life of the plants.
And this great building up process is intelligent, purposeful, to a wonderful
degree. Man with his boasted intellect cannot explain the real “thingness” of
the process. A leading scientist who placed the egg of a small lizard under
microscopical examination and then watched it slowly develop has said
that it seemed as if some hand was tracing the outlines of the tiny vertebræ,
and then building up around it. Think for a moment of the development
of the germ within the egg of the humming-bird, or the ant, or the gnat, or
the eagle. Every second a change may be noticed. The germ cell draws to
itself nourishment from the other part of the egg, and then it grows and
reproduces another cell. Then both cells divide—then subdivide until there
are millions and millions and millions of cells. And all the while the building
up process continues, and the bird or insect assumes shape and form, until
at last the work is accomplished and the young bird emerges from the egg.
And the work thus commenced continues until the death of the animal.
For there is a constant using-up and breaking-down of cell and tissue, which
the organism must replace. And so the vegetative mind of the plant, or
insect, or animal, or man, is constantly at work building up new cells from
the food, throwing out worn-out and used-up material from the system.
Not only this, but it attends to the circulation of the blood in order that
the materials for the building up may be carried to all parts of the system.
It attends to the digestion and assimilation of the food—the wonderful
work of the organs of the body. It attends to the healing of wounds, the
fight against disease, the care of the physical body. And all this out of the
plane of consciousness—in the infant man, the animal world, the vegetable
kingdom—ever at work, untiring, intelligent, wonderful. And this plane of
mind is in man as well as in the plant, and it does its work without aid from
the conscious part of man, although man may interfere with it by adverse
conscious thought, which seems to paralyze its efforts. Mental Healing is