The Art of Rejuvenation Part III by Paramhansa Yogananda
Praecepta » Volume 1 » Praeceptum #7
PRAYER TO PRECEDE THE PRAECEPTUM STUDY
“I come to Thee with the song of my smiles. The taper of my happiness will merge with Thy Blaze of Bliss. The aroma of Thy Scented Flame and its murmuring joyous waves come floating to me. In Thine enchanting Light I will swim forever. Teach me to drown in Thy Divine Light and live, rather than live in a mirage-paradise of earthliness and die.”
(Review the preceding Parts, I and II, to continue the thread of thought and to strengthen the foundation for the Technique of Rejuvenation.)
All Scriptures, such as the Christian Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, (or Hindu Bible) and others, have a threefold meaning. In other words, the Scriptures deal with the three factors of human existence, namely: the material, the mental, and the spiritual. Hence, all true Scriptures have been so written that they can be beneficial to the body, mind, and Soul of man. True Scriptures are like wells of Divine water, which can quench the threefold material, mental, and Spiritual thirsts of man.
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 can learn to concentrate and meditate uninterruptedly upon 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.
You will find in this series of Praecepta the knowledge by which you can 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 recharge 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.
People usually concentrate only upon food, air, and sunshine in order to keep the body well, but a time comes to every one 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.
ITS INNER AND OUTER SOURCES OF SUSTENANCE
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). The Original Praecepta Lessons teach that just as an automobile battery needs both distilled water and electricity tp 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.
Jesus, centuries ago, gave utterance to the great Truth that man’s Body Battery is charged by the “Word of God” (Inner Energy) and not by outer sources alone.
TESTS OF PHYSICAL RELAXATION
When you are sitting or lying down completely relaxed with breath expelled, let somebody lift your hands or feet a little way, then drop them. If they fall with a thud, without your gradually lowering them, you are relaxed.
Let someone lift you up and shake your whole body. If your limbs register no resistance but fly loosely hither and thither like the limbs of a rag doll, you are relaxed.
In perfect relaxation, no muscles are consciously willed to become energized and tensed. Do not tense any part, especially the neck, arms, torso, and legs. By relaxing the muscles and limbs, you help to remove motion and decay from the physical body.
TESTS OF MENTAL RELAXATION
You have attained mental relaxation when you can remain without thought for any length of time desired, and when you can bring the consciousness back into the body at will. When you can remain calm at all times, in spite of severe trials, and when you are launched in undying faith in God and your Guru, then you are mentally relaxed.
FIVE STAGES OF MENTAL RELAXATION
1. Most people in this world are so restless all the time that they cannot close their eyes and keep the eyeballs still, keep the body motionless, or concentrate upon one thing at a time even for a little while. Such people develop a second nature, which is “Restless all the time without ever being restful”. This is the first stage.
2. Then, by the practice of meditation, the above-mentioned all-the-time-mentally-restless person succeeds in becoming “once in a great while restful, although restless most of the time”. This is the second stage of mental relaxation.
3. Then, by further practice of concentration and meditation, the student reaches the place where “he is able to attain restfulness easily, but is also easily made restless by events or environment”.
4. By deeper practice of concentration and meditation and the higher lessons from his Guru-Preceptor, the student reaches the fourth stage, in which he is “restful most of the time, and restless only once in a while”. This is the opposite of the second stage. By scientific meditation, you can thus reverse your nature from restlessness to calmness.
5. By the practice of the highest lessons from his Guru-Preceptor, when the student becomes One with God in Samadhi, (the state of Bliss in which the devotee, meditation, and God become one), he reaches the last, or fifth stage of relaxation and self realization, in which he is “restful all the time without ever becoming restless”. This stage is the reverse of the first stage, and can be attained only by being able to evoke Samadhi at will, any time, anywhere.
SPECIAL KINDS OF RELAXATION
1. Imperfect Muscular Relaxation. Most people are partially tensed even during periods of relaxation. In this state the energy and consciousness are partly, or imperfectly withdrawn from certain muscles, limbs, and organs, but not from the five senses of touch, taste, smell, hearing, and sight. This is termed imperfect muscular relaxation. People cannot thrive in such a state of continual partial tension because they become fatigued.
2. Partial Muscular Relaxation. Throwing the breath out, (exhaling completely) and remaining without breath as long as it can be done comfortably, calms the action of the lungs and diaphragm, and slows the heart action, and thereby helps to remove the greater amount of motion and decay from the active internal organs of the body. The state when the body, limbs, lungs, and diaphragm are inactive, and the heart is partially calm, is called almost perfect muscular and motor relaxation.
3. Unconscious Sensory–Motor Relaxation. In sleep, the consciousness is switched off from the muscles and the inner organs and from the bulbs of the five senses. The Life Energy is switched off from the senses, muscles, and motor nerves, and partially from the heart, lungs, and diaphragm. This state is called unconscious sensory motor relaxation.
4. Conscious Sensory–Motor Relaxation. By the studious practice of the Meditation and Concentration Techniques for a number of years, one can consciously withdraw energy and the mind from the senses and muscles while still remaining conscious.
5. Unconscious Perfect Sensory-Motor–Organic Relaxation. Death is spoken of as unconscious perfect sensory-motor-organic relaxation. It is the forced switching off of the consciousness and of the life current from the entire body, limbs, muscles, senses, organs, heart, spine, and so forth. Just as the electricity retires into the dynamo when a bulb is broken, so, when the body completely stops activity, the life current and consciousness return to the dynamo of Cosmic Energy and Cosmic Consciousness. It must be remembered that as long as the wires to a certain point are not destroyed, a broken bulb at the end of them can be replaced by a new bulb. In the same way, as long as the earthly wires of desire running out of the dynamo of Spirit remain undestroyed and connected with the earth and its attractions, it is necessary for new body bulbs to be replaced as often as one body bulb breaks (goes out at death). But when all the wires of earthly desire are cut, then reincarnation of the Spiritual current in the bulb of flesh ceases, just as the destruction of certain wires completely withdraws all current to the dynamo and prevents it from again flowing into a bulb. Death signifies the complete destruction of the body bulb, but not of the desire wires behind it.
6. Conscious Sensory–Motor–Organic Relaxation. Conscious sensory-motor-organic relaxation consists in the switching off and on at will of the Life Current and the consciousness in the limbs, muscles, inner organs, lungs, diaphragm, and especially in the heart and spine. This kind of conscious, higher relaxation, governed by the brake of calmness, is to be taught in later Praecepta.
The above six forms of relaxation are best illustrated by the various stages of very bright, bright, dim, more dim, barely visible light – as produced in a bulb attached to a rheostat (dimming apparatus). The various stages of relaxation represent the withdrawing, or dimming, of the consciousness and Life Current from the bulb of the body. In full bodily activity, as in running, the Bulb of Life is fully and brightly ablaze with life. In imperfect relaxation, it is semi-illumined with life. In perfect muscular relaxation, the life-light is less bright. In sleep, the life-light is dim and calm. In meditation, the life-light is a faint glow. In conscious trance, the Life Energy retires from the body bulb, but is ready to be switched on again at will. In death, the body bulb is broken, but in conscious-sensory-motor relaxation one learns to switch off consciousness and Life Current from the body and to switch them on again at will. This power gives victory over death.
HEALTH CULTURE
HEALING LAWS
Obey God’s physical laws of hygiene and proper eating, and keep yourself mentally disinfected by the strong faith that nothing can harm you, that you are always protected.
There is a Syrian proverb: “The enemy of man is his stomach.” Remember that this bodily machinery has been given to you to enable you to accomplish certain works on this material plane, and that you should guard it and take care of it as your most precious possession. The chief abuse of the body lies in overloading it with unnecessary food. Eat sparingly and notice the great change in your health for the better. The proper combinations and quality of food should also not be overlooked. A supply of raw fruits, vegetables, and nuts should be included in the regular diet.
FASTING
Fast one day a week, or at least half a day. If you feel unable to do that, live for one day on nothing but orange juice. This plan will give needed rest to the body-machine, which overworks incessantly through over-eating or wrong eating. Do not think that satisfied hunger means satisfied body needs. Learn the laws of rational, scientific diet, and live on simple and wholesome food.
Reducing by fasting sometimes upsets the stomach. This condition can be prevented by frequent drinking of a small glassful of buttermilk or orange juice mixed with a small amount of lemon juice.
DELICIOUS VEGETABLE SOUP
Cook onion, 1/4 cup carrots, 1/4 cup celery in 3 tbls. butter for five minutes. Add 1/3 cup flour, 1/2 tsp. peppercorns, small bay leaf, 3 cloves, 3 sprigs thyme. Cook three minutes, add 1 can tomatoes, and cook one hour slowly. Rub through a strainer. Add 1 quart hot vegetable stock, salt, pepper, and macaroni which has been cooked for 30 minutes and drained. This vegetable soup not only suggests the delicious flavor of Italian soup but also, has its vitalizing effects.
INSPIRATION
Realize that you really are not a fleshly Being, and that in reality you are neither a Hindu nor an American temple, nor any of the other limited sense-bound things you appear to be. It is wrong to say that we are mortals, whereas we are essentially made of immortal stuff. It is the truth that we are Gods, and it is wrong to call ourselves weaklings. It is only by realizing our Oneness with God that we can completely break our self-created imaginary limitations of accidents, failure, lack, disease, and death. God has everything – health, efficiency and wisdom, – and to be One with Him is to have claim over everything which He has, as His own child.
AFFIRMATION
The Lord is my strength and song, and He is become my salvation. He is my God, and I will prepare Him an habitation. (Ex.15:2)
