Besides, why should we not regard the cruelty of the serpents and the wild beasts as merely the product and reflection of man’s own nature? Are we any the less murderous than they? Are not our tongues as venomous as the serpent’s fangs? Do we not prey upon our innocent brethren much in the same way as lions and leopards? All scriptures proclaim that, when man becomes absolutely harmless, all the other animals will begin to live on terms of intimacy with him. When feuds and conflicts as fierce as that between the lion and the lamb are going on within our own breasts, is it any wonder that such things should go on in the external world? For, we are but the reflection of the world around us; all the features of the [Pg 136] external world are found reflected in the inner world of our mind. When we change our nature, the world around should also inevitably change. Do we not find that the world assumes a totally different aspect to those individual men and women who change their own nature by strenuous self-discipline? This is the great mystery of God’s creation as well as the great secret of true happiness. Our happiness or otherwise rests entirely upon what we are; we have no need to depend on other people at all in this matter. Our excuse for writing at such length on snake-bite is this. Rather than merely prescribe cure for snake-bite, we thought it as well to go a little more deeply into the matter, and point out the best way of getting rid of our foolish fears. If even a single reader were to adopt in practice the principles we have been discussing, we shall consider our effort amply rewarded. Moreover, our object in writing these pages is not merely to give the generally accepted hygienic principles, but to go to the root of the matter, and deal with the most fundamental principles of health. Modern investigations have also shown that the man who is perfectly healthy, whose blood has not been tainted by excess of heat, and whose food is wholesome and Satvic, is not immediately affected by the poison of the snake, but that, on the other [Pg 137] hand, its effect is instantaneous as well as fatal on the man whose blood has been tainted by drink or unwholesome food. One doctor goes so far as to say that the blood of the man who eschews salt and the like, and lives exclusively on a fruit-diet, remains so pure that no kind of poison can have any effect on him. I have not had enough experience myself to say how far this is true. The man whose diet has been free from salt and the like for only one or two years cannot be said to have attained this stage of perfect immunity, for the blood which has been tainted and poisoned by bad practices continued for years cannot be brought back to its normal state of purity in the short period of a year or two.