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PHYSICAL TONE

Categories: Chapter I - The Twin-Verses
Books: Mastery of Self

It would seem almost unnecessary to suggest the ordinary regimes

for health of body Nevertheless, I shall refer to these regimes

because, first, their importance cannot be overestimated, and

secondly because they involve certain laws of laws in relation to

health which are seldom worked out in hygienic instruction



What may be called the laws of laws of health would seem to be as

follows:
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Scrupulous Cleanliness of the Body, Without and Within, Makes

for Royal Health-Tone The law should be given rational, not

slavish, obedience Your body and your deeper self are in a

constant state of interaction Material uncleanness consented to

contaminates that self Uncleanness of the self also contaminates

the body The white life requires the clean dress of honored

flesh You are invited, therefore, to affirm always and

practically,



This robe I wear of unsoiled flesh

Keeps mind and spirit ever fresh



Sweet, Sound and Early Sleep Gives the Universal Forces their

Perfect Opportunity for Good During sleep the Universal Thought

strives to restore, as our conditions permit, harmony of

vibrations between its manifests in matter within the body and its

manifests in the non-material self The degree of harmony is made

less in all cases by centuries of wrong living, the effects of

which are more or less accumulated by inheritance in every man and

woman (right living, however, promising in the future perfect

freedom there-from on earth), and by the disturbing power of

individual wrong living In order, then, to secure the best

results of sleep, our waking thought should be kept in attune, by

all practical as well as by all idealizing methods, with reality,

truth, beauty and goodness You are invited, for the reason

suggested, to live during the day in such a manner that your last

fearless thought at night may be,



"Let my soul walk softly in me,

Like a saint in heaven unshod,

For to be alone with Silence

Is to be alone with God"



The Utility of Nourishment Issues From Conformity to the Plan

of the Universal Forces for Each Individual For every human body

there is a plan on which it is intended to be evolved and

maintained The individual plan is merely a variation of the

general plan of our common human nature That general plan

provides for certain foods and kinds of drink, for the manner in

which they are to be taken and digested, and for their utilization

in building and sustaining the body This general plan is varied

for different persons in the primary intention of the nature of

things Your food and drink, therefore, should depend upon your

own peculiar needs The science of the matter investigates the

kinds of nourishment which you in particular require and advises

all items furnishing the material elements you demand But some

individual variations, in respect to questions of taste,

usefulness and harmfulness, digestibility and adaptation, are

undoubtedly results of restrained liberty and wrong thought-life

in the past, either of your ancestors or of yourself That degree

of liberty, therefore, which ought to be yours, has perhaps, come

to be more or less limited It is possible for you to secure a

desirable enlargement of freedom with regard to food and drink Of

course you have no liberty in the way of natural poisons and

beverages which dethrone common sense Aside from the limits set

by Nature, you may acquire the largest measure of personal freedom

in the matter if you will determine therefor in the exercise of

sound reason I have had my experience with things not liked and

things harmful--apricots, chickens, salmon---and today I eat all

that's eatable by civilized man, and I drink whatever I choose to

drink--alcohol tabooed because I want and need all the brains I

possess It is for you to bring yourself more nearly to the

original plan for human bodies in this respect, if you will begin

with your inner thought-life and proceed more or less in the

following manner:



(a) By insisting upon a LARGER FREEDOM, not in the way of

demanding one thing or another, but in the way of realizing in

your deeper self the idea of power therefor;



(b) By endeavoring constantly to bring your thought-life more and

more into HARMONY WITH THE WHITE LIFE IN NATURE;



(c) By affirming that the food and drink of which you partake

will surely MAKE FOR HEALTH and buoyancy of the body; not merely

stating the proposition, but, while so partaking, believing the

truth and assuming it to be true--actual for you;



(d) By manifesting at all times the mood of blended COURAGE,

hope, CONFIDENCE, HAPPINESS;



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