Corrective Exercises
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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."