How to Stay Well
	Practical Helps To Good Health <  Previous Contents

It is the belief of many that no one can expect to be perfectly and permanently well unless he has a very high understanding of truth and life, and that such an understanding is very difficult to secure; but this is all a mistake. The path to health is not difficult; neither must one be a spiritual giant to remain permanently well. Anyone can keep himself free from disease by simply giving his system a reasonable opportunity to do its work right.

Before proceeding to apply the metaphysical process in the cure of disease, place yourself in a state of perfect peace, and the more deeply this peace is felt, the better. The deep, silent forces are the most powerful, therefore we should not begin this important work without placing ourselves in what may be termed the deep soul calm.

Simply being quiet is a powerful treatment in itself; and there are a great many ailments that require nothing else. The daily practice of being perfectly still in mind and body while the silent forces from within are given free expression through every part of the system, is one of the best preservers of health that can be found. Ten or fifteen minutes of this practice two or three times a day will, under commonsense living, keep any person in perpetual health.

When undesirable symptoms are felt in the system, they should be attended to at once. No one would ever be sick if this were done, because it is not difficult to nip a disease in the bud. The first thing, of course, is to have no fear. Know that you are master of the situation; then proceed to exercise your mastership. Live in the strong mental attitude of supremacy.

Have faith in yourself and turn attention upon that inner, higher power that never fails. Awaken your consciousness of the perfect being, and try to feel the fullness of life that is always in health and wholeness. Know that the physical discord you have noticed is as nothing in the presence of real life, and that discord will at once be transformed into health and harmony.

When symptoms of weakness appear, give the entire system, especially the mind, a complete rest for a few hours. Enter a deeply-felt, silent attitude, breathe deeply and quietly, and think only of peace. It is remarkable how easily and quickly strength can be regained and the system recuperated by this simple method, and if practiced whenever necessary you will never lose any time from your work. When weakness is felt, however, we should not give up to it nor permit ourselves to feel weak. This will make the mind negative and make matters worse. Simply rest the body, and hold the mind easily and quietly in the consciousness of unbounded life and power, and what you become conscious of will immediately begin to express itself in mind and body.

Get rid of the idea that you have to take something when you do not feel well. This is simply a bad habit, and tends to give your mind the tendency to depend upon the limitations of things instead of upon the boundless power that is within you. You do not have to take anything if you give nature a chance to remedy the wrong in the beginning. Nature can do this, provided physical nature and metaphysical nature are taught to work together. There are no objections to taking medicine.

Medicines are frequently required, and what people require they ought to have; but to burden the system with indigestible and poisonous drugs simply because you think you need those things is to take a path that leads directly away from health.

To secure health and preserve health it is absolutely necessary to be in harmony with everything. Discord breeds sickness and trouble every time, therefore avoid it at any cost. Be in harmony with your work and with your environments, even though you may have to blind yourself to certain things that are not as they ought to be. Be in harmony with the people with whom you associate, even though you have to let them all have their way about most things.

Go their way when necessary to secure peace, and if you are living an ideal life at the same time you will gradually reach that higher scale in life that will give you a superiority which everybody will recognize. Then you will find that by living in harmony at all times you have increased your power and worth to such a degree that instead of being compelled to follow others for the sake of peace, others will be more than happy to follow you.

Superiority and worth will invariably secure leadership in time; and to live always in harmony is to place your system in a condition where it can readily build itself up until greater worth is obtained.

When we are dealing with our own ills, or with those of others, it is necessary to pay as little attention as possible to the appearance of things. No matter how serious things may look from the standpoint of the person, the fact remains that the real man is well, and the perfect health of the real man can be brought out into the personal man if he will continue to give the real man full and constant recognition. What we fully recognize we become conscious of, and what we become conscious of we tend to express in mind and body.

The habit of magnifying a symptom with the mind should never, be permitted, because the most insignificant trouble may in this way become intense and even overpowering. The mind gives added life to whatever we think about deeply, and whatever the mind magnifies in imagination will grow and develop. For this reason, when threatening symptoms appear we should think as little of them as possible, and we should train ourselves to look upon them as mere nothings that will soon pass away.

The fact that we give life to whatever we think about, reveals a law that can be used to great advantage in building ourselves up physically and mentally; and that everything in mind or body develops when magnified in the imagination is another law that contains remarkable possibilities. We have, however, employed these laws to our disadvantage most of the time. We have magnified our fears, while our faith has been pictured upon the smallest possible scale. This process, however, must be reversed. It is our faith in the good that must be enlarged, while our fears of ills and troubles should be made as small and as insignificant as nothingness itself.

There is a current belief among many that when you have a fair understanding of metaphysics you can do as you please; that is, that you may violate the laws of life without feeling any ill effects therefrom; but few fallacies could be greater than this, and among a certain class of metaphysical students than this, there is no greater obstacle to freedom and growth.

Our object in seeking truth, and a greater understanding of all things, physical and metaphysical, is that we may know how to live in harmony with all the laws of life, because it is from such living alone that we can secure emancipation and perpetual ascension into the greater and the greater good.

When you violate the laws of life you will reap the consequences, no matter how learned you may be in any or all of the higher wisdoms. You may rise above the laws of man, and as you advance into a higher state of being you may cease to be subject to the laws of the lower states, but the new sphere of action also has its laws, and these laws must be lived or there will be pain and death as before. We never get away from law, nor do we desire to do so. On the contrary, our desire is to learn how to use law.

The belief that laws are heartless taskmasters is also without foundation. A law is simply a path that leads to greater things; therefore to follow a law is to rise in the scale, to pass from the lesser to the greater. Every, law is so constituted that when we move forward in harmony with that law we find greater freedom and greater increase, but when we go contrary to that law we invariably meet bondage and failure. The great secret of life is, therefore, to follow all the laws of life, and thus move forward at all times and in all things.

In many instances disease is simply the result of inharmonious conditions in the body, and all that is necessary to remove both the disease and its cause, is to restore harmony. It can be truthfully said that fully twenty per cent of the ordinary ailments of life would entirely disappear if perfect harmony was restored to mind and body. Realizing this, we must not permit ourselves to develop any fear of discord. The fear of discord is worse than the discord itself; and the fear of fear is worse than the fear itself. We should therefore ignore all those conditions completely.

We all know that grief may change the color of the hair, and we also know that a change of color means a chemical change, which proves that a state of mind can produce a chemical change in the body; but this particular chemical change is not the only change that can be produced by grief. Experiments have proved that grief frequently changes the very nature of the vital forces, making the positive forces negative, and thereby placing the system in a condition that is entirely helpless.

Nothing wastes life and vitality like grief; and there is nothing that produces so much disease as lack of vital energy. We therefore cannot afford to grieve, nor is there any reason why we ever should grieve. We grieve simply because we do not understand things. To understand all things is to know that all things are well and that there is no occasion for worry. To permit tears at any time or under any circumstances is to ignore the higher light of life and replace the greater love by the lesser love. There is a better way to show your love and respect than to grieve and we can all find that better way.

All depressing states of mind, such as regrets, despondency, gloom, despair, and the like, must also be avoided completely. They invariably produce weakness in mind or body, and frequently are the direct causes of serious ills. We should train ourselves to be stronger than appearances, and we will not feel depressed. If we fail today, we shall succeed tomorrow, provided we look upon the failure as an opportunity and count everything joy. When we understand life we shall always be happy, no matter what comes.

We shall then realize that all things are working together for greater good, if greater good is our purpose, and that unpleasant experiences come simply to shake us out of the old ruts. The best of us will get into grooves at times and feel it our religious duty to stay there; but man was not made for grooves; neither were grooves made for man.

Thousands of people think they have heart disease; and are living in constant fear of death; but there is no cause for alarm. What is usually thought to be heart disease is simply the result of a poor digestion disturbing that part of your body. The remedy, therefore, is to begin to live in poise and to correct your digestion. You will then find that your heart disease will mysteriously disappear. To attain poise, learn to live the serene life, and combine the serene life with the strong, positive life.

When we live constantly in the attitude of poise we shall never feel weak nor tired. The system will always be full of life, and the fullness of life is the very best preventive of disease that has ever been discovered.

When threatening symptoms appear; eat less, drink more water, breathe more, move to the sunny side of life, have abundance of faith in the supremacy of the good, and give yourself a substantial metaphysical treatment every hour or two. You will soon restore perfect order in every part of your system. When there is anything wrong with the digestive system divide your meals in two. This will not do any harm, because all of us could live and flourish on one fourth of what we usually eat. Give the digestive system less work to do for a few days, and with the power of your thought cause the circulation to increase all through the abdominal region. You will soon feel entirely well, and feel much stronger than you ever felt before.

In the cure of any disease, the subconscious mind is a very important factor, for in many instances the body is ailing simply because adverse impressions have been given to the subconscious. You may have an idea that you cannot eat certain things. That idea may be correct, though the probabilities are that it is not. It may simply be a subconscious impression that makes you believe that you cannot eat that particular thing, and the subconscious responds by causing your system to revolt whenever that particular thing is taken.

The moment, however, that you impress the subconscious with the fact that you can eat that particular thing, the subconscious will place the physical system in a condition where that particular thing will be accepted and digested without any trouble whatever. The subconscious mind can do practically anything along these lines, and it always obeys every idea that you deeply or intensely feel, or that you positively believe to be true.

Impress the subconscious with the firm conviction that you can eat anything, that you can digest and assimilate perfectly every nutritious element that is taken into the system, and that you can properly eliminate all indigestible elements without discomfort to the body. Impress the subconscious with the conviction that you will never require medicine any more, and that sickness will never again enter your body. Then impress health, strength, power, peace, poise and harmony upon the subconscious, and continue to impress those states and qualities until you actually feel that they have become a permanent part of yourself. The subconscious will not fail to bring forth according to the seed you have sown.

Whether you are trying to remove threatening symptoms or chronic ailments of long standing, there is nothing that will prove more helpful than the conscious directions of the finer forces of the system in the creating of perfect health. To simply feel the finer vibrations of life force that are back of, and within any part of the body where there may be pain will cause that pain to disappear. A sickly feeling throughout the system will take flight instantly if we cause the finer vibrations to become active in every part of the body, and old chronic troubles will become airy nothings under the influence of these powerful forces. The reason why is very simple.

These finer forces when placed in action can undermine the very foundation of disease and cut it loose, so to speak, from its foothold in the system. Besides, the ordinary malady is not one-tenth as serious as it appears to be. It is at best founded upon sand, and can easily be removed if we go about it properly.

The average disease would be practically harmless if it were not for the life and the power that it receives from the patient. We magnify our ills, and thus make them worse, and we increase their life and power by living for them and placing ourselves at their mercy. If we would look upon an ailment as insignificant, and then proceed to arouse the finer elements and forces of mind and body, those elements that can undermine and remove any conditions, we would soon restore perfect health and order.

To be able to prevent ourselves from giving life and thought to adverse conditions is a great secret, and it is accomplished by turning attention to the inner, finer side of being. It is here that faith becomes such a remarkable power, because through the attitude of faith the mind goes beyond the things that are in the seeming, and enters into that sublime state where everything is always well. In this connection we should remember to give our thought and our life to the higher, and the higher will give its wisdom and its power to us in return.

Never begin any thought or action without recognizing the presence of higher power. We are all living in a great sea of limitless power, and we may consciously draw upon that power whenever we recognize it sufficiently to feel its presence. The more power we possess, the more we can accomplish and the sooner we shall gain complete emancipation, if that is our purpose in view. It is very unwise, therefore, to proceed with a small amount when we can, through the proper conscious effort, appropriate a much greater measure.

One of the greatest essentials in the application of the metaphysical process, whether our desire is better health or more life, is to depend absolutely upon the power of the spiritual elements in human existence. Material elements and material means have their place and value.

If not for all, they do for the majority; but the power of the spiritual is infinitely greater than that of the tangible. It is therefore unwise to fritter away our time with the small when we are prepared to receive and apply that which is so very large. Let those who are unable to understand the spiritual have the material for the present, but let those who can understand the spiritual go to the spiritual for all things and at all times.

The reason why a number of aspiring souls fail to reach the heights is simply this: that they give too much thought to things, thereby limiting consciousness according to the measure of things. So long as we depend upon small things we shall remain small, but when we look to the larger life that is within us, we shall become larger and larger in proportion to our understanding of that life. Our capacity is no larger than our consciousness, and consciousness is only as large as our understanding of that upon which we depend.

Therefore the sooner we can learn to depend absolutely upon the limitless the better; and this is especially true in the application of metaphysical and spiritual means to the attainment of health.

Resolve to gain your power, your freedom, your health, your peace, your wisdom, your everything from the infinite source, and do not change your mind for a moment. Whatever comes or not, live in the perfect faith that the infinite source cannot fail, no matter how great your deeds or demands may be, and you shall have the joy to witness another great victory.

Where faith in the boundlessness and the power of the spiritual is absolute, failure becomes impossible. It is the trembling faith that fails; it is the anxious mind that falls down; and it is material thought that obstructs the way to complete emancipation. On the other hand, when good judgment declares that physical remedies are required, we should not hesitate to employ them. We should, however, continue to impress our minds more and more deeply with the great truth that the greater life within us is sufficient.

When a person trains himself to depend absolutely upon spiritual means, he steadily enters more deeply into spiritual life and consciousness, and therefore gains possession of higher spiritual powers; and to possess such powers is to possess the greatest remedy in the world. Experience has demonstrated in thousands of the most difficult cases that when the spiritualising process began in the system, disease simply was compelled to take its departure.

No disease can possibly exist where the spiritual forces are acting with full expression. Those forces invariably bring health, strength, wholeness and vigor wherever they may go; and we should always bear in mind the great truth that the powers of those forces have no limitation whatever.