Page:Hatha yoga - or the yogi philosophy of physical well-being, with numberous excercises.djvu/31

Rh given you for a purpose, and also consider the fact that if Nature had intended you to bolt your food she would have provided you with a gizzard instead of with teeth. We will have much to say about the proper use of the teeth, as we go along, as it has a very close connection with a vital principle of Hatha Yoga, as you will see after a while.

The next organs to be considered are the Salivary Glands. These glands are six in number, of which four are located under the tongue and jaw, and two in the cheeks in the front of the ears, one on each side. Their best known function is to manufacture, generate or secrete saliva, which, when needed, flows out through numerous ducts in different parts of the mouth, and mixes with the food which is being chewed or masticated. The food being chewed into small particles, the saliva is able to more thoroughly reach all portions of it with a correspondingly increased effect. The saliva moistens the food, thus allowing it to be more easily swallowed, this function, however, being a mere incident to its more important ones. Its best known function (and the one which Western science teaches is its most important one) is its chemical offices, which convert the starchy food matter into sugar, thus performing the first step in the process of digestion.

Here is another oft-told tale. You all know about the saliva, but how many of you eat in a manner which allows Nature to put the saliva to work as she had designed? You bolt your food after a few perfunctory chews and defeat Nature's plans, toward which she has gone to so much trouble, and to perform which she has built such beautiful and