“Human body is a biological machine and is goaded by propensities”        P.R. Sarkar.

 Perhaps the greatest attribute of the living world that differentiates it from the inanimate matter, is its capacity to interact and adapt to its environment. After millions of years of interacting and adapting, the living world has evolved its most treasured child, the humans in whom this capacity has been further escalated. One can almost take it for granted that humans will adapt to the unforeseeable threats of the future, an indispensable condition for their survival and biological success. As a result, humans have acquired the most complex mind and a body with an intricate biological system. Such a mind and a biological system are es­sential for further evolution of humankind.

Such seemingly unlimited capacity for adaptation is possible be­cause of their inherent ability for interaction between body and mind. The environmental changes that affect the body are reflected in the mind and those that affect the mind find expression in the body. For such interaction, a complex medium is required through which mind can translate its ideas, feelings and fantasies to the body;  in turn, the body can transmit its pain and pleasures to the  mind.

 The media through which mind and body interact are nerve cells and hormones. It is through these elements that man meets the molecule, the abstract becomes manifest and the formless takes a form. The capacity for adaptation, moreover, lies in these nerve cells and glands that secrete hormones. The new science depends heavily on these two factors.

 A part of our mind is inherited, or rather incarnated carrying the unrealised reactions (samskaras) of past lives. Yet another part is ac­quired through this life accumulating the reactions of what we do in the present life. A combination of the two makes us the whole person that we are. The samskaras, a term incomprehensible to the materialists, are the driving force of the mind to enable it to express its longings. This mental force(s) or propensities must find conversion into the physical force(s). For further discussion on this conversion please refer to chapter seven. The points at which these psychosomatic conversions occur are called cak­ras or plexuses. Each of these points or centres of conversion is related to some endocrine glands that secrete hormones. The secretion of these hormones is not autonomous as believed by the materialists. It is rather influenced by our thoughts and emotions. In turn, hormones in­fluence and express our mental functions like thinking, memory and be­haviour. Thus they are a two-way control system between mind and body.

 Our brain is a collection of nerve cells that depend and thrive on a number of hormones. They regulate and are regulated by hormonal secretions. Several cakras or plexuses are located in our brain for the psy­chosomatic conversions. Most important endocrine glands with their regulatory powers lay embedded in our brain. Such a proximity is a tes­timony to their intricate relationship and a common cause. The nerve cells are responsible for all our actions and reactions and modulate our behaviours.

Lymph is an entity that means different things in different cultures. However, they all agree that it is something that is extracted from everything vital and living in our body. The objective knowledge of lymph is very limited because vitality and quality of life cannot be measured. The new science propounds that the lymph is essential for the nerve cells and for the secretion of hormones. Without adequate lymph, the body looses vitality and glamour, and various disorders of the nerve cells and endocrine glands result.

The acquired immune defi­ciency syndrome or AIDS is primarily a disorder of lymphoid system in which all the energy and vitality of the lymph are sapped by the HIV (human immunodeficiency virus). The HIV is especially lethal to the immune system, of which lymph glands are an integral part. The lymph glands add lymphocytes (immune cells or natural killer cells) and antibodies (immune proteins) to the lymph as it passes through these glands. The HIV destroy the cells in the lymph glands that produce these elements, leaving the host defenceless against the infectious intruders. The destruction of the immune system renders the host susceptible to numerous disorders involving almost every system of the human biology. Gradually all the vitality of the organs, such as the brain, heart, lungs, endocrine glands and the gastrointestinal system is drained away. The sufferer has a deathly and dying appearance.

Therefore, mind, plexuses, glands, nerve cells and lymph are the five fundamental factors on which psycho-somatic or mind-body interactions depend. This can be summarised as shown in figure 1.

[1]Figure 1-Mind and Body Interactions

[1] “The whole subject of mind over body once languished on the far fringes of scientific respectibility. Now it has come in from the cold.” - Mestel, R. (1994), Let mind talk unto body, New Scientist, 23 July, p26.