Recycling ourselves

It is well known that geckos, common wall lizards, have an interesting siddhi. They crawl across the ceiling of one’s living room, sometimes landing unexpectedly on an unfortunate person’s head, when they lose their grip.

They have the very useful power to re-grow their tail if it happens to be snapped off by the household watch dog when it loses its grip and falls to the floor.

There are other species as well that can re-grow damaged parts of their own bodies.

We humans too have such a power but it is of often rendered ineffective by our own ignorance of the miracle of our physiognomy!

Swamiji often asked us a pertinent question during our six month training course. “Did you know your stomach grows a new lining every seven days. (No , we did not know that astonishing fact). “Then why pray tell do people with ulcers continue to have Ulcers their whole lives if a new stomach lining is growing every week?” he would challenge us. Of course, none of us had a clue! He would then triumphantly shout, causing a shudder in the pit of our stomach. “Because all of this re-cycling process is programme by your brain in your Pranic blue print. The Pranic blue print has morphed into a pattern of ulcers in the stomach. So, the body reproduces the stomach lining, ulcers and all, just as the brain has commanded it.

This idea was revolutionary 50 years ago when we first sat at our Guru’s feet who shocked our nervous systems awake. Now, it is quite commonly understood that all parts of the body recycle themselves at predictable intervals. Swamiji told us that every nine years, not a single original cell will remain the same in the body. It will have been recycled several times over as the case of stomach lining, thousands of times for other. Some take a full nine years to recycle such as those in the spinal cord fluid, he said. All other cells have shorter cycles.

Recently in the “The Hindu” Newspaper, a writer espoused this idea with some amazing facts. He was not a medical doctor, so some of his information may be inaccurate but nevertheless it does make a point! We can and we do recycle our cells.

The writer , Ameen Hussain claims :

Mitosis and apoptosis(cell division and cell death) processes have revealed that every week we have new stomach, every month a new skin lining and every three months  we have a new skeleton. Except for some cartilage and pieces of bones, almost 98 percent of our body is recycled annually. Every 10 minutes we have a different brain structure because every thought alters it. As a result , our body is a process rather than a structure. It is a river and not a rock. It is a verb and not a noun.

One prominent quantum physicist said during a lecture in the U.S that three years earlier when he went there he had carried with him the same suitcase but not the same body because the suitcase has a longer shelf-life than the body. Another quantum biologist said during a speech that to person can step into the same river twice.

Science now tells us that our thoughts and feelings also alter our physical structure in a minute –by – minute unending process. Our body chemistry is so delicate that it can change drastically in a short time. Many studies have suggested that meditative and contemplative activities have the ability to influence susceptibility to and resistance to disease. Mental, emotional and physical processes constantly interact with each other. Stress produces cortisol and epinephrine which are immune-suppressants that nullify even good diet and intelligent exercise. Loving relationships boost the immune system. Despair and hopelessness can be a contributing cause of cancer and heart disease. A scarcely conscious negative thought can release a flood of destructive hormones.

Knowing this, can we re-construct negative patterns of thought which create disease and imbalance? The Yogis say we can, and unlike science, show us how, with techniques like Asanas, Kriyas, Mudras, Pranayama and Meditation – concentration exercises! We can alter our destiny.

There is so much talk of re-cycling these days! Perhaps we should start at home, in our own bodies, by re-cycling ourselves!