Steadfastness

“ We have evidently tapped a level of new energy, masked until then by the fatigue obstacle usually obeyed. There may be layer after layer of this experience. A third and fourth wind may supervene. Mental activity shows the phenomenon as well as physical, and in exceptional cases we may find, beyond the very extremity of fatigue distress, amounts of ease and power that we never dreamed ourselves to own—sources of strength habitually not taxed at all, because habitually we never push through the obstruction, never pass those early critical points. ”

“ Starvation may kill off your body but not fasting. Deny the power of all disease and weakness over yourself. Your mind is master of your body. Assert this mental control. Lastly, during a fast, your body is sensitive to your suggestions. Fill your mind with incessant affirmations of courage. Think courage, say courage, act courage. Take time by the forelock. Force your suggestions upon body and brain right now.
HOW TO BREAK A FAST. When breaking a fast, be sure to control re-action. Eat very lightly and only sensible food. ”

“ With fasting, breathing, thinking, tensing we take off the old food body, which has in it the lines of our past thinking and acting, and with our new wisdom, born from this higher revelation, we get out of Nature’s way and let her forces order for us a new outfitting, and this may be of any style or texture we decide. We are the highest expression of intelligence on this planet. It is for us to command–all the elemental minds of nature must take our orders, they cannot choose but obey. ”

“ Well may the rapidity of thought be employed as a synonym for the uttermost conception of speed. Simultaneously with the tremendous mental shock of beholding this man again under such horrible, such undreamed-of circumstances—above the resultant seeming cessation of all the wheels of life within her body, the sudden uncontrollable shivering that shook her from head to foot—she became conscious that her brain was frantically urging her to instantly do something by which to account for this physical agitation—something to explain this uncontrollable display of emotion. ”

“ But it often happens that a sudden thought crosses your mind like lightning: “Suppose my strength failed me!” From that time you hurry your movements, you redouble your speed, the water no longer sustains you, you flounder about, and, if a helping hand were not by, you would be lost. ”

“ There is no use fasting without the VISION and this begins on the Mental plane,–it is built by thought. All the fasting of the past was, to a certain extent, futile just because those who fasted never knew that they had to destroy completely the mental picture, before they could set in a new one. ”

“ Return again to the light heart of youth, if you do it with tears in your eyes and a smile that you cultivate. Come out from under your load of responsibility; slip it onto the universal shoulders. Often after a true fast we will find that it has slipped off forever. ”

“ He seemed made to run on for ever. His iron-like body ignored fatigue. And even after fatigue came, his heritage of endurance braced him to endless endeavour and enabled him to drive his complaining body onward. ”

“ It is the universal habit to hold on to one’s self with a grip that would almost lift one’s weight, muscles tightened, nerves strained to no purpose. The mind is too eager and fast for the body. The result is exhaustion.”
“How shall it be avoided? Take the will out of the body when it is not in action. In walking, let the lower limbs do the work; the arms have nothing to do: let them be carried as attachments, pendulums if you will, but at rest.” Let the hands fall easily when sitting in carriage, street car, or drawing-room. ”

“ Any one who will fast once a month under full instructions, projecting the VISION power fully from and in his mind, can, in one year, and often in less time than this, change his whole body and environment, bringing himself, out of impossible conditions, a world of beauty, freedom and peace.
The VISION is the beginning and the end of fasting, even after the fast is over, the one who lives constantly under the vision of health, wealth, love and service will find that his steps are led closely in these paths and as he thinks, he is. ”

“ But we were not doing that; we were in constant motion. The arduous exercise that we were undergoing, our fatigue, the anxieties and fears that preyed upon the mind—each was contributing its quota to the dire and steady work of enervation. ”

“ There are those who have fasted outside of instructions, with just a little learning, never acquainting themselves with the real meaning of the Fast, then when they have come upon some unexplainable phenomena in mind and body they have laid the blame on fasting, when in fact it was only their own ignorant use of a great Cosmic Law. ”

“ At the rate of about a mile and a half an hour, I observed several hundred quiet people crawling through and fretting away that portion of their existence which lay between one glass of cold iron water and another. If an individual were to be sentenced to such a life, which, in fact, has all the fatigue without the pleasing sociability of the treadmill, he would call it melancholy beyond endurance ”

“ With the infinite slowness of exhaustion, his feet moved, dragged, went forward, while ever at his back those other lifeless feet rose and fell in a grotesque travesty of life, of movement, spurring forward his all but fainting soul. ”

“ No man or woman should be allowed to put a patient through a fast who has himself always yielded to the slightest weakness of his own mind and flesh, but the new psychology will be in the hands of Initiates who have themselves been over every step of the transmutation path. ”

“ I now pursued my course the remainder of the night with renewed courage and strength, although so very lame, foot sore, and so much exhausted that, in lying down to refresh myself, I could not again rise and put myself in motion short of extraordinary and repeated exertion, sometimes having to crawl on my hands and knees till I could get sufficiently limbered to arise and walk, and frequently staggering and falling in the attempt. ”

“ And even when such exertion produces no visible effect, (as when we press our two hands violently together, so as just to oppose each other’s effort,) we still perceive, by the fatigue and exhaustion, and by the impossibility of maintaining the effort long, that something is going on within us, of which the mind is the agent, and the will the determining cause. This impression87 which we receive of the nature of force, from our own effort and our sense of fatigue, is quite different from that which we obtain of it from seeing the effect of force exerted by others in producing motion. ”

“ It is remarkable, also, that while you continue working you do not feel the fatigue so much, but as soon as you sit down you are assailed with increased weariness; you feel powerless and exhausted and have no strength or energy left. ”

“ A little closer study of the phenomena of walking will show us that it absorbs a considerable quantity of force that does not appear in speed. It is not simply a uniform transportation of the body along an horizontal line; but at each step the body is raised, and falls again. The incessant repetition of the lifting is a great cause of fatigue. ”

“ Her movements would be very slow and deliberate and a little tired, as if gently, almost imperceptibly, she were laying down the burden of her life and allowing herself, just for a few moments, the luxurious restfulness of fatigue. ”

“ Chapter Eighteen.
Spa, June 10.
Here we are, and for a time at rest. Rest! no, the wheels of the carriage may rest, even the body for a time may rest, but the mind will not. We carry our restlessness with us wherever we go. Like a steam-engine, the mind works, and works, and works, sometimes, indeed, with less rapidity of motion; but still it goes on, goes on in its ever-continued labour; waking or sleeping, no repose; until the body, which is the mechanical part of the engine, is worn out by constant friction, or the steam of the mind is exhausted. ”

“ The experience of fatigue, or tiring, offers a striking example of the law. It is an experiment within everybody's power. Put out the arm, leaving it to sustain its own weight. It will not be long before the not unsatisfactory sensation got from integrating the vigorous muscular co-ordinations decreases; the feeling will shortly turn into one of discomfort; if the position be preserved it will become painful. Rapidly the experience will be that of torment, and it is possible to make the pain acummulate to agony. What has happened to cause this alteration of experience? ”

“ We want health, wealth, happiness, freedom, love and usefulness, and, since this is so, it is folly to stamp upon the mind of the new body anything less than our heart’s best desires.
While we fast we set the mental task for self of thinking about the things for which we are fasting; we refuse to think of anything else. ”

“ My revered friend, Meer Hadjee Shaah, always told me that the great secret of a fast, to be beneficial, was to employ time well, which benefited both soul and body; employment suited to the object of the fast being the best possible alleviation to the fatigue of fasting. He adds, if the temper be soured either by the abstinence or the petty ills of life, the good effects of the fast are gone with the ruffled spirit, and that the person thus disturbed had much better break his fast, since it ceases to be of any value in the sight of Him to whom the service is dedicated ”

“ If I sit for a few minutes, flutter, flutter, begins every nerve in my whole system. My heart throbs as if from machinery, and the only thing, it seems, that can save me, is to leap up and walk—walk furiously, in any direction. Passing by objects swiftly,—trees, men, and women—that gives me a relief, that headlong motion disturbs the beat of the pendulum, and whirling wheels. ”

“ It would doubtless be incorrect to attempt to account for all the increased strength and tireless endurance, which may be experienced in periods of great excitement, on the basis of abundant supplies provided then for muscular contraction, and a special secretion for avoiding or abolishing the depressive influences of fatigue. ”

“ These thoughts, with many others, agitated her so much that she gradually worked herself into an agony of fear; and the swiftest speed of steamboat or express train seemed slow to the desire of that stormy spirit, which would have forced its way onward, far beyond the speed which human contrivances may create, to the side of the man whom she longed to see and to save. The fever of her fierce anxiety, the vehemence of her desire, the intensity of her anguish, all worked upon her delicate organization with direful effect. ”

“ It should not, however, be carried beyond the powers of endurance of the individual, so as to exhaust or fatigue. Everything that can invigorate should be adopted; everything that exhausts should be shunned. ”

“ Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and Thou hast not seen? we have humbled our souls, and Thou takest no notice? The answer comes swiftly: Because your fasting is a mere form! Lo, in the very day of your fast ye find a business to do, and all your workmen you overtask. So formal is your fasting that your ordinary eager, selfish, cruel life goes on beside it just the same. ”

“ Not only does the brain seem exhausted, but the whole system appears to be languid and weak; instead of the man being able for a twenty or thirty miles' walk, one of a mile or two will produce fatigue, and sometimes an intense languor is felt without any exertion at all. ”

“ Just to fast or simply stop eating until body, mind and soul and spiritual consciousness have changed, then we have put off the old man of limitations and put on the new, through intelligent use of our finer forces. ”

“ With these marked effects on strength and fatigue, it is reasonable to assume that some corresponding action may be exerted on physical endurance. As is well known, strength and endurance, though related, are quite distinct and can be separately measured. ”

“ Again, the habit of fasting would naturally be accompanied by some degree of corresponding change in our other habits, which might tend to make it lighter; as of old, when men, e.g., on fast-days, abstained from all unnecessary exercise or fatigue, which might incapacitate the soul from performing its duties aright, unless the body had its usual refreshment. ”

“ After being awake for sixteen or eighteen hours, a sensation of fatigue ensues, and all the functions are performed with diminished precision and energy. Locomotion becomes feeble and tottering, the voice harsh, the intellect obtuse and powerless, and all the senses blunted. In this state the individual anxiously retires from the light, and from the noise and bustle of business, seeks that position which requires the least effort to sustain it, and abandons himself to rest. ”

“ And the next thing is, keep still. Don't begin to whack about. You may fetch something a nasty rap if you do. Remember you will be going several thousand times faster than you ever did before, heart, lungs, muscles, brain—everything—and you will hit hard without knowing it. You won't know it, you know. You'll feel just as you do now. Only everything in the world will seem to be going ever so many thousand times slower than it ever went before. That's what makes it so deuced queer. ”

“ But to fast amid the struggles of battle or the hurry of a pursuit; to fast under the burning sun and that strain of the system which brings the keenest thirst; to fast under exertions that rapidly exhaust the thews and sinews, and call for a renewal of their tissues—to fast in circumstances like these involves an amount of suffering which it is not easy to estimate. ”