The body is the pur, the city. This is why we have called man purush, which means: the divine lives in that pur, the divine is hidden in that city. Purush is a very meaningful word. Pur means city, and the body is a city. It cannot be called a house because a house is a very small thing. Your body is really a city and its population is not small: billions of cells are living there. It is a huge city! If each cell were measured and enlarged to your height, your body would be as big as the city of London. There are roads the same as in London; a river flows and a network of telegraph and telephone lines are there just like in London. Just as in London there are roads, traffic, a vast network of telephone and other communication cables, a river flowing in the middle of the city, the police, the military, the citizens, the masters, the servants, the rich and the poor, it is the same arrangement with these billions of residents in the body. There are police constables in them…if you ask medical science, you will be amazed.

The body is a very unique phenomenon. If you are injured even a little, you will find that within moments a white liquid will accumulate there. You may never have thought about why this white liquid film is formed immediately when you are injured. It is not simply pus: these are the white cells of your blood which do the work of policemen in your body all the time. Whenever and wherever there is trouble, an accident, danger, they immediately rush and reach to that place and cover it because after that place is covered no infection can enter. If that place had remained uncovered, any bacteria or germs carrying diseases could enter immediately. So these are the white cells of your blood which immediately rush to the injured place, surrounding and covering it. You may have thought it is only pus, but it is not: it is a safety measure of the body. It is a very amazing phenomenon. And it was not easy for medical science to finally understand how these white cells come to know whether the injury is on the hand or on the head or on the foot. They rush with the blood from all over the body to the exact place of the injury and cover it immediately. If the quantity of white cells in your body decreases then you will get sick very often because your security force has become weak. That is why your body needs a certain quantity, a certain number of white cells. Without that specific quantity your resistance and your power to fight against diseases will be less. These cells go on fighting the infection and they don’t know anything about you.

The most surprising thing is that this city of billions of cells has no knowledge of your existence; it cannot have. They have never met you. They go on doing their work: some are making blood, some are digesting the food. You eat food and these cells are breaking it down, digesting it and turning it into nutrients, blood and flesh are created. All this work is going on and it is all properly assigned.

In ancient times Hindus conceived the idea of four castes, and there are also four types of cells in the body. The shudra cells go on doing service, the vaishya cells are doing the business of converting things, transforming things. They transform one thing into another: they turn one chemical into a hormone and another into something else – all the time they are busy with their business. There are kshatriya cells which are guarding and defending all the time and there are brahmin cells which go on thinking all the time. Your brain cells are the brahmin cells. The Hindus have described the sudras as “the feet” and the brahmins as “the head” – these symbols are very significant.