Over 50% of all people suffer often or even regularly from the painful consequences of muscular tension. Tension in the throat, neck, and shoulder muscles as well as calf and foot cramps are among the most common health problems that disturb our well-being.

Localized muscle tension signals an increased state of tenseness in your body. Prolonged symptoms can even lead to chronic pain and restricted skeletal movement.

Muscular tension often occurs in connection with stress and nervousness. A tense body posture at work (e.g. at the computer) and during long drives can also cause localized muscular tension.

Additionally, inadequately trained back and neck muscles or an uncomfortable mattress can lead to pain in the musculoskeletal system.

Nerve impulses that should normally travel through the nerves get blocked due to repressed emotions and stress. This builds up static electricity in the muscular tissue through which these nerves pass. These unconscious nerve impulses keep our muscles in a partially contracted state. It is this continuous passive contraction of our muscles called tonus which is an invitation to disease.

Stress, migraine, pain around the head and neck, tension headaches and a continuous feeling of tightness and strain are all the result of muscular tension.

Stress accumulation in the muscles does not allow the body to heal itself. These simple exercises done a few minutes every day can relieve this muscular tension.

Exercise 1

Focus Area: Palms to Shoulders. Feel the pain in that area.

Method: Sit on the floor with crossed legs. Firmly open both your palms and make tension in the fist of both the hands. Keep it for 15 seconds and then release. Do it three times.

Benefits:

• Finger Joints, Arthritis.
• Pains near elbow, shoulder, biceps.

Exercise 2

Focus Area: Palms to Shoulders. Feel the pain in that area.

Method: Sit and stretch both your hands side ways. Keep your shoulders, elbows and fingers straight. Hands must be parallel to the floor. Push both hands outside, tense them. Keep it for 15 seconds and then release. Do it three times.

Benefits:

• Frozen Shoulder.
• Tennis Elbow, Wrist Problems.

Exercise 3

Focus Area: Back, Legs, Heel, Toes.

Method: Sit first, stretch your right leg straight and then fold your left leg. Hold the leg from the lower part of the knee and lift the leg for 4 to 6 mins. Keep the leg straight and tight, toes towards yourself. Hold for 15 seconds and then release. Do it three times.

Benefits:

• Rheumatism, Knee Pains, Sciatica.

Exercise 4

Focus Area: Chest.

Method: Sit and take deep breath, put both palms on the chest, hold the breath, stretch your chest out side, make it like a rock. Keep it for 15 seconds and then release. Do it three times.

Benefits:

• Asthama, Bronchitis.
• Cough and Cold, Congestions, Heart Problems.

Exercise 5

Focus Area: Abdomen.

Method: Sit, keep both palms on the stomach. First breathe in, then breathe out and pull your stomach inside with the help of your hands. Empty out the lungs completely and keep pulling the stomach from inside. Now hold your breath. Keep it for 15 seconds and then release. Do it three times.

Benefits:

• Digestive Problems, Liver Problems.
• Acidity, Kidneys.

Exercise 6

Focus Area: Back and Abdomen Muscles.

Method: Stand up, keep legs apart, breathe in and raise both the hands straight above the head. At the same time stretch your body up on the toes of the legs. Stretch your whole body until you stand on the toes. Hold the breath and balance the body. Keep it for 15 seconds and then release. Do it three times.

Benefits:

• Spine.
• Improves Circulation.
• Whole Body is Stretched.

Time and again in our search and endeavor on the path, we come across a wall. On the wall is written," beyond the threshold of your awareness". If this be so, then we cannot consciously proceed or carry out any process or technique if the sequence or linkages therein are, "outside or beyond the threshold of awareness".

There are processes that we have no reason to or wish to interfere with, like those carried out by the upkeep area of the brain to maintain our body/brain system and keep it fairly healthy. But when it comes to our thinking process, we should and must be fully aware of all the phases connected with learning, unlearning and re- educating; especially the most important and damaging aspect viz.: negative diagrams percolating into our body/brain system and their conscious recall and re-education.

Under such circumstances, we again find certain communications or linkages we are (normally) not aware of and they seem to be " beyond the threshold of our awareness"; though from experience we know that such communications or linkages do exist and take place, say between the thinking instrument area and a point inside the up-keep area of the brain, when we notice that certain bad news create immediate and even serious pathological disturbances in an otherwise healthy normal person.

So it finally amounts to refining and upgrading our awareness; because awareness is an energy and so has three basic qualities of tamas, rajas, sattava i.e. inertia and passion, wild emotions and intellectual content. If you observe properly, all life is awareness in action. For such a basic and important factor, we are doing nothing to improve and upgrade. Depending on this code, structure and spectrum of our awareness will be the quality of our life and based on the grade of our awareness i.e. passive or low to active or high to very high leading to pure awareness state, will depend the quality of life also - this is inner evolution and does not depend on the outer evolution which science has helped to advance.

Outer evolution is not keeping step with this inner evolution. Without this inner evolution, man will become even worse than he is today. The majority today are man and woman, the animal, in human form. Please note that tamas and rajas i.e. non-refined sex and emotions, form the explosive energy of sensitiveness that explodes time and again and will ultimately ruin an individual. So if we are ready with refinement of awareness, then only can we proceed to up-grade awareness. Nature has so designed that without refining awareness, it can never be up-graded and all attempts to upgrade will be frustrated.

The necessary steps for refining are:

A) DRIFT WATCHING i.e. controlling the five mechanisms that lead to hindrances of sex, anger, ego, avarice, greed, passion, possessiveness i.e. change our false magnetic point

B) CORRECTIVE EXERCISES i.e. introduce corrective methods

C) REFINING EXERCISES i.e. daily practice the six vital exercises for breaking down emotional granthis formed in various parts of the body system

D) 3 STEP RHYTHMIC BREATHING i.e. practice as much as possible three step rhythmic breathing to come to at least eight hours a day. PLEASE do not proceed further if you are not honestly convinced that you have succeeded in refining

Now for a little explanation before we start the up-grading practices. An incident takes place:

(A) in our time/space concept,

(B) it takes place as an experience

Experience is the result of our awareness and the quality of our experience depends on the quality of our awareness i.e. we will miss some vital part of experience based on the degree of our awareness.

But out of (A) and (B), all of us are aware of time/space registration and as memory repeat what happened, for we cannot remain in the state of experience for more than a fraction of a moment: because we have never consciously tried. Whenever we are held in experience for a longer duration than a fraction of a moment, we find that we are lost to the immediate world around us for that duration.

Even in life's flashback of events reminded to us by a statement or by some occurrences, we tend to get lost for a moment or moments. This does mean in a way going back into the past and recalling emotional debris!

But if we can do this as if seeing in the mind's eye, after recalling the emotional debris and being not involved, but let it run out of the body/brain system harmlessly, it would be very helpful in our progress. If one is not involved in both the cases, via: (A) whenever emotional debris is recalled at the registration area or (B) when fresh in-coming impulses loaded with near identical memory patterns come to the registration area, one is able to throw out whatever that has reached the registration area and it would be most desirable. To be able to do this is not possible normally. To say it is very difficult is to put it mildly. So we need some technique to upgrade our awareness. But this must be done after refining awareness. Nothing can stand in the way of a person who has refined and properly upgraded awareness!

The technique which will now be shown is a beautiful exhilarating practice and once a little mastery is had, will lead to X-ray eyes that will be able to see thoughts and motives, incoming impulses and memory patterns, and through opaque objects and much more, because awareness has been refined and upgraded and so will become penetrative. But to avoid frustration, please refine awareness.

NOTE: The brain has to accept a humble attitude and no dramatics, no trespass into anyone's privacy, except with the honest purpose to study and help. If this promise is kept, progress will be deep and very satisfying.

Because up-grading of awareness is like giving nuclear arms in the hands of an undeveloped nation, such practices were never put on paper. Please co-operate with us and promise to refine awareness and never to put newfound powers to wrong use.

So an incident occurs and when experiencing, one gets lost to immediate surroundings for a fraction of a moment because awareness functions at a low level. Now we begin. We take aid of (for the time being) a prism till certain progress is made; after which we shall need nothing. Please do not talk of a crystal ball and such other devices used with certain motives. On the contrary, avoid them.

Step 1

Spread a clean white handkerchief on a table cleared of all other objects which would distract attention. Keep the prism on the handkerchief standing and not on its side, take a comfortable sitting position and look from above into the prism for a period of 5 minutes. Do not strain or stare, just look into the prism. Plaease remember; no thoughts, no motives, no expectations, no fears, no doubts, no hopes and no excitement of any sort. Be honest and do not let your imagination run wild from the first day. To facilitate close watching, the face may rest on the palms, the elbows on the table. In three to six months of practice, the prism will disappear from sight. Do not be disappointed if nothing happens day after day. Initially, as soon as one looks at the prism one becomes aware of drifts, since watching the prism is really watching oneself with the aid of a neutral object. In the beginning, there will be some reactions and responses to the memory - associated impulses, but these will gradually disappear, leading to attention that is steady and silent. Understand that the prism disappearing is not the purpose of this practice; the purpose is to just look into the prism. Whenever you are successful in the first step, the prism will disappear from your sight and only the handkerchief will remain, but within a moment the prism will reappear. Do not be disappointed because some disturbance of some sort is still there in your thinking instrument.

When there is a clear and undisturbed linkage of (1) the thinking instrument and (2) the point inside the upkeep area of the brain, the prism will disappear for as long a time as you will be able to maintain the linkage undisturbed. During the practice of the 1st step, you will not be aware of your immediate surroundings. Do not even try to be aware of the surroundings.

What is the purpose of the 1st step?

1) To so train the thinking instrument that it does not interfere with the up-keep area of the brain nor,

2) At the same time, though it receives continuously the incoming impulses which pull out near identical memory patterns, it just does not pay any attention to any of them and lack of attention will stop the I.E.S.M. centers from functioning, so that the incoming impulses and memory patterns flow out of the system without being developed or registered.

NOTE: Attention links the thinking instrument to the self-mind automatically and Itself mind thus involved operates the I.E.S.M. centers and does not remain a mere catalyst. This means that indirectly, the thinking instrument has the ability to bring about, or not, the functioning of the I.E.S.M. centers.

If the prism remains invisible for say ten seconds, which is a measure of success, continue practicing until the duration reaches one or two minutes, then go over to the second step i.e. after obtaining the ten second duration. Do not be over anxious and do not practice these steps unless refining exercises have been done earlier.

Step 2

Now spread the handkerchief on the floor with the prism on it, and instead of sitting in a chair, stand or lean leisurely against a wall and just look at the prism for 5 minutes. If short-sighted, sit in a chair instead of standing. In six months of practice, the prism will disappear form sight. Here too, you will not be aware of the immediate surrounding.

If the prism remains invisible for say ten seconds, which is a measure of success, continue practicing until duration reaches one to two minutes before going on to step three.

You are lucky if the 1st step is possible within six months of your daily training. You are more lucky if the 2nd step is possible within the next six months. Later on in life you should be able to maintain this posture of the thinking instrument when walking along the road inspite of all disturbances in your normal life.

Step 3

Spread the handkerchief on the table with the prism on it. Stand nearby, a foot away from the table, and in that position be aware of all that can be seen other than the prism. The prism must disappear from sight, yet all else around it that can be seen should remain visible at the same time. Both the standing position and the look are fixed. Do not move the eyeballs. Try to get a measure of success of duration ten seconds and continue practicing until the duration extends to one or two minutes.

Step 4

Stand 3 feet from a window and look out of it. What you see outside the window is one picture, what you see of the room is another picture. Now continue to just look (not stare) out of the window till you see nothing - the view disappears completely and it will be like seeing the sky. In the initial stages the room picture will also disappear, but one must remain aware of it. Do not. move your eyeballs. It may also happen that either of the pictures will disappear and come into view again. The window picture must disappear and the room picture be clearly seen at the same time. Get a measure of success, of duration 20 seconds, and continue practicing until the duration extends to 1 or 2 minutes.

Step 5

Walk on the footpath. Look in front of you and walk as if you are walking through a narrow passage 4 feet wide and 8 feet high (more or less) which is visible in front of you. The rest is like sky all around - it must disappear totally from your vision, yet all life in the passage in front of you, for say 50 yards, be clearly seen. Get a measure of success, of duration 30 seconds, and continue practicing until the duration extends to 1 or 2 minutes.

When you are through with all the 5 steps and have honestly succeeded in getting a measure of success with each, your thinking instrument will be a finely-tuned, well-trained one capable of forming and maintaining inner linkages. Your awareness has been refined and upgraded and made penetrative. If you can go so far and honestly (but after refining of awareness), you will be able to hear the nearest whisper at a distance, smell from a distance and will be able to taste without putting anything to your tongue. Besides, you will be ready for higher practices of scientific yoga. For your answers to questions and problems either for yourself or others, the normal thinking process is now not needed.

From the list of various drifts that repeat most frequently, we select a few of the most damaging emotions that disturb the mind, hurt the heart and have adverse effects on bodily health: fear of death, unhappiness, jealousy or need of wealth, hatred with or without revenge, known or unknown or unexplained fear, deceit of some sort, anger and irritability, and weakness for sex.

It is important in these exercises to understand the correct method as the memory pool section and the conscious mind are linked in a conscious effort to erase wrong memory patterns implanted sometime earlier in life, or in earlier lives, due to faulty living. The essential technique of voice modulation coupled with three-step rhythmic breathing is scientific and will definitely prove useful. It would be a mistake to dismiss these exercises as being similar to self-hypnosis through the parrot-like repetition of cliches.

(1) Take fear of death -- the corrective is hope. We read: `There is yet a world where souls are free, where tyrants taint not nature's bliss; if death that world's bright opening be, oh! who would live a slave in this?' Now think along this line: `Where there is life, there is hope, and we find that amidst dark days, man expects a brighter tomorrow.' Read the above quotation mentally at first, then repeat it a little aloud, and then still more loudly. In this way, first arouse the emotional centre; then the intellectual centre should be brought in. To do that, think along this line:

`There is a world you say where man has free will. Men cannot function without free will. In that world predestination by a separate authority does not thwart man's action. If we die in this world where there is no free will, we will be able to enter that world of free will. Therefore would you or anyone else ever like to be man the machine in this? Now what is this world and what is that world? There are no two such worlds geographically. The first world is the world of man who has not yet reached a critical certain stage. We have been satisfied to note that in all creation God and Nature have bestowed free will and man, really speaking, is free. The critical point is establishing one's self as shown in diagram 3a.

`Now who are the tyrants that taint Nature's bliss? They could be the emotional, sex and movement centres oppressing the intellect and keeping it in bondage. The greatest of such tyrants is our perverted free will that has already established itself so firmly, so as to do the very things we would not like to do and forcing us not to do the things we want to do. We can be free. We just have the simple rules of life to follow.'

Read the quotation again mentally, then a little aloud, then still more loudly, and finally softly and very softly. Ask yourself in which world would you like to live. When you have done this, close your eyes and relax for two minutes. Do nothing and think of nothing else, only continue the three-step rhythmic breathing. When you open your eyes you will see a better person. Repeat this daily.

(2) Take unhappiness -- the corrective is happiness. We read: `There is in man a higher than love of happiness; he can do without happiness and instead find blessedness.' Repeat this quotation mentally at first, then a little aloud, and then still more loudly. In this way, we first arouse or work up the emotional centre; then the intellectual centre is to be brought in. Think along this line:

`We live in this world normally for happiness. Everyone does that, man, woman or child. Our search for happiness takes us by different roads. We mean no actual harm even though in our search for happiness we may hurt others. Such who hurt others are called selfish and mean, and even criminals. The only pity is that their conception of happiness is all wrong, but fundamentally it is in hope that they all live and for happiness they all search. Most of us define happiness by living well, good food, clothes, accommodation, sleep, time to spend in fun and merrymaking. But this is a sure sign of mental immaturity. There is something higher than such happiness. We can certainly do without such happiness and with discipline and a balanced inner and outer life instead find blessedness, freedom and real use of free will.'  

Read the above quotation mentally, then a little aloud, then still more loudly, and finally softly and very softly. Then close your eyes and relax for two minutes. Do nothing and think of nothing else, only continue the three-step rhythmic breathing. When you open your eyes you will see a better person. Observe yourself in the mirror after both the exercises. Repeat this daily.

(3) Do you suffer from envy or jealousy? Does a thought such as the following one, if not to the same intensity but to a lesser intensity, cross your mind? `Why should he have power and wealth and I be left to plod along with the man in the street? Why must I accept this unfair living? I will steal or do worse for I must get for me fortune.'  

When reading a quotation, or creating a suitable one to suit yourself, remember that the quotations can be of two types: displaying noble thoughts as in the previous two cases or displaying mean thoughts as in this case. There are, therefore, two ways of handling the emotional centre: (i) when the emotional centre is depressed, as in the first two cases, and (ii) when the emotional centre is already aroused to high negative intensity as in this case. Therefore, the emotional centre is to be taken by the hand, so to say, towards high positive intensity from two different points in two different ways. In the first two cases, we read more and more loudly, and then softly and still more softly; in this case we read without emotion -- coldly, seriously and hardly audibly. This rhythm is very important. This technique of raising low negative intensities or reducing high negative intensities must be properly understood and followed.

In the present case, read (the above thought) as you would a text book, seriously and coldly. Now look into the mirror and read again. Visualize a person you respect and in his visualized presence ask mentally, `Is there something for nothing?' Ask again a little louder, and then very softly. Close your eyes and relax for two minutes. Do nothing and think of nothing else, only continue the three-step rhythmic breathing. When you open your eyes you will see a better person. Repeat this daily.

(4) Do you suppose you suffer from hatred? Does a thought such as the following, if not to the same intensity but to a lesser intensity, cross your mind? `If I catch him once upon the hip, I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him.'

Here is shown a second method for handling aroused emotions as in case (3) above. In this case, as in (3) above, read the following thought aloud and with the same aroused intensity: `While yet I have time to make restitution for all the wrongs I have done, I will undo them and ask forgiveness from God.' Ask yourself, `Will it not be better if I ask forgiveness from him?' Repeat this a little aloud, then repeat it softly and then very softly. Close your eyes and relax for two minutes. Do nothing and think of nothing else, only continue the three-step rhythmic breathing. When you open your eyes, you will see a better person. Repeat this daily.

(5) Do you suffer from unexplained fear? It does not matter whether it is fear of the unknown, economic fears, fear of health or over someone's safety. It matters not for what reason, if it is fear you experience and experience this sensation near about the solar plexus.  

Sit before a mirror and look at yourself. Ask yourself whether knowingly and on purpose you have done harm to anyone. Search not for a reply. Now read slowly and a little aloud pronouncing well each word: `You cannot scare a man who is at peace with God, his fellow men and himself.' Read a little more loudly, then softly and then very softly.

Think along this line: `It cannot be that you have done wrong to yourself or to your fellow men or to God. No, it cannot be, at least you have never meant it. It is childish and foolish in this world, in our time and in our age, to even think of harm to anyone, we who are living in the age of the atom.' Read these lines again aloud, then more loudly, then softly and very softly. Close your eyes and relax for two minutes. Do nothing and think of nothing else, only continue the three-step rhythmic breathing. When you open your eyes, you will see a better person and you will not find where that fear is. Repeat this daily.

(6) Suppose the weakness predominant is deceit of some sort. In this case sit before a mirror, look at your face and read loudly pronouncing each word clearly: `Every man takes care that his neighbour does not cheat him. But a day comes when he begins to care that he does not cheat his neighbour.' Read again a little louder and then even more loudly. Look into the mirror and read softly again, and then even more softly.

Think along this line: `How wonderful the day when each of us will take care of our neighbour. That day cannot be far off. We are not wild animals in some big game preserve under natural surroundings. It should be possible not only for our neighbour but for any other person to be perfectly at ease and at peace with us and we with them. In our age, which is without a doubt completely different from all that has been in the past, and tomorrow it will be yet more grand and different, we must adjust and change, not only outwardly but as much and more inwardly to live truly.' Read again a little loudly, then softly and then even more softly. Close your eyes and relax for two minutes. Do nothing and think of nothing else, only continue the three-step rhythmic breathing. When you open your eyes, you will see a different person. Repeat this daily.

(7) Do you, dear reader, suffer from anger and irritability? Does a thought like, `I will never see his face again' or `I will never step into your house again for you are accursed' or `I loathe you in my bosom, I scorn you with my eyes' come to you?  

From the sparrow, the meek dove and the domesticated dog to the king cobra, the tiger and the lion, none is free from this greatly dreaded disease in man. Whether he is small and weak or big and strong, man is at once quick to temper and display anger. If this be your failing then, how long do you wish to be listed with the birds the animals? For what art thou a human being? But, you say, you have tried so often to curb it and have failed; rightly so, for you have used your will and that is one sure way of failing always.

Speak out the above thought again, slowly and coldly in a low voice. Now think of all your trespasses, both mental and physical, all the trespasses known to you about yourself. Think of God, or that power by whatever name you would understand, saying the same words to you, and yet know that the power has patience with you and can bear with you and your trespasses, but you would not be tolerant!

Now slowly, but in an audible voice, say, `Lord forgive them for they know not what they do.' Repeat slowly and loudly, and then yet more loudly. Imagine the scene of the crucifixion and the compassionate face of the Christ on the cross. Once again say it aloud and then softly and still more softly. Close your eyes and relax for two minutes. Do nothing and think of nothing else, only continue the three-step rhythmic breathing. When you open your eyes, you will find a different person. Repeat this daily.

8) Weakness for sex: Suppose you suffer from the very overpowering and natural weakness of sex and it is oft times so bad that you wonder why you cannot discriminate age, family relation or social status, place and time of day or night. You are a married man or woman with a family and yet this weakness haunts you. Only, you are careful not to be exposed. Mentally you try that from tomorrow it shall not be so, but you find that `tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time.'

Sit in front of a mirror and look at yourself. Visualize your wife and children around you. Then softly say, `This above all, to thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.' Repeat a little loudly, then yet more loudly, and then softly and still more softly. Visualize your wife and family around you. After doing this look into the mirror and say: `Give me that man who is not passion's slave and I will wear him in my heart's core, aye in my heart of hearts.' Repeat it softly and once again more softly. Look into the mirror and say in a firm clear tone, `I am that man!' Repeat a little loudly, then softly and then yet more softly. Close your eyes and relax. Do nothing and think of nothing else, only  continue the three-step rhythmic breathing. When you open your eyes again, you will see a different person. Repeat this daily.

After all the corrective exercises are over, include this quotation just before the final thought sets in: "Then will come a calm such as comes in a tropical country after the heavy rains, when nature works so swiftly that one may see her action. Such a calm will come to the harassed spirit and in the deep silence that follows the mysterious event will occur which will prove that the way has been found, call it by what name you will."