EFFECTIVE ENERGY AND PERSONALITY
(Further note on food and energy and behaviour)
Food is said to be the basis and in reality the only source of energy for the body. Much work has been done regarding food, and its constituents, calories, and its relation to the work performed.
Empirical observations point to the variety of experiences that need to be considered when one considers the question of effective energy available to a man. We have already seen something of the relation of food-intake to hunger etc., however, to summarise:
The number of persons complaining of lassitude, fatigue and weakness despite the fact of their consuming adequate diets is considerable - good food-intake with good digestion and absorption.
There is the example of the fewer members who have performed amazing feats of endurance against a background of starvation coupled with disabling infections like malaria, dysentery etc.
A starving person may prefer to die rather than eat prohibited food or forgo a principle. A person who had just had a full meal may be not averse to eat a tasty morsel offered by a loving friend.
Lassitude felt by a starving man may be overcome in the company of a great leader, sharing the starvation with him.
Pleasant sights and sounds can make up for the lack of food for quite sometime.
The drive of a powerful aim or goal of life can call forth energy resources and mechanisms for their indent and use, which would look absurd or miraculous seen against the norms of the presently determined tables of human physiology.
The Hindu scriptures and the Buddha speak of the various inputs coming into the body through the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin, mind etc. as different kinds of food. Food is important. But to speak of it or raise it up as the central issue in human physiology and belittle all inquiry into the whole question of effective energy mechanisms available to man is not justified by the totality of human experience.
A man is a physical system open to the influence of the whole range of energies surrounding him. To a few of these he is said to be open to the extent of awareness - light, sound etc. That is to say that he can communicate these inputs to others and himself in language and patterns established within him. A large number of other influences that fall on him constantly are only felt as palpable consequences to which he assigns reasons in terms of what is social inducted into him. This habit of explaining, or what is more correctly, explaining away experiences or even the very fact of the experiences because they do not fit into the vocabulary of the most fashionable science of the day, stops any or all inquiry.
Man is in reality not only the psychological or behaviour personality etc. He is also a personality in terms of the visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory and gustatory determinants observable by other men. Being undoubtedly a physical system he is also a mechanical personality with such and such mechanical properties, a magnetic personality with such and such magnetic fields, an electrical personality with its own fields etc. These and their resultant fields also contribute greatly to the vagaries of his behaviour. He is not normally aware of influence of the ionic content of the air and the effects it has on him he explains in terms of the happenings he is aware of. This is not to preach superstition but only to facilitate openness of mind.
But it is difficult to convince a person who believes that a six valve radio is a miracle of science fallen from heaven, and who at the same time is quite sceptical of the possibility of his own brain endowed with billions of cells being capable of sending or receiving thoughts.
The functions of one’s brain and one's personality can best be approached directly by the empirical experience of the person fully using his own body and its resources in the solution of his own problems.
The man is always bigger than the science he reveals. Science, then, perpetually dogs behind putting scientific limits, an ever advancing shackle dragging behind the man walking in front, seeing whether he is still a man and literally saying - “Ah, you have climbed so high without oxygen, now we will tell you how much more you can climb or not by studying more chimpanzee or specially trained subjects. The shackles and inquisitions of science and religion become increasingly more sophisticated.
Man, like all his preceding species will walk into his future, and the seeker of personal autonomy will not be against this or that science or ism but will make use of each and every information to impress his ascendency over himself.
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