Page:Hatha yoga - or the yogi philosophy of physical well-being, with numberous excercises.djvu/65

Rh of the physical body; in fact, Mr. Fletcher advises a particular form of mastication which corresponds very closely to the Yogi custom, although he advises it because of its wonderful effect upon the digestion, whereas the Yogis practice a similar system upon the theory of the absorption of food-prana. The truth is that both results are accomplished, it being a part of Nature's strategy that the grinding of the food into small bits; the digestive process attending the insalivation, and the absorption of food-prana, are accomplished at the same time—an economy of force most remarkable.

In the natural state of man, mastication was a most pleasant process, and so it is in the case of the lower animals, and the children of the human race to-day. The animal chews and munches his food with the greatest relish, and the child sucks, chews and holds in the mouth the food much longer than does the adult, until it begins to take lessons from its parents and acquires the custom of bolting its food. Mr. Fletcher, in his books on the subject, takes the position that it is taste which affords the pleasure of this chewing and sucking process. The Yogi theory is that while taste has much to do with it, still there is a something else, an indescribable sense of satisfaction obtained from holding the food in the mouth, rolling it around with the tongue, masticating it and allowing it to dissolve slowly and be swallowed almost unconsciously. Fletcher holds that while there remains a particle of taste in the food, nourishment is there to be extracted, and we believe this to be strictly correct. But we hold that there is that other sensation which, when we allow it to manifest