A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga: The Yoga of WisdomAtkinson, William Walker
Religion
A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga: The Yoga of Wisdom
Atkinson, William Walker
Yoga, Jñana
You have seen flowers that closed when you touched them. You remember
the Golden Poppy that closes when the sun goes down. Another plant, a
variety of orchid, has a long, slender, flat stem, or tube, about
one-eighth of an inch thick, with an opening at the extreme end, and a
series of fine tubes where it joins the plant. Ordinarily this tube
remains coiled up into a spiral, but when the plant needs water (it
usually grows upon the trunks of trees overhanging swampy places) it
slowly uncoils the little tube and bends it over until it dips into the
water, when it proceeds to suck up the water until it is filled, when
it slowly coils around and discharges the water directly upon the
plant, or its roots. Then it repeats the process until the plant is
satisfied. When the water is absent from under the plant the tube moves
this way and that way until it finds what it wants--just like the trunk
of an elephant. If one touches the tube or trunk of the plant while it
is extended for water, it shows a great sensitiveness and rapidly coils
itself up. Now what causes this life action? The plant has no brains,
and cannot have reasoned out this process, nor even have acted upon
them by reasoning processes. It has nothing to think with to such a
high degree. It is the Will behind the curtain, moving this way and
that way, and doing things.
There was once a French scientist named Duhamel. He planted some beans
in a cylinder--something like a long tomato can lying on its side. He
waited until the beans began to sprout, and send forth roots downward,
and shoots upward, according to nature's invariable rule. Then he moved
the cylinder a little--rolled it over an inch or two. The next day he
rolled it over a little more. And so on each day, rolling it over a
little each time. Well, after a time Duhamel shook the dirt and growing
beans out of the cylinder, and what did he find? This, that the beans
in their endeavor to grow their roots downward had kept on bending each
day downward; and in their endeavor to send shoots upward, had kept on
bending upward a little each day, until at last there had been formed
two complete spirals--the one spiral being the roots ever turning
downward, and the other the shoots ever bending upward. How did the
plant know direction? What was the moving power. The Creative Will
behind the curtain again, you see!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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