Paramhansa Yogananda - How to Achieve Glowing Health and Vitality

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How to Achieve Glowing Health
and Vitality

Paramhansa Yogananda

Crystal Clarity Publishers

Nevada City, California

Crystal Clarity Publishers, Nevada City, CA 95959

Copyright 2011 by Hansa Trust

All rights reserved. Published 2011

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-56589-256-9

ePub ISBN: 978-1-56589-508-9

Printed in China

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Created and produced by Crystal Clarity Publishers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Yogananda, Paramhansa, 1893-1952.

How to achieve glowing health and vitality / Paramahansa Yogananda..

p. cm. (The Wisdom of Yogananda ; vol. 6)

ISBN 978-1-56589-256-9 (pbk.) -- ISBN 978-1-56589-508-9 (ebook)

1. Health. 2. Vitality. 3. Diet. 4. Exercise. 5. Mind and body. I. Title.

RA776.5.Y58 2012

613--dc23

2011041783

www.crystalclarity.com

clarity@crystalclarity.com

800-424-1055

Contents

How to Achieve Glowing Health
and Vitality

Chapter 1

Draw on Limitless Cosmic Energy

Right beneath the flesh is a tremendous current.

By the pickaxes of Self-realization,

I have found that Life Force again.

I and my Father are One.

I am not the flesh.

I am a bundle of electricity behind this body.

Cosmic Energy is within and around you, recharging the body at all times with vitality. You can call on that eternal supply to make the body fit in every respect. A perfect body, free from disease, presents less resistance to the practices for attaining Self-realization.

Most exercises stimulate only the muscles and thus the animal consciousness, not the subtle nature. Now you will learn how to concentrate on your Life Energy and will power, and to experience your subtle spiritual nature. Life and strength do not depend solely on food or exercise, but are sustained from the powers within. A dead man cannot be brought back to life by filling him with nourishing food, nor can he become strong by artificially making him exercise with dumbbellsbecause his Life Energy is absent.

Our thoughts, will, feeling, muscular strength, proper action of organs and glandsall depend for their existence on the Life Force. Billions of body cells are kept alive and properly working through this secret vital power.

The human body is surrounded by a halo of conscious Cosmic Energy. Through vibrations of Cosmic Energy, Gods intelligence supplies our bodies with Life Force. The medulla oblongata, the mouth of God, is the antenna that receives energy from Cosmic Consciousness.

By consciously willing, you can draw Life Energy into the body through the medulla oblongata to replenish the energy that is expended through thoughts, feelings, and physical activities. The will bridges the gulf between Life Energy in the body and the Cosmic Energy surrounding it. If you follow these teachings, you will learn to draw on Cosmic Life Energy to vitalize every body cell. You will experience yourself as Life Energyand not merely as a body of bones and muscles.

Exercising with will and concentration draws energy directly into the body. This energy is quickly absorbed by the muscles, blood, bones, and sinews for cellular rejuvenation. The Yogoda exercises give the highest degree of energy with the least tissue destruction.

The greater the will, the greater the flow of Life Energy. Angry men and angry animals manifest abnormal strength. This abnormal strength is not due to their muscles growing stronger during the short period of their anger. Their will, stimulated by anger, causes an extra flow of Life Energy or strength into their bodies.

You should depend more and more on the limitless supply of Cosmic Energy, and less and less on other sources of energy. Eating all the time will make your body get old more quickly. The only way to keep the body rejuvenated is to unite human consciousness and Cosmic Consciousness.

The mind must never be hypnotized by human limitations of sickness, old age, and death, but should constantly, inwardly remember: I am the Infinite, which has become the body. The body as a manifestation of Spirit is ever youthful.

How to Recharge the Body with Energy

First, lift your arm and then drop it. What lifted your arm? Will power and energy. Now close your eyes. Can you lift your arm without willing to do so? Can will power alone do it? No. It requires both will power and energy. Will power is the switch that controls the flow of energy.

But do you know how will power and energy do this? The answer is: by flowing into the different parts of the body. We want healthy muscles, bones, marrow, blood, and tissues; in each of these the energy is like a battery. Just as an automobile battery needs both electricity and distilled water to keep it alive, so the body battery needs recharging with life force through the medulla, as well as food and other physical means of sustaining life.

Electricity changes distilled water into the force that recharges an automobile battery, and Life Energy converts oxygen, solids, and liquids into the force that keeps us alive. Foods have come from this Life Energy, and when you put them into your stomach they must again be converted into energy to be used by the body. Your supply of energy depends on the chemicals you take into the body and on the energy taken in through the medulla.

Comparison of Mechanical Movement and Will

Example 1

1. Extend the right arm in front of you.

2. With the left hand lightly grasp the biceps of the right arm.

3. Bend the right arm at the elbow, and notice the automatic contraction of the biceps through the mechanical movement of the arm.