Section 2

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fashion. Here is the fact on which materialism has based its contention that thought and brain-action vary together ; dealing with the physical plane only, as the materialist is dealing, they do vary together, and it is necessary to bring in forces from another plane, the astral, in order to show that thought is not the result of nervous action. If the brain be aifected by drugs, or by disease, or by injury, the thought of the man to whom the brain belongs can no longer find its due ex- pression on the physical plane. The materialist will also point out that if you have certain diseases, thought will be peculiarly affected. There is a rare disease, aphasia, which destroys a particular part of the tissue of the brain, near the ear, and is accompanied by a total loss of memory so far as words are concerned; if you ask a person who is suffering from this disease a question, he cannot answer you ; if you ask him his name, he will give you no reply; but if you speak his name, he will show recognition of it, if you read him. some, statement he will signify assent or dissent; he is able to think but unable to speak. It seems as though the part of the brain that has been eaten away were con- nected with the physical memory of words, so that with the loss of that the man loses on the physical plane the memory of words and is rendered dumb, while he retains the power of thought and can agree or disagree with any proposition made. The materialistic argument at once breaks down, of course, when the man is set free from his imperfect instrument : he is then able to mani- fest his powers, though he is again crippled when re-
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diiced once more to physical expression. The import- ance of this as regards our present enquiry lies not in the validity or invalidity of the materialistic position, but in the fact that the man is limited in his expression on the physical plane by the capabilities of his physical instrument, and that this instrument is susceptible^ to physical agents ; if these can injure it, they can also im- prove it— a consideration which we shall find to be of vital importance to us.
These nervous systems, like every part of the body, are built up of cells, small definite bodies, with enclos- ing wall and contents, visible under the microscope, and modified according to their various functions ; these cells in their turn are made up of small molecules, and these again of atoms— the atoms of the chemist, each atom being his ultimate indivisible particle of a chemical ele- ment. These chemical atoms combine together in in- numerable ways to form the gases, the liquids, and the solids of the dense body. Each chemical atom is to the Theosophist a living thing, capable of leading its in- dependent life, and each combination of such atoms into a more complex being is again a living thing ; also each cell has a life of its own, and all these chemical atoms and molecules and cells are combined together into an organic whole, a body, to serve as vehicle of a loftier form of consciousness than any which they know m their separated lives. Now the particles of which these bodies are composed are constantly coming and going, these particles being aggregations of chemical atoms too minute to be visible to the naked eye, though many
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of them are visible under the microscope. If a little blood be put under the microscope we see moving in it a number of living bodies, the white and red corpuscles, the white being closely similar in structure and activity to ordinary amoebag; in connection with many diseases microbes are found, baccilli of various kinds, and scientists tell us that we have in our bodies friendly and unfriendly microbes, some that injure us and others that pounce upon and devour deleterious intruders and effete matter. Some microbes come to us from without that ravage our bodies with disease, others that pro- mote their health, and so these garments of ours are con- tinually changing their materials, which come and stay for awhile, and go away to form parts of other bodies — a continual change and interplay.
Now the vast majority of mankind know little and care less for these facts, and yet on them hinges the pos- sibility of the purification of the dense body, thus ren- dering it a fitter vehicle for the indwelling of man. The ordinary person lets his body build itself up anyhow out of the materials supplied to it, without regard to their nature, caring only that they shall be palatable and agreeable to his desires, and not whether they may be suitable or unsuitable to the making of a pure and noble dwelling for the Self, the true man that liveth for ever- more. He exercises no supervision over these particles as they come and go, selecting none, rejecting none, but letting everything build itself in as it lists, like a care- less mason who should catch up any rubbish as material for his house, floating wool and hairs, mud, chips, sand,
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nails, offal, filth of any kind — the veriest jerry-builder is the ordinary man with his body. The purifying of the dense body will then consist in a process of deliberate selection of the particles permitted to compose it; the man will take into it in the way of food the purest con- stituents he call obtain, rejecting the impure and the gross; he knows that by natural change the particles built into it in the days of his careless living will grad- ually pass away, at least within seven years — though the process may be considerably hastened — and he re- solves to build in no more that are unclean; as he in- creases the pure constituents he makes in his body an army of defenders, that destroy any foul particles that may fall upon it from without or enter it without his consent ; and he guards it further by an active will that it shall be pure, which, acting magnetically, continually drives away from his vicinity all unclean creatures that would fain enter his body, and thus shields it from the inroads to which it is liable while living in an atmos- phere impregnated with uncleannesses of every kind.
When a man thus resolves to purify the body and to make it into an instrument fit for the Self to work with, he takes the first step towards the practice of Yoga — a step which must be taken in this or in some other life before he can seriously ask the question, ' ' How can I learn to verify for myself the truths of Theoso- ophy?" All personal verification of super-physical facts depends on the complete subjection of the physi- cal body to its owner, the man; he has to do the verifi- cation, and he cannot do it while he is fast bound within
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the prison of the body, or while that body is impure. Even should he have brought over from better-disci- plined lives partially-developed physic faculties, which show themselves despite present unfavourable circum- stances, the use of these will be hampered when he is in the physical body, if that body be impure ; it will dull or distort the exercise of the faculties when they play tlu'ough it, and render their reports untrustworthy.
Let us suppose that a man deliberately chooses that he will have a pure body, and that he either takes ad- vantage of the fact that his body completely changes in seven years, or prefers the shorter and more difficult path of changing it more rapidly — in either case he will begin at once to select the materials from which the new clean body is to be built, and the question of diet will pre- sent itself. He will immediately begin to exclude from his food all kinds which will build into his body particles which are impure and polluting. He will strike off all al- cohol, and every liquor which contains it, because that brings into his physical body microbes of the most impure kinds, products of decomposition ; these are not only offensive in themselves, but they attract towards them- selves— and therefore towards any body of which they form part — some of the most objectionable of the phy- sically invisible inhabitants of the next plane. Drunk- ards who have lost their physical bodies, and can there- fore no longer satisfy their longing for intoxicants, hang round places where drink is taken, and round those who take it, endeavouring to push themselves into the bodies of people who are drinking and thus to share the low
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pleasure to which they surrender themselves. Women of refinement would shrink from their wines if they could see the loathly creatures who seek to partake in their enjoyment, and the close connection which they thus set up with beings of the most repellent type. Evil elementals also cluster round, the thoughts of drunkards clad in elemental essence, while the physical body at- tracts to itself from the surrounding atmosphere other gross particles given off from drunken and profligate bodies, and these also are built into it, coarsening and degrading it. If we look at people who are constantly engaged with alcohol, in manufacturing or distributing spirits, wines, beers, and other kinds of unclean liquors, we can see physically how their bodies have become gross and coarse. A brewer's man, a publican — to say nothing of persons in all ranks of society who drink to excess — these show fully what every one who builds in- to his body any of these particles is doing in part and slowly ; the more of these he builds in the coarser will his body become. And so with other articles of diet, flesh of mammals, birds, reptiles, and fish, with that of crustaceous creatures and molluscs which feed on car- rion— how should bodies made of such materials be re- fined, sensitive, delicately balanced and yet perfectly healthy, with the strength and fineness of tempered steel, such as the man needs for all the higher kinds of work ? Is it necessary, again to add the practical lesson that may be learned by looking at the bodies of those living in such surroundings? See the slaughterman and the butcher, and judge if their bodies look like the
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fittest instruments for employment on high thoughts and lofty spiritual themes. Yet they are only the highly finished product of the forces that work proportionately in all bodies that feed on the impure viands they supply. True, no amount of attention paid to the physical body by the man Avill of itself give him spiritual life, but why should he hamper himself with an impure body ? why should he allow his powers, whether great or small, to be limited, thwarted, dwarfed in their attempts to manifest by this needlessly imperfect instrument?
There is, however, one difficulty in our way that we cannot overlook ; we may take a good deal of pains with the body and may resolutely refuse to befoul it, but we are living among people who are careless and who for the most part know nothing of these facts in nature. In a city like London, or indeed in any western town, we cannot walk through the streets without being of- fended at every turn, and the more we refine the body the more delicately acute do the physical senses become, and the more we must suffer in a civilization so coarse and animal as is the present. Walking through the poorer and the business streets where there are beer- houses at every corner, we can scarcely ever escape the smell of drink, the effluvium from one drinking place over-lapping that from the next — even reputedly re- spectable streets being thus poisoned; so, too, we have to pass slaughter-houses and butchers' shops. Of course one knows that when civilization is a little more ad- vanced better ari-angements will be made, and some- thing will be gained when all these unclean things are
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gathered in special quarters where those can seek them who want them. But meanwhile particles from these places fall on our bodies, and we breathe them in with the air. But as the normalh^ healthy body gives no soil in which disease-microbes can germinate, so the clean body offers no soil in which these impure particles can grow. Besides, as we have seen, there are armies of living creatures that are always at work keeping our blood pure, and these regiments of true lifeguards will charge down upon any poisonous particles that come into the city of a pure body and will destroy them and cut them to pieces. For us it is to choose whether we will have in our blood these defenders of life, or whether we will people it with the pirates that plunder and slay the good. The more resolutel}^ we refuse to put into the body anything that is unclean, the more shall we be fortified against attacks from without.
Reference has already been made to the automatism of the body, to the fact that it is a creature of habit and I said that use could be made of this peculiarity. If the Theosophist says to some aspirant who would fain practice Yoga and win entrance to higher planes of being: "You must then begin at once to purify the body, and this must precede the attempt to practice any Yoga worthy of the name ; for real Yoga is as dangerous to an impure and undisciplined body as a match to a cask of gunpowder ; " if the Theosophist should thus speak, he would very probably be met with the ansvx^er that health would suffer if such a course were to be adopted. As a dry matter of fact the body does not very much care
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in the long run what 3^011 give it, provided that you give it something that will keep it in health ; and it will ac- commodate itself in a short time to any form of pure and nutritious food that you choose to adopt. Just be- cause it is an automatic creature, it will soon stop ask- ing for things that are steadily withheld from it, and if you disregard its demands for the coarser and ranker kinds of food it will soon get into the habit of disliking them. Just as even a moderately natural palate will shrink with a sickening feeling of disgust from decay- ing game and venison yclept ''high," so a pure taste will revolt against all coarse foods. Suppose that a man has been feeding his body with various kinds of unclean things, his body will demand them imperiously, and h© will be inclined to yield to it ; but if he pays no attention to it, and goes his own way and not the way of the body, he will find, perhaps to his surprise, that his body will soon recognize its master and will accommodate itself to his orders; presently it will begin to prefer the things that he gives it, and will set up a liking for clean foods and a distaste for unclean. Habit can be used for help as well as for hindrance, and the body yields when it understands that you are the master and that you do not intend the purpose of your life to be interfered with by the mere instrument that is yours for use. The truth is that it is not the body which is chiefly in fault, but Kama, the desire-nature. The adult body has got into the habit of demanding particular things, but if you notice a child, you will find that the child's body does not spontaneously make demands for the things on
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which adult bodies feast with coarse pleasure ; the child's body, unless it' has a very bad physical heredity, shrinks from meat and wine, but its elders force meat on it, and the father and mother give it sips of wine from their glasses at dessert, and bid it ''be a little man," till the child by its own imitative faculty and by the compulsion of others is turned into evil ways. Then, of course, im- pure tastes are made, and perhaps old kamic cravings are awakened which might liave been starved out, and the body will gradually form the habit of demanding the things upon which it has been fed. Despite all this in the past, make the change, and as you get rid of the particles that crave these impurities you will feel your body altering its habits and revolting against the very smell of the things that it used to enjoy. The real dif- ficulty in the way of the reformation lies in Kama, not in the body. You do not want to do it ; if you did you would do it. You say to yourself: "After all, perhaps it does not matter so much ; I have no psychic faculties, I am not advanced enough for this to make any differ- ence." You will never become advanced if you do not endeavour to live up to the highest that is within your reach — if you allow the desire-nature to interfere with your progress. You say, ''How much I should like to possess astral vision, to travel in the astral body ! ' ' but when it comes to the point you prefer a "good" dinner. If the prize for giving up unclean food were a million pounds at the end of a year, how rapidly would difficul- ties disappear and ways be found for keeping the body alive without meat and wine ! But when only the price-