LESSON FOUR
1. Yoga is an ancient philosophy of India.
2. A Yogi is one who makes a practice of that philosophy.
3. An adept is a Yogi who has become proficient in the practice of that philosophy.
4. A master, who may equally be female or male, is a Yogi who has apparently conquered the forces of nature and thus seems to work miracles, although simply putting into practice universal laws which she or he has come to understand,
5. This person has acquired the wisdom with which to manipulate the invisible forces of nature.
6. This person knows that the invisible controls the visible, that it is the mind that controls the human, the steam that controls the engine, the electrical reactions which control most of the industrial processes in the world today.
7. The objective is the visible, the subjective is the invisible. The objective and subjective mutually interact upon each other; but the power is in the subjective. There can be no changes in the objective without change first occurring in the subjective.
8. You can, if you will, even in the most antagonistic environment, rise above all external influences and this is one of the greatest and most important teachings of occultism.
9. Yoga is the science which develops the capacity of the human mind to respond to higher vibrations.
10. In fact, it makes one a receiving as well as a broadcasting station of radio activity with the mind as the aerial.
11. One can thus receive the unspoken thoughts of others from any distance.
12. One can also broadcast one’s own thoughts and assist others spiritually or guide them when they are in difficulty.
13. All the miracles performed by the long line of saints, saviours and sages of all times and in all places, were due to the knowledge of this, the greatest of all sciences,
14. It is the science which leads the initiate by easy gradation to the height of self-realization, finally to stand face to face with the object of the search.
15. What the Western world calls Ether, the Yogi calls Prana.
16. Prana is the substance from which and by which is evolved everything that we call energy, power or force.
17. The ability to understand the laws governing this prana therefore opens the door to unlimited possibilities.
18. With breath, physical life begins, and with breath physical life ends. The breath, therefore, controls life or the internal nature.
19. The first inhalation infuses life, and the infant becomes a living entity. On the wings of the last exhalation the spark of life departs leaving behind a cold corpse of what was a little while ago, a child, a youth or an aged person.
20. These facts reveal that breathing which we regard as a commonplace thing, and which is shared by all living things, is a subject of supreme importance, which deserves the most serious study of every enlightened person.
21. More than thirty centuries ago, the sages of India discovered that not only life, but health, longevity, wisdom, spiritual attainment and success depended upon certain processes which are governed by immutable cosmic laws.
22. They discovered the causes of the external effects of breath upon the physical organism, Then after a detailed study of the laws governing breath, they were able to bring about desired effects, by an intelligent control of breath.
23. By the control of breath, they retained health, virility, and youth, they attained to all wisdom and sublimated heights of spiritual grandeur; and they could prolong life indefinitely.
24. The internal nature is in direct contact with all nature, all persons and all things, and for this reason the individual who conquers the internal nature controls the whole universe: it becomes a servant.
25. These lessons will give you the various methods of gaining this control.
26. Higher forces than we know in physical nature will be subdued. The body is but the externalization of the mind. They are not different things; they are but two aspects of one thing.
27. The physical body is an electrical dynamo, and the astral body is simply the magnetic field of the individual. The Hindu sages after much investigation and experimentation found that the planetary vibrations which reach us in invisible waves of different wave-lengths changed the polarity and valency of the astral body which controls all subconscious activities of the physical body.
28. They also found that a change in the polarity or valency of the astral body caused a radical and contemporaneous change in the breath flow. Thus it was discovered that the vibratory energy which emanates from the planets regulates the flow of the breath.
29. This in turn affects all other subconscious activities, which brings about similar changes in the thought of the individual.
30. The change in thought influences the operation of the magnetic law of attraction and repulsion, thus the person is drawn into a different environment, meeting with failure or success, sorrow or happiness, loss or gain, disease or health.
31. Thus the Yogi sages discovered that every thought changes the polarity and valency of the astral body.
32. As it is possible to regulate the though! activities, a scepter of power has been placed in the hands of those who arc initiated into the mysteries of Yogi philosophy, by which they can become the architects of their own fortune and consciously control their health, conditions and experiences.
33. Let us see just how this is done. In the first place, rhythmical breathing causes all the molecules in the body to take the same direction, that induces an electrical currenl which changes mind into Will, because the nerves show polarity under the action of electric currents.
34. When all the motions of the body have become perfectly rhythmical, the body has become a gigantic battery of Will. This tremendous Will is exactly what the Yogi wants, because Will is concentrated thought, which impregnates the Astral Body,
35. The astral body, being composed of ethereal substance of a very high rate of vibration is in direct contact with all other ethereal substance and with every other astral body in the same rate of vibration, just as a radio receiver can be attuned to any vibrations in the ether of the same wave-length.