Absolute Justice, Kindness and Kinship — Page 84
Different Kinds of Balance within Man’s Body 83 Physical Growth Let us study by way of illustration the simple example of the growth of teeth. Milk teeth as we know them, are governed and are being constantly monitored in the rate of growth and decay, so that for some years the rate of growth outpaces the rate of decay. Then a balanced stage is reached where the rates remain constant. After this the balance is tilted again in favour of death and decay, and the days of the milk teeth are numbered. Now begins the age of the growth of adult teeth. The rate of growth in the beginning is much faster in this case than the rate of wear and tear. Up to a certain stage, when they reach their predetermined size of length, breadth and thickness, the balance in favour of growth remains intact. After a pre-calculated size is reached, suddenly a perfect balance between the rate of growth and the rate of wear and tear is delicately maintained. So, leaving aside injury through disease and accident, they remain in a perfectly healthy state with no apparent changes occurring in their length and size. Ordinarily, people think they (the teeth) have grown and stopped growing, and that is all that there is to it. This naive concept is farthest from the truth. If they had stopped growing they would have been ground into nothingness within a matter of weeks or months. If on the other hand, the rate of growth continued to remain the same as was operative in the