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Sacred Mysteries of the Human Body

Transcript

Manly P. Hall


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Our subject this morning deals with the mystery of the human body, and I think it is probably proper, in a sense, to start at the beginning. In this case, we know that the physical body of the human being is sustained, developed, and unfolded by the use of available physical energies. Our body is composed of practically every element that we know exists, and others that we do not know. As Plotinus described it, we come into a world in which most of the elements necessary for health and integration are already polluted before they are built into our own organisms. We breathe in pollution with the first breath of life. We find pollution present in the body of the mother - pollution that cannot be entirely avoided. The parent has to live upon the food products, and with the environmental pressures of the world. These are involved in the production, maintenance, and growth of each individual.

Thus we come into a physical world and a physical body already full of problems. This point seems to have been generally neglected in a consideration of man's inner environment. The deficiencies in chemistry in all the processes of nutrition not only affect the body but condition the person inhabiting that body. We do not come into a beautiful physical purity because this purity does not exist in the physical world. Thus, many temperamental problems and difficulties which we find within ourselves are largely due to the chemical imbalances of the elements with which the body is built. We have, therefore, not only to fight against the pressures of many forces around us that we do not admire, but we are required to adjust to the conditioning influence of these processes within ourselves.

We cannot entirely separate our mortal existence from the mortality which surrounds us and actually inhabits us. To meet this situation, modern thinking has developed a number of concepts of nutrition and has sought ways to overcome the most obvious and active pollutants, but by the time we grow up to the point of self significance, before even the years of majority, we have already inhaled the problems of humanity. We have taken them into ourselves, and the nutrition that we depend upon, even to the light of the sun, is not coming to us in its best possible form. Due to this conditioning we find that various imbalances and deprivations of essential materials have a direct effect upon our emotions, thoughts, professions, trades, and attitudes.

We know that the basic discomforts of the body result in discomforts of thought and feeling, and we discover pressures within ourselves which we do not know how to explain. We do not know how to trace them, for the most part, but they come out upon us and through us as dispositions, attitudes, allegiances, loyalties, and disloyalties. In other words, the human being in the body is not comfortable. Recognizing this inevitable fact, each individual is confronted with the problem of recognizing the sources of these pressures and attitudes which he may believe to arise from the deepest parts of himself. They do not necessarily have this origin, and even if the basic instincts and intuitions do come from within the individual, they must pass through a partly corrupted body in order to come into manifestation. As a result of this the body itself is unable to provide an appropriate environment for consciousness, or for the higher ideals of human nature.

Corruption always lowers thresholds and makes things less than they should be. It distorts, and in various departments of our living this distortion is viewed as disposition, temperament, character. We believe these distortions to be our real self, and they are not.

Getting in is not easy, getting out is not easy, and being here is not easy. The individual makes every effort he can, for the most part right-intentioned, to adjust to the environment in which he finds himself, but very often this adjustment itself is nothing more than a compromise. The individual does the best he can, considering the conditions in which he exists, and these conditions unfortunately are also operating inside of him. In addition to this type of problem the body is exposed externally to a wide variety of pressures. There are certain forms of pollution which enter from the outside as well as from the inside. World psychological pressures, many of which originate in biology, are continuously afflicting the best parts of ourselves and preventing us from manifesting the reality that we would like to know and understand.

The ancients, therefore, gave us the concept that the body is the living temple of the living God. Each human body is a sanctuary for a spiritual entity or reality. This body, this temple, has been in various ways corrupted. Jesus said that they had made the temple of God a place of merchandise, and he drove the merchants from the steps of the temple with a whip of small cords. More carefully considered, this temple has become a place of merchandise within ourselves also. We have gradually lost the strength, the vitality, or the incentives to maintain properly this living temple. Most folks do not even bother to consider the body a temple.

Our attitude toward our own physical structure is almost unbelievable. In the first place, to most individuals the body is merely a servant of the purposes of the will, the mind, and the emotions. The body is merely a kind of animal which is supposed to draw wagons as horses did, a faithful servant to the pressures that are forced against it. While we have discovered scientifically that the moods and attitudes of the individual have a very strong effect upon the body, we have not fully realized the power of the body itself to affect the individual. We still take it for granted that we rule the body - that it will do what we order it to do - but between the difficulties in the physical structure itself and the difficulties in the mental and emotional complex which dominates the body, there are many reasons why illness and suffering appear to be inevitable.

There is no clear evidence or proof that Nature itself wants man to suffer. Nature wants the individual to grow and has provided an environment suitable for growth. The human being over a long period of time has compromised his principles and in so doing has, in one way or another, adversely conditioned the world in which he lives. We are as persons inhabiting two environments, the larger environment of the world and the smaller environment of our own body. It is very difficult to balance man's relationship to his own flesh.

We have a great many health experts who are very much involved in the conditioning of the body. We produce some of the world's finest athletes and all over the world the training of the body for athletic purposes is an acknowledged procedure. In the training of the body we are apt to create the concept that the body in itself is the most important of all things. We are inclined to compromise or even deny the growth of the person in the body in a deep, powerful program of maintaining the physical form itself.

The physical body is governed by laws as is everything in the universe. The laws of the physical body are very simple, although they are difficult to enforce. The law here is that the body is the instrument by means of which the individual is able to exist in this material world. Without the body there is a vaporous abstraction with no means of making the contacts with the material world around him, necessary to the expression of his inner life or the development of his character.

We also have to be a little watchful of giving the body too much catering. It is not really good for the body to be spoiled by indulgence any more than it is good for it to be impoverished by various forms of deprivation. The body is a useful servant but not a good taskmaster. It is very important to us but its very importance depends upon its normalcy. Contemporarily we have "the good life," which very largely is lived at the expense of health, consisting of indulgence of the appetites. Appetites actually do not originate in the body itself, but are conferred upon it. In the gratification of the emotional and psychical appetites, the individual may destroy the body or make it continually more infirm and incapable of giving its proper cooperation to the inner life which inhabits it.

The care of the body requires a kind of agricultural outlook in which it must be provided with everything necessary, but if it is overindulged, it in turn gradually develops a kind of tyranny given to it by the emotional and mental ambitions of the owner.

There are natural protections by which the body seeks to restore itself. The body is a tremendously complicated mechanism, but in the process of its development through millions of years it has built strong defense mechanisms. To function, however, these mechanisms must be given the cooperation of the person inhabiting it. From sad experience we know that what we might term the "simple life" is best for the body. It is proper for it to receive nutrition, exercise, to practice a proper hygiene; but in all things we should treat the body as a faithful friend. If we spoil that friendship we are in trouble.

In the course of time, appetites aroused in the emotional nature of the individual have come to practically control the attitudes of the mind towards the body. The body simply is there. It is ours and we can do with it as we please, it must either cooperate or we consider the body to be at fault. It is impossible for a body governed by natural law to work in harmony with a mind or emotion that is violating natural law. The conflict between the natural needs of the body and the artificial activities of the individual is bound to result in bad health.

The body, being inferior to the being inhabiting it, can be, and often is, seriously endangered by our way of life. The body needs a proper environment, and in our present intense scientific industrialism the body of the individual is sacrificed to external factors that are themselves not necessarily valid. The body is expected to perform all kinds of labors. It is brought under the control of an economic theory in which people employ the body rather than the person in it, and if the body fails, the abilities of the person are rejected.

If we live in a world in which most of human activity is devoted to a single economic maintenance, the body is going to be one of the primary victims. It was not intended to be so treated. It was not intended to work deep under the earth hour after hour, year after year, nor intended to be locked into an industrial situation in which there was no incentive for the development of the person in the body. This person becomes merely a servant of a world economic institution. As a result, the body suffers and gradually falls into a variety of infirmities.

The prudent life is one in which there is a reasonable distribution of efforts. The body cared for by proper recreation, relaxation, rest, and nutrition enables the person in the body to have a material structure that gives the opportunity for the expression of its overself, or the Divine in man.

Materialism is very largely involved in this complex inasmuch as materialism estimates the value of a complete human being in terms of his economic productivity. He is here not to be a person, but to maintain an ever-expanding system of world industry. This industry takes the person away from the natural habits of life, deprives him in many instances of the proper emotional integration in his home, business, and everywhere he functions. He is being locked into a kind of life now governed largely by computerization. This means sickness, it means trouble, it means the fact that the individual has not recognized the true nature of his own construction.

This body is his house. It is his duty to keep this house as best he can, to protect it, to realize that it is not his own house alone, but the house of his God. It is the house of the Divine Power which manifests through him. To keep this house is therefore not merely a physical responsibility, but a spiritual responsibility. If it is allowed to fall into disorder, that part of man which is the important, governing part, the part which is tied to the universe and to the Divine Plan of things, is forbidden natural expression. The body captured into one of these unfortunate patterns nearly always gives us warnings of approaching evil. It tells us by our own reactions that something is amiss. We discover it when our disposition falls apart and when we observe that jealousies and all kinds of competitive attitudes make life very difficult.

The body is by nature equipped to combat nearly all of the diseases which commonly affect the flesh. The body has its own protective mechanism, but if this mechanism is disarranged, or the various processes of the body are corrupted, it is no longer able to meet the need and challenge of external situations. We realize, for example, that the body can protect us from most diseases that come from parasites, bacteria, and germs. It is constantly throwing off from itself what has been called an invisible atmosphere. This is a sort of aura, and it is a defense against the intrusion of physical disruptive factors. This defense will very often enable the individual to protect his health, guard his life, and avoid the contagions and infections which are all too prevalent.

Most persons who are not well organized psychologically are more open to sickness than those who are better integrated, the reason being obvious - that the well-integrated person inhabiting the body is a benefactor, helping the body to maintain its own proper functions. When the inner life becomes disturbed it reacts upon the body, lowering resistance to the danger of internal corruption and also from environmental contagions and infections.

The magnetic field of the body does give us a kind of invisible perspiration. It is an invisible kind of fur which covers the body, and the hair on the body is more or less merely a crystallization around this type of energy which corresponds in nature around us to the vegetable kingdom. By keeping the magnetic field fairly well-adjusted, the individual will protect himself against the diseases arising in his own mind, and the ailments that come to him from the outside.

We have various means of combating different ailments, but we have also developed a very pernicious situation which will have to be faced ultimately by every thoughtful person, which is the failure of the medical theory and systems of protecting health. We are working more to find ways to remedy our own mistakes, but are not being much instructed on how to prevent these mistakes. We may get a nutritionist who will help us to balance the body, but this same balance of the body may not touch into the inner causes of deterioration because an unhealthy mind, even in a healthy body, will ultimately destroy health.

We are also trying to remove the symptoms of our own indiscretions. We are developing an elaborate pharmacology which is dedicated largely to obscuring mistakes. We are trying to neglect or kill out the body's natural means of bringing problems to the attention of the mind. We are therefore of the opinion in general that if we can abolish the symptom we have cured the ailment. This is not true and never can be. Many of the medications that we use are actually destructive of the body and its own natural resources.

Thus we have covered a basic mistake by finding artificial remedies to obscure the truth. We feel that if we have obscured the truth, all is well. There is now a more or less obvious medical revolution in which the study of these dangerous drugs is coming to the foreground. We are trying to use drugs as a substitute for right conduct, and there is just no way in which this can be accomplished. If we allow the aspiring and developing resources of the body to work as they should, we will not find it necessary except in a great emergency to come to its assistance.

One of the basic theories of osteopathy was that nearly all physical ailments are due to obstruction. Some process of the body has been prevented from expressing itself in a normal way. As a result, the body forces or rushes into the situation many resources of its own. These resources, if they are abused and if the condition does not come to the conscious attention of the owner of the body, will very often result in a congestion in which function is disarranged. Until this congestion is broken up, the normal processes of the body cannot be restored.

As we dig a little deeper into the subject we realize that the cabalists of old and other mystic groups have recognized that the body is the microcosm of the universe. The body is a miniature of all things. Strange as it may seem, the bodies of very primitive creatures, from Trilobites on up and down, are all actually miniatures of a universal pattern. They are all the small archetypal, architectural forms by which the complete geometry of space is epitomized into one small area, and all these natural forms take universal mathematical, geometrical structure.

We know that mathematics and geometry are the great keys to universal order, and they are nowhere more evident than in the physical body. Among those who worked very hard in the early days to understand this were, remarkably enough, not scientists but artists. Artists were the first to really contemplate the body. To them, the human form was one of the most beautiful structures that Nature had produced. Studying this structure the artist, in an effort to transfer it to canvas or to paper or to carve it in stone or marble, had to become keenly aware of the sub-structure of the body. He realized that he could not simply copy the surface. When he did, the work was superficial and inadequate. We are indebted to people like Albert Durer, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci for the careful study of body structure.

Out of this study came patterns of dynamic symmetry. We found the whole system of Pythagorean mathematics caught, captured, and held in the bodily structure. It was recognized that the measurements of the body were highly significant. Among the early medieval cabalists there was a system of analysis of character by carefully measuring the relationships between structures in the body. It was also observed that stress and strain were involved in body protective mechanisms. We learn architectural principles of stress from the structure of the body and the muscles.

Everything that we really have on the outside of us is a broadening and generalizing of the structure within us, and most of all there was a wisdom in it. That wisdom was that the natural procedures of Nature in bringing final structure into manifestation were one of man's most available sources of structure, by means of which he might learn of all things by becoming aware of a few things in their action upon each other.

In the same sense the body is analogous to the great cathedrals. The great cathedral was a masterpiece of human engineering, but the human body is a masterpiece of divine engineering. No rule that is going to stand in Nature around us or in man's achievements can go contrary to the rules governing the creation of the physical form. The physical form was not really physical in origin; it was physical by extension. It is a body built by energy around an invisible core, and these energies flowing out of their own vitality enable this body to become a manifestation of themselves. The whole Divine Plan is revealed through man.

In another analogy we can go to some of the old Rosicrucian concepts of the seventeenth century, by means of which it was clearly indicated that the body was the small book. There were three great books upon which man could depend for honest information. In the Rosicrucian mysteries the first of these was the Holy Scripture, the book of the prophets, the book of the messianic dispensations, the book of the way of life with morality, integrity, and beauty. The second great manifestation, the great book, was the universe in which man could explore the infinite resources of space around him. Becoming aware of the laws moving inevitably and immutably through this space, the individual could come to better understand the Creator. Finally, by changing his perspective, the individual could come finally to the realization that man himself was the third book - the miniature in which things vast and impenetrable might become more obvious, more simple and more direct to our attention.

It is not so easy to fathom the mysteries of Deity or the Holy Scriptures, it is not within everyone's capacity to understand the universe and all of its mysterious workings, but when these things are brought together in a little model, a miniature of the whole, they are available to us every day in every walk of life. They are closer to us than physical relationships that can exist because they are part of ourselves. By exploring the little universe ourselves we not only become more aware of the greater universe, but aware also that this greater universe is also within us. All the great principles of truth, all the great wisdom of the ages, all the great spiritual revelations are brought downward in a mysterious way and locked within the body of the human being.

The body exists for one purpose only and that is to reveal that which is within it. The body exists to provide an appropriate instrument for the measurements and for the manifestations of the human soul. Thus the body has to have a formal structure suitable to meet the same needs that the universe had when it came forth out of the pre-existent condition of things. The body, therefore, has to be more than a mass of matter or a mere machine; it has to become a means for the expression of that which is within it. In order to do this the same processes were necessary as those which brought forth the larger universe. The universe consists of energies moving through organization, and we know that the great cosmological systems of antiquity were really symbolical of the anatomy and physiology of man.

Many ancient religions, including those of India and China, based much of their philosophy upon the human body. They did not refer to this directly, but they compared various parts of the human body with universal procedures and found that the analogies were accurate, inevitable, and true. Under these conditions we find that the body is divisible into systems or parts. These systems or parts are created to make possible the compound function of man. The human being as a body is a commonwealth, the most magnificent example of cooperation that exists to our knowledge or understanding. There is cooperation in the parts of the body which we have never been able to find in human society. This cooperation means that all parts are working together for the common good. This is something we know is necessary, but we have never been able to take this great truth and expand it into our collective existence.

Nothing in the body is dispensable; all sections, parts, elements, and degrees of bodily existence are in a magnificent homogeneous pattern working together forever. Discord is artificial to them. The body in a sense is analogous to humanity. It gives us an understanding of the relationship of parts to the whole.

Within the body of man there are more separate living entities than there are creatures upon the surface of the earth. Not only is this true of human beings, but of every form of life that exists. Within the human body, however, is a far greater assembly of life than can be found anywhere else. Some of these units are so small that we cannot see them. Because they sometimes are born and die within a few hours, and because they are so completely involved in the structures which they nourish and sustain, we lose sight of the fact that we are not one being alone, but that the human body is a field of evolution for millions and billions of living things.

Everyone, therefore, has his own kingdom, an empire over which he rules. He can be a good ruler or a tyrant. He can serve this body's needs properly or he can use it to exploit its resources for the advancement of his ambitions or his own self-centeredness. If he does this, he is a bad governor, and as a bad governor he will ultimately be deposed, as we see around us today in society, where one tyrant after another loses power, revolution after revolution upsets the earth, one tyranny is largely supplanted by another. This is bad government, contrary to the magnificent cooperation which makes up the human being himself.

Beyond doubt we must live together in peace or the common body will perish, and any disturbance which is neglected - any misunderstanding or misinterpretation which is allowed to continue - will produce within the body the same anarchy that it produces politically in society. We are our brother's keeper in a sense, certainly we are the keeper of the life that has been given to us. If we are gods in the making it is time for us to make good our kingdom right here where it is. That begins by the proper understanding of what constitutes a normal, proper relationship between governing and governed. The governing in man is not perfect either. We are all growing and unfolding creatures, releasing little by little the divine potential which is within us. We may not always be able to be the wisest of governors, but we do have a responsibility to make a good try.

The information necessary to help us to be good rulers is available to us largely through consideration of the human body. Beneath the skin there is one of the most complex and magnificent structures that can possibly be imagined and we have not recognized it as a symbol of the larger world in which we live. Today there is a great crisis in the world. There is lack of cooperation, lack of dedication, lack of the realization that humanity is a body, and that this body is ensouled. The corruptions by which human beings relate to each other cause world sickness just as they cause confusion within the body itself.

The heart structure is a septenary for within it, as we are told in the Book of Genesis, the spirits of the Elohim moved upon the surface of the deep. The heart has its own hierarchy, its own agencies, its own angels and arch-angels, powers, and principalities. It is a tremendous, mysterious structure, and it has to be administered through an infinite concatenation of supporting functions and factors. The mystery of the heart is something that we really think very little about unless something goes wrong with it and then, probably more than any other type of ailment, a kind of fear sets in upon us. Only under those conditions do we really begin to try to understand what the heart means.

It is only in the failure of civilization in its own adjustments that we finally come to understand what the failure of love means. All things are primarily sustained by a power which has as its primary purpose the survival and preservation of all that lives. Even in the heart of the smallest creature or in some little vortex which is equivalent to the heart focus in a primitive form, the heart of man which is above the physical has its final pole and its final center in the body in the apex of the left ventricle of the heart. Here it is the pacemaker, here it is that mysterious thing which plays the melody of life. The heart is the basis of life and the heart serves all life without discrimination. We may say it has its own internal discrimination, but it does not play favorites with any part of the body. It serves them all as the one power which gives them life and makes possible the continuance of their existence, as does the sun.

It is actually in a sense the symbol of the presence of the Divine in man. In the book of Hermes it is written that the eternal power placed itself in the mysterious pyramid of the heart and that the pyramid in Giza was an ancient mathematical formula to represent the heart of life. The wonderful Sattapanni Cave of initiation located in the Rajgir Hills of India in Buddhism symbolizes the auricles and ventricles of the heart, and in mysticism all illumination arises from the power seated in the heart, for illumination is life, and life properly directed and normally expressed is illumination.

The second great power of the human body is derived again from evolutionary processes. This factor is the mind and the mind is centered in the brain. The brain is the most marvelous symbolical instrument we can possibly imagine. The brain is more or less constantly in action and from it flows the river of life which we call the spinal cord. This in turn adds something else to the construction of the complete person, the control of the body by the mind. It is through the mind that the person in the body is able to administer the life which is seated in the heart.

Therefore, there has to be a complete cooperation between the heart and the mind. The heart gives the energy to the mind by which it lives, but the mind in turn has the function of being the executive, guarding and protecting the body. The mind of the average individual is not exactly protecting in all cases. There seems to be some problem arising here. The mind is very much like an arrogant adolescent. The mind decides that it is running everything. It forgets that if the heart stops for a minute the empire of the mind falls apart. We do not realize adequately in our interrelationships with others that the failure of love destroys thought. Once the mind is no longer cooperating it is inevitably cutting itself off from its own supply. It has refused to recognize, as man has refused, that there is a Divine Power superior to thought.

In Eastern philosophy man is called "manas," the thinker, and the thinker is a very important part of this great economy. It is the thinker which can enable man to learn how to take care of his own body. It is the thinker that can give the dedications by means of which the divine energy within is used for the perfection of society. The mind also is capable of a gradual advancement of itself. In terms of mysticism it is finally absorbed in illumination, and illumination itself is an aspect of the infinite divine love located in the heart.

Actually, therefore, the mind becomes a kind of prime minister. The mind is there because without mental controls the body cannot serve its purposes. From the mind to the brain there must be an adequate link, and this link is found by the study of the internal structure of the brain - through its ventricles, ducts, and glands that are located there. Many other phases of development reveal the true mystery of the mind itself, for the mind, as Aristotle says, is united to the body by an isthmus. This isthmus is the neck which is the bridge between the mind and the body.

In the mind itself there is the seat of what might be termed the "initiate government." It is a servant of the heart, there to make certain that the life of the heart is interpreted into the integrity of the brain. The brain, of course, is only the shadow of the mind, but it is a very important organ. It has its various parts, its convolutions, its ventricles, and all of the various faculty centers that are located there gradually reveal the complete control which the mind can exercise over the bodily functions. In order to accomplish its purpose the mind itself and its organ, the brain, by which we recognize the mind, must be understood.

The purpose of the mind is not to create its own empire, but when a dictator in the individual, his own ego, decides to use the intellectual equipment merely to the advancement of his own purposes, he betrays its real purpose and the body of which it is a part. The properly conditioned mind is the gentle, kindly, and humble servant of life itself, and not a little tyrant or despot set up to enable one individual to be richer than another. From that part of the mind which is functioning in the material world in the brain centers must come wisdom. Wisdom is the power of the brain to interpret the life of the heart, to make sure that all things are fulfilled according to the law. It is the property and purpose of the brain to so control the conduct of the body that no discord can arise therein. Nor should there be any discord between the individual brain, its mind background, or any other brain anywhere in the world, because there is one universal mind. When it is broken up into individualities, these often become competitive. There is no more competition actually possible than the possibility of the brain itself going against the dictates of the heart - if it does so, all is lost.

The third great pole in the human body is the generative system, what Plato refers to as the "eighth power of the soul" - the perpetuation of life. This is the means by which there is continuity, the fulfillment of the law for the providing of bodies to souls until evolution in this plane of existence is finished. The generative power to the ancients was always sacred, one of the most sacred of all powers. It was supposed to be founded in the power of the heart which was infinite love-life, supported, directed, and controlled by the mind which becomes, in a sense, the most direct factor in the reproductive structure. The real drive of reproduction is located in the brain. The reproductive process falling into abuse and excess becomes an enemy, just as serious as materialism when it becomes the controlling power of the mind.

The generative system perpetuates life. It creates the forms and bodies by means of which the invisible entities which come into manifestation find the open door into mortal life. When they come into this mortal life they then call upon the other powers because the mind as father and the heart as mother must not only in the case of the world but in the case of the individual recognize a moral responsibility to life itself. We know all too well that the decline of moral ethics is a tragedy not only to world peace, world insights, world understanding, but to the healthy perpetuation of the race to which we belong.

In the human body is revealed a triune deity, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, a power of wisdom, strength, and beauty - a power to create, a power to rule and wisely govern that which is created, and a power to constantly improve the quality of creation. These things are part of man's own structure, not something written in clouds on the sky, but the daily experience of people. In the presence of these facts there seems to be a very great need for deeper understanding. These triune powers must have their own centers of function and must direct the manifestation of life through the vital organs which are distributed throughout the body.

Perhaps one of the most important factors in this aspect of the subject is the process of nutrition, for all the parts of man's digestive, assimilative, and excretory systems are parts of alchemy. Ultimately we are going to find that alchemy, cabala, and related phases of learning are merely symbolical of actual processes occurring within the human body. When we begin to appreciate this we will have a new reason for the researching of these interesting and really very important fields. They are there to tell us a story, to help us understand the meaningfulness of existence.

In the process of nourishing the human body, the various cosmic, solar, and planetary energies make their contribution. The zodiacal rays nourish the auric field; the planetary rays nourish the electro- magnetic field; and the four elements disseminate their nourishing influence through the etheric double. These contributions help to maintain bodily function, especially circulation, assimilation, and excretion. Food is life, and food is one great nutritional principle.

When we take into our bodies various foods they simply do not rush to one part of the body or another and set up an abode there - asparagus in one place and turnips in another. All of the food factors are passed through and have chemical transformations. The human system, in particular the digestive system, breaks them down to their essences, and then distributes them. Thus we are not living off of cheese or macaroni, but off the life principle present in all forms of nutritive material. All of this material is taken in, loses its own identity, and is transformed into a common substance that can be handled by the body. This is the most extraordinary form of alchemy that exists, for in each case it takes food which constitutes base elements and transforms these foods into the spiritual goals by which life is sustained. This process is very essential, very important, and necessary to the great economy of things.

There are old diagrams in which the intestinal tract is corresponded to the mysterious underworlds of Dante's inferno in Milton's Paradise Lost. This system of assimilation and finally the excretion of impurities comes in a sense under a purgatorial function. It is a mysterious realm in which what is not useful is discarded, discarded by a wisdom and skill that the human being could not personally apply anymore than he could control completely the function of his own heart.

If we depended upon man to keep the heart beating, he would forget it sometime and die on the spot, but the control is in an area which he cannot dominate. He can influence it for better and for worse, discipline it in certain mystical exercises, and change its beat rate, but if he does so without great skill he may disorganize the entire structure. That which abides in the heart is wiser than what can be given to it by the mind. It is important to take into consideration other areas.

The ancients were particularly influenced by the shape of man, and usually represented this form either in a cross or in the five pointed star. The five pointed star is the form most commonly shown in early Pythagorean researches. It represents the body with its five major points - the head, the two arms, and the two legs. This form was the basis of most of the cathedrals of Europe. The cruciform, standing persons with feet together and arms spread out, became the cross, and in the center of the cross was always the symbol of life itself. In the cruciform temple the altar is in the place where the heart is, for it is at the altar that the Eternal speaks through the oracles of wisdom. The shape of the body became quite important, and it was also more or less considered essential that the individual recognize the need for a complete cooperation of the two sides of his own body.

These two sides, the right and the left, were known to the ancients and were studied and symbolically considered. It was assumed that the right side of the body was for defense, and the left side for protection. The ancients showed a legionnaire who carried his spear in his right hand and held his shield against the body with the left. We find discussions of this particular point in the cabala where the virtues, values, and problems involving the right and the left are very clearly set out. We also find them perpetuated in heraldry where the two points or areas are of the greatest importance.

The hands or the feet have to do with the manifestation of the individual in the daily activities and concerns of life. It is obvious that we would be in very serious difficulty if any kind of political competition arose between these members. If we had a foot that was going in one direction and another foot that was going in the opposite direction, our general progress would be hopelessly prevented. If we have two hands and one hand wishes to do one thing and the opposite hand wishes to do something else which is incompatible or contrary, we are in trouble. The use of the hands to knock someone down or to injure is a perversion of power. The hands used as a form of communication, as in the case of the deaf, become important means of carrying on a progress of some type of essential learning.

The hands have many uses. Each finger has its own meaning. The lines of the hands have been the subject of a great deal of study and in many instances it is obvious that they are very important. The problem, therefore, is that the hands and feet have to work together. In our material environment hands and feet are symbolized by the machinery of productivity. The things that we have to do, the survival of the physical body in the presence of danger, transform the hands and feet into legionnaires. They become the defenders of man. They are also the means for expansion of knowledge in many ways. Properly trained, they become magnificent instruments of the arts, giving great music, great art. They have their part in guiding us skillfully and physically through the problems of life and are under mental control. Under the influence of the heart they give us the opportunity to reveal from within ourselves something of the beauty that is there.

It is beauty, finally, that must redeem the rest. The body can teach us all kinds of interesting and more or less remarkable lessons. We find all types of processes - stress processes, mending processes, the constant replenishment of the body, the fact that it is one body but that the life within it is manifold. It is said, and probably quite correctly, that by the end of a seven year period every cell in the human body has been changed. In the course of a hundred years every embodiment of man in the world is changed completely.

The continuity of the body depends upon the constant perpetuation of the life centers within it. The blood must reproduce itself or the result is leukemia. There must be reproduction of the cells in every bone, muscle, and nerve, or the structure falls apart. This is where the principle of generation becomes very important, for generation is not only the reproduction of the species; it is the reproduction of the life units within the individual. When the body ceases to rebuild, then life has passed its peak. We cannot continue and go any further. Sensory perceptions in themselves are very important.

Man in his evolution over thousands and millions of years has developed one by one the sensory perceptions as the environmental condition made them necessary. The most important sensory function is sight, which was the last to come to us and has been variously specialized in different kingdoms of Nature. Sight, to us, is the ability to look out of a window, but actually the sight factor is not in the eye but in the brain. Sight has given us a tremendous area of educational opportunities. It has made it possible for us to be observers of existence, to see what is going on around us. Locked within the brain is another eye, the single eye, by which we see gradually what is going on within us. At the moment, sight is largely located in the area of perception, but the brain has a faculty to balance this, and that is in reflection.

Everything seen stimulates interpretation, some form of moral, ethical, or spiritual truth. It makes it possible for us to observe both virtues and vices, and gives us the possibility of studying the whole balance of Nature. By means of sight the individual gains his greatest physical orientation, as far as he is capable of such orientation at the present time.

It is obvious that sight, as we know it, is not complete. It is also a known fact that the capacity of the brain has not yet been fully recognized. For the most part we are thinking on the surface of the brain's structure, but the brain is capable of a vast improvement or a vast extension of its own powers. To see the environment in which we exist is to be aware of it more acutely than by any other faculty, and therefore it is the great educator among the sensory perceptions. It gives the power to estimate. It builds into the brain mechanism the structure of discrimination, and the structure of comparisons. It also brings us into direct focus with the operations of cause and consequence.

Cause and effect are probably more obvious to us through sight than through any other faculty that we possess. All the faculties have their proper places and environments. Each one has a message, each one is a messenger. Actually, we have given comparatively little attention to the evolution of sensory perceptions, taking them all for granted. We do not realize that they can be greatly improved. We do not try to balance them. We do not try to create a powerful cooperation among them. We simply accept them and are very little mindful of them unless they fail us. Then we suddenly find that some phase of life has been slowly taken away from us.

The sensory faculties are, in a way, the means by which the person becomes oriented and aware of things. When the five senses operate together and awareness is established, everything then depends upon the function of a mental coordinator, because things seen can be nullified by attitudes. That which might in itself be important is disregarded by an indifferent mental mechanism. That which to the mind is not important can gain strange importance in the sensory perceptions, and sometimes this results in an extension of knowledge. In all these different areas the sensory perceptions have to be refined, improved, and brought into a comparative relationship.

Today, no matter how many people look at the same thing, it seems different to all of them. This is due to limitations within the individual, and these limitations are artificial because, in reality, all things seen are the same when seen by all people. When the sight factor is compromised by ulterior mental attitudes, we lose a great part of the virtue of these various sensory perceptions which have been so carefully and wisely developed.

The body, therefore, does manifest through sensory function, and through this function gains a new and more complete perspective upon the circumstances under which the body is going to subsist for a time. All of this together, and very, very much more, brings us to the final realization that this body is indeed a sacred thing, that it has been given to us for a reason, for a purpose. It has been bestowed upon us that we might grow, improve, and strengthen our resolutions. Most of all, we should be true to it, not to cater to it but to preserve it in the best normal way that we can. In so doing we will protect our own mental and emotional normalcy, for when the body is in pain, when irritation afflicts us, when we are debilitated or run down or in some way suffer from wrong nutrition, our whole capacity to live is impaired.

It is very important, therefore, to recognize that we must bring the body into a cooperative relationship with life, and this in a sense is almost impossible unless we recognize the sacred factor. Unless we realize that we are the living temples of the living God we cannot perhaps have the courage or the strength to do as we should with the body. Divine Will is instructing us and its revelations are coming to us through this body which, therefore, is indeed a truly sacred thing. This is something we should understand and come into harmony with.

There is no doubt that while we are in the material world part of our bodily function has to be related to material things. It is here, however, that that which is above the material must come through into the material, or our civilization can never survive. That which we give to the world from within ourselves must become, in part at least, what the world will become. There is within us at all times an available instruction in realities. We are forever in the presence of the thing as it is, whether we interpret it so or not. Whether we are able to live with it or not depends upon our own attitude toward the reality itself.

If then, instead of going around this world as sort of little autocrats run by the mind, we could become the humble servants of the Divine ruled by the heart, humbling ourselves and accepting the leadership of reality, most of our problems will be solved. If we obey the simple commandments of integrity, if we truly learn to love one another, if we can take the various pressures and emotions of life and sublimate them into kindness and compassion, overcoming the idea of separateness and realizing that one life ensouls us all, we can build into our own lives a blessedness greater than we had known before.

In this way we also will find the purpose of our lives. We will find that no external circumstance can destroy that purpose, so long as it is alive in our hearts. As long as the individual keeps the faith, the faith will keep him, but when he wanders away and uses his body merely to advance some small personal ambitions of his own, the real purpose of life is lost. We also build up a barrier because it seems to the average person that the ideals, dreams, and hopes that he has are frustrated by conditions around him. This is not actually true.

As long as the heart beats within the individual, he can be true to the realities of life. It is that which gives him life, and not his bank account or his stock holdings. That mysterious little point within the heart of the individual is the reason why he lives, and if he serves that mysterious point it will be the reason why he experiences security in a troubled world. As he experiences this he will find that the unfoldment of the spiritual mystery within the heart overcomes the separateness of life, realizing that there is only one heart, and that heart is the heart of the Divine. Everywhere that pulse is beating simply because there is God in everything. To understand that and to live according to it will overcome most of the discouragements due to a world that does not understand. We have the right to understand the world even though it never understands us.

Thank you.