Article Selection by Krishnasarma Mookerjee | Note by H.P.B.
. . . the question arises, whether it is possible that a man could live without food? It is the law of evolution that our organs should be so formed, as to be well adapted to our necessities; or, in other words, it is necessity that has gradually developed and fitted our organs for their various uses. If it be so, then a man might also attempt gradually to give up food, and his system would be gradually so transformed as to enable him to absorb oxygen in a certain particular way, that would tranform a portion of their potential energy into a kinetic form.1 . . .
1. And, in such a case, the wisdom of the man who experimented on his donkey in that direction, and had nearly succeeded in his attempt to habituate the creature to live without food, “but unfortunately it got sick and died” before getting entirely into the habit—would be fully vindicated. But joking apart, do we not know, for a certainty, of Yogis who pass months and years in Samadhi without eating; and does not the recent successful attempt of Dr. Tanner and others, who lived forty days without any food, prove the hypothesis more than possible?—Ed. [H.P.B.]