THE ART OF REJUVENATION PART I by Paramhansa Yogananda
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PRAYER TO PRECEDE THE PRAECEPTUM STUDY
“O Spirit, teach me to heal the body by recharging it with Thy Cosmic Energy, to heal the mind by concentration and smiles, and the soul by meditation-born intuition. Make me feel that my heart is throbbing in Thy breast, and that Thou art walking through my feet, breathing through my breath, wielding my arms of activity, and weaving thoughts in my brain. O, make me Thyself, that I may behold the little bubble of me, floating in Thee!
THE ART OF REJUVENATION PART I PHYSICAL BODY CONSTANTLY CHANGING
We come now to the Instructions on Recharging the Body Battery, by which you may learn how to draw more and more life-sustaining energy from the ether, and depend less and less upon solids, liquids, sunshine, and gases for sustenance. However, we shall first give a few hints about the outer sources of energy for sustaining the human body battery, before passing on to the method of recharging the body with energy from the Inner Source.
With the knowledge furnished you in this series of instructions, you will be able to eliminate the interruptions which might otherwise come through the demands of your body, and gradually become perfect physically as well as mentally and spiritually. Instantaneous perfection in body, mind, and soul must inevitably appear when perfect understanding is reached. It is the inevitable law of God.
Change does not mean annihilation. It means certain changes of motion which we, as human beings, fear and dislike. The nature of matter is change. The nature of Spirit is changelessness. The first process in rejuvenating the physical body, is to supply it with the sixteen elements of food chemicals which it needs, plus sunshine from regular sun baths and good oxygen, and from regular, proper breathing. While walking every day, inhale, counting one to twelve. Hold the breath twelve counts, then exhale, counting one to twelve. This may be done up to twenty-four times every time you walk. Everyone must have at least a half-hour sun bath twice a week, or preferably every day. (This amount of time for sun bathing should be gradually built up to one-half hour, and regulated according to your skin tolerance for sun rays.)
The human body, which looks so compact and solid, is in fact nothing but a bundle of motions. It is a bundle of forces whirling together in ultra-rapid motion. The solid flesh is made of very tiny cells, blood corpuscles, and particles. The bones are made of small cells, particles of water, and other chemicals. This superstructure of flesh and bones has, on the external side, been made dependent upon the ultra-violet rays in the sunshine, and upon oxygen, good food, and pure liquids, such as water, fruit juices, and so forth.
Ordinarily, people concentrate upon food, air, and sunshine only in order to keep the body well, but a time comes to everyone when health fails in spite of all the outer means of good food and air supplied to it. Then it is realized that the body battery has to be recharged by the Inner Source also.
“MAN SHALL NOT LIVE BY BREAD ALONE “
Jesus said: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word which proceedeth out of the Mouth of God. “
“Bread”, or, in other words, any kind of food, alone does not support life. If it alone supported life, you could put it into the body of a dead man, lay him out in the sun, and expect him to come to life. The power which creates life, the force which enables the body organs to be converted into energy – that is the direct source of life.
An automobile battery depends for its life not upon its indirect outer source of distilled water alone, but upon the vibrating electric current which flows into it from the dynamo through the mouth of the wires (the direct inner source). Jesus centuries ago, gave utterance to the great Truth when He said that man’s body battery is charged by “The Word of God”, (Inner Energy) and not by outer sources alone. Like the automobile battery, it can be said: “Man’s body battery does not live by the indirect outer source only of bread, oxygen, solids, and liquids, sunshine, and so forth, but by the vibrating life current which flows into the body from the invisible Dynamo of Cosmic Energy surrounding the body, through the “Mouth of God”, or through the medulla oblongata and the will (the direct inner source) .
The Original Praecepta Lessons teach that just as an automobile battery needs both distilled water and electricity to keep it alive, so the body battery needs recharging with life force through the medulla as well as food and the physical means of sustaining life.
It is electricity that charges the distilled water into the force that recharges an automobile battery, and it is life energy that converts oxygen, solids, and liquids into the force that keeps us alive; solids and liquids develop into what they are by this same energy and when you put them into your stomach, they must again be converted into energy before they are of any use to the body: furthermore, when the energy that is in them is taken out, the residue of this mass of material is forced out of the body as waste material, through the pores, the intestines, and the kidneys. Just as distilled water, the outer source of sustenance, alone will not sustain life in the automobile battery or bring life back, so oxygen, solids, liquids, and sunshine alone will not help a dead body battery. It must also have life energy.
GOD THE ORIGINAL SOURCE OF ENERGY, OR LIFE FORCE
The medulla is the original source of intake of the Life Force as it comes from God. The medulla is the “Mouth of God” because that is where God breathes the Life Force into you. Do not confuse this with the passage that says: “God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul”. You shall learn all about that in the Praeceptum on the “Garden of Eden”.
Every part of the body can be operated upon by the surgeon, except the medulla. Have you ever heard of a surgeon suggesting even the possibility of operating upon the medulla? No. If you were to touch it with the tiniest point of the smallest needle, you would be dead instantly. Heart? Of course the heart is quite commonly operated upon. The brain? Cerebral operations are far from rare. The spine? Yes, they puncture the spine sometimes and get what they call good results occasionally. But the medulla? Never. Why? Because it is the center of all the Centers of Life. It is the one center through which the life force enters the body, All other centers – heart, brain, and the centers of the spine, such as cervical, dorsal, lumbar, sacral, and the coccygeal, are but minor centers, receiving the life force through the medulla, and acting merely as distributing centers.
HOW TO RECHARGE THE BODY WITH ENERGY
Science has proved that everything is being recharged by Cosmic Energy. The human body is surrounded by a halo of Conscious Cosmic Energy. The medulla oblongata is the antenna of the receiving station which receives the radiographed energy from the Cosmic Consciousness, and Cosmic Energy, through the human body radio operator — the will. Just as ships on the sea, without wire connections, can be controlled by radio, so God’s Intelligence, through vibrations of Cosmic Energy, is supplying our bodies with life force without visible connections.
God originally created Cosmic Vibration of Energy which, when once started, became perpetual, and you can, by your wireless will power, draw upon it and bring it into your body through the medulla. This Cosmic Energy, the same energy through which you and everything else in the universe were created, surrounds and permeates all Creation within and without all the time. It enters through the “Mouth of God” and is the invisible “Word” which sustains life of all kinds.
You will find in this series of Lessons the knowledge by which you will learn to live more and more by calling upon the eternal supply of Cosmic Energy, which is ever available to us, which is within and without, and is always all about us, and thus recharges the body at any and all times with vitality. With this knowledge, the body may be made fit in all respects, and a perfect body, free from disease, presents less resistance to the methods and practices by which self realization is reached, and by which the human consciousness, as well as the body, is raised to the fatigueless state.
The material human consciousness cannot grasp the Universal Christ Consciousness within itself, no matter how desirous it is to do so, but when the student, by the methods of self-realization, through concentration and meditation, enlarges the caliber of his consciousness and raises its quality, he can perceive the Universal Consciousness in all atoms. This is what is meant by “received Him”. Thus, according to Jesus, all souls can actually find their souls one with Christ consciousness, by intuitive self-realization. They can know themselves as “sons of God”.
On the internal side, these living cells, which constitute the flesh, bones, and all tissues, are kept rejuvenated by thoughts and by biological forces. In the inner spiritual source, including subconsciousness, superconsciousness, Christ consciousness and Cosmic consciousness. The vital sparks are condensed sparks of God’s thoughts. Therefore we see that the physical body is really a bundle of motions.
You should depend more and more upon the limitless supply of the inner source of Cosmic consciousness and less and less upon the other sources of the body energy. Eating all the time will make your body get old quicker, and the only way to keep the body really rejuvenated is to unite human consciousness and Cosmic consciousness through meditation. The mind must never have suggested to it the human limitations of sickness, old age, and death, but it should be constantly, inwardly told: “I am the Infinite, which has become the body. The body as a manifestation of Spirit, is the ever-youthful Spirit.”
REJUVENATION OF THE SOUL
Self-realization is the KNOWING, in all parts of the body, mind, and soul, that we are now in the possession of the Omnipresence of God; that we do not have to pray that it comes to us; that we are not merely near it at all times, but that God’s Omnipresence is our Omnipresence; that He is just as much a part of us now as He will ever be, and that all we have to do is improve our KNOWING.
Self-realization may be, and is, attained by some people who are struggling with sick and otherwise imperfect bodies, but it cannot be attained unless you learn to concentrate and meditate uninterruptedly with God. Since it is difficult to concentrate and meditate while the aches and pains of the body continually have the attention of the mind, the path of self-realization is made much easier if the imperfections of the body and the harmonious operations of its functions are arranged so that the mind need not at any time be interrupted in meditation through the demands of the physical body.
By constantly holding the peaceful after-effects of meditation in mind, by feeling immortality in the body, by believing in Eternal Life instead of beholding the illusory changes of this life, and by feeling the ocean of Immortal Bliss God underlying the changeable waves of experiences of past lives, and the waves of perceptions of childhood, youth, and age in this life, the soul can find not only perpetual rejuvenation in the soul, but also in the body, Just as soon as the body is found to be, not isolated from Spirit, but a number of rising, falling waves of vibrating currents in the ocean of Cosmic consciousness, then the perpetual rejuvenation of the Spirit can be implanted in the body if so desired.
HEALTH CULTURE
HEALING LAWS
God wants His children to enjoy health and happiness, but they create disease and sorrow by breaking His laws. God is harmony, and when man, made in His image, tried to lead an inharmonious life, he hurts himself. God never punishes man. Man punishes himself by reaping the results of his self-created wrong actions.
There are diseases which result from breaking hygienic laws and the consequent bacterial invasion. There are maladies which result from disobeying the mental laws of Being, and the consequent attack of mental bacteria of fear, anger, worry, greed, temptation, and lack of self-control. There are diseases which arise from the soul’s ignorance.
Do not forget that ignorance is the mother of all physical, mental, and spiritual diseases. Abolish ignorance by contacting God; and forthwith body, mind, and soul will be healed of all maladies.
DIETARY HINTS
1. Fast one day a week on orange juice and take a suitable laxative (which is not a drug) prescribed by your doctor.
2. Observe the following suggestions as a dietary regime: In the morning, use orange juice and ground nuts. Luncheon should be the heaviest meal of the day. Combine for your lunch, 16 leaves of uncooked spinach, any fresh salad, any kind of cooked vegetable, any protein, except beef or pork, and whole wheat bread and butter. Milk should be taken between meals. At night use fruits of any kind and nuts.
3. A three-day fast once a month on orange juice with a laxative each day, will expel almost all poisons, and will do much to make the body strong, healthy, and youthful to the last days of life.
ROASTED VEGETABLES
Put into a good-sized granite baking pan, a generous amount of butter and heat it. Add a layer of halved onions, then next above in succession, a layer each of chopped celery, white potatoes sliced, carrots sliced, leaves of cabbage, and last a layer of sliced tomatoes. Season the vegetables, and turn over in the hot butter until surfaces are seared as much as possible. Add a small amount of water. Cover the dish and place in the oven. After the cooking is well started, turn down the fire and let the roast cook slowly until tender.
This roast may be served as it comes out of the oven, but it is also very good served with a cream gravy, made by stirring one tablespoon of flour into the small amount of liquid left in the pan after the vegetables are removed. A little more butter should be added if the liquid is not rich enough, after the flour is smoothly stirred in, some cream or milk also, to make the gravy the right consistency, and finally seasoning. Pour the gravy over the hot vegetables.
WEEKLY INSPIRATION
O, Conscious, Cosmic Energy, it is Thou who dost directly support my body. Solid, liquid, and gaseous foods are converted and spiritualized into energy by Thy Cosmic Energy, and it supports my body. Help me to learn, O Spirit, to live more and more by direct Cosmic Energy and less and less by food. Being energy, burning in the bulb of the senses, I recharge myself with Thy Cosmic Energy
