Excerpts Dealing With Nutrition, Assimilation, And Natural Law

From The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, by Max Heindel:

The Science Of Nutrition

It may be said generally of the solid foods we take into our system, that fresh vegetables and ripe fruits contain the greatest proportion of nutritious matter and the least of earthy [harmful] substances.

As we are writing for the aspirant to the higher life and not for the general public, it may also be said that animal food should be entirely avoided, if possible.

No one who kills can go very far along the path of holiness. We do even worse than if we actually killed, for in order to shield ourselves from the personal commission of the act of killing, and still reap its results, we force a fellow being, through economic necessity, to devote his entire time to murder, thereby brutalizing him to such an extent that the law will not allow him to act as a juror in cases of capital crime, because his business has so familiarized him with the taking of life.

The enlightened know the animals to be their younger brothers and that they will be human in the Jupiter Period. We shall then help them as the Angels, who were human in the Moon Period, are now helping us, and for an aspirant to high ideals to kill — either in person or by proxy — is out of the question. Several very important food products from animals, such as milk, cheese and butter, may be used. These are the results of the processes of life and require no tragedies to convert them into food.

Fruits are an ideal diet. They are in fact evolved by the trees to induce animal and man to eat them, so that the seed may he disseminated, as flowers entice bees for a similar purpose.

Fresh fruit contains water of the purest and best kind, capable of permeating the system in a marvelous manner.

It would be foolish for a man to change an ordinary diet which for years had adequately nourished him, and take up a new method without due thought as to which would be the best for serving his purpose. To simply eliminate meats from the ordinary diet of meat-eaters would unquestionably undermine the health of most persons. The only safe way is to experiment and study the matter out first, using due discrimination. No fixed rules can be given, the matter of diet being as individual as any other characteristic.

The brain is the co-ordinating mechanism whereby the movements of the body are controlled and our ideas are expressed. It is built of the same substances as are all other parts of the body, with the addition of phosphorus, which is peculiar to the brain alone. The logical conclusion is that phosphorus is the particular element by means of which the Ego [Heindel uses the term Ego with a capital "E" to represent the Higher Self, or Soul] is able to express thought and influence the dense physical body. It is also a fact that the proportion and variation of this substance is found to correspond to the state and stage of intelligence of the individual.

It is therefore of great importance that the aspirant who is to use his body for mental and spiritual work, should supply his brain with the substance necessary for that purpose. Most vegetables and fruits contain a certain amount of phosphorus, but it is a peculiar fact that the greater proportion is contained in the leaves, which are usually thrown away. It is found in considerable quantities in grapes, onions, sage, beans, cloves, pineapples, in the leaves and stalks of many vegetables, and also in sugarcane juice, but not in refined sugar.

The Law Of Assimilation

The Law of Assimilation allows no particle to be built into our bodies that we, as spirits, have not overcome and made subject to ourselves. There is life in every particle of food that we take into our bodies, and before we can build that life into our bodies by the process of assimilation, we must overcome and make it subject to ourselves. The more individualized is the particle to be assimilated, the more energy will it require to digest it and the shorter time will it remain before seeking to reassert itself.

If it were possible for man to use minerals as food, they would be ideal for that purpose because of their stability and the little energy required to overcome and subject them to the life of the body. We should be compelled to eat very much less in quantity and also less often than we now do.

The plant kingdom is next above the mineral. It has an organization capable of assimilating the mineral compounds of the Earth. Man and animal can assimilate the plants and thus obtain the chemical compounds necessary to sustain their bodies, and as the consciousness of the plant kingdom is that of dreamless sleep, it offers no resistance. It requires but little energy to assimilate the particles thus derived, and having small individuality of their own, the life ensouling the particles does not seek to escape from our body as soon as food derived from more highly developed forms, therefore the strength derived from a diet of fruit and vegetables is more enduring than that derived from a meat diet, and the food supply does not require as frequent replenishing, besides giving more strength in proportion, because less energy is required for assimilation.

Food composed of the bodies of animals consists of particles which have been worked upon and inter-penetrated by an individual desire body, and have thus been individualized to a much greater extent than the plant particles. There is an individual cell-soul, which is permeated by the passions and desires of the animal. It requires considerable energy to overcome it in the first place, so that it may be assimilated, yet it never becomes so fully incorporated into the polity of the body as do the plant constituents, which have no such strong individual tendencies. The result is that it is necessary for the flesh-eater to consume a greater weight of food than is required by the fruitarian; also he must eat oftener. Moreover, this inward strife of the particles of flesh causes greater wear and tear of the body in general.

Therefore, when flesh-food derived from the herbivore is such an unstable diet, it is evident that if we should try to use the flesh of carnivorous animals, in which the cells are still further individualized, we would be forced to consume enormous quantities of food. Eating would occupy the greater part of our time, but notwithstanding that fact, we would always be lean and hungry. That such is its effect, can be seen in the wolf and the vulture; their leanness and hunger are proverbial. Cannibals eat human flesh, but only at long intervals and as a luxury. As man does not confine himself exclusively to a meat diet, his flesh is not that of an entirely carnivorous beast, nevertheless the hunger of the cannibal has also become the burden of a proverb.

If the flesh of the herbivore were the essence of what is good in plants, then, logically, the flesh of the carnivore should be the quintessence. The meat of wolves and vultures would thus be the creme de la creme, and much to be desired. This we know is not the case, but quite the reverse. The nearer we get to the plant kingdom, the more strength we derive from our food. If the reverse were the case, the flesh of carnivorous animals would be sought by other beasts of prey, but examples of "dog eat dog" are very few throughout nature.

Live And Let Live

The First Law of Occult Science is "Thou shalt not kill," and that should have the greatest weight with the aspirant to the Higher Life. We cannot create so much as one particle of dust, therefore what right have we to destroy the very least form? All Form is an expression of the One Life — the Life of God. We have no right to destroy the Form through which the Life is seeking experience, and force it to build a new vehicle.

Sometimes the objection is made that life is also taken when vegetables and fruits are eaten, but that statement is based upon a complete misunderstanding of the facts. When the fruit is ripe, it has accomplished its purpose, which is to act as a womb for the ripening of the seed. If not eaten, it decays and goes to waste. Moreover, it is designed to serve as food for the animal and human kingdoms, thus affording the seed opportunities for growth by scattering it in fertile soil. Besides, just as the ovum and the semen of human beings are ineffectual without the seed-atom of the reincarnating Ego and the matrix of its vital body, so any egg or seed, of itself, is devoid of life. If it is given the proper conditions of incubator or soil, the life of the group-spirit is then poured into it, thus grasping the opportunity so afforded of producing a dense body. If the egg or seed is cooked, crushed, or not given the conditions necessary for the life, the opportunity is lost, but that is all.

At the present stage of the evolutionary journey, everyone knows inherently that it is wrong to kill, and man will love and protect the animals in all cases where his greed and selfish interest does not blind him to their rights.

The law protects even a cat or a dog against wanton cruelty. Except in "sport," that most wanton of all our cruelties against the animal creation, it is always for the sake of money that animals are murdered and bred to be murdered. By the devotees of "sport" the helpless creatures are shot down to no purpose save to bolster up a false idea of prowess upon the part of the huntsman. It is hard to understand how people who appear otherwise sane and kindly can, for the time, trample upon all their gentler instincts and revert to bloodthirsty savagery, killing for the sheer lust of blood and joy in destruction. It is certainly a reversion to the lowest savage animal instincts, and can never be dignified into the remotest semblance of anything "manly.”

How much more beautiful it would be for man to play the role of friend and protector of the weak.