Vitality

“ Life Force.—To every thinking mind the question often recurs, What makes the fragrant flower so different from the dead soil from which it grows? the trilling bird, so vastly superior to the inert atmosphere in which it flies? What subtle power paints the rose, and tunes the merry songster's voice? To explain this mystery, philosophers of olden time supposed the existence of a certain peculiar force which is called life, or vital force, or vitality. ”

“ Can pulsating, vibrating, vitality of this kind be developed? Can one who lacks enthusiasm and organic vigor obtain these valuable forces? If you have failed up to the present to become a complete man, or a splendid woman, can you achieve these extraordinary rewards in the future? You can rest assured that if the necessary efforts are made a revolution can be wrought in your physical and mental powers. ”

“ The place of the will in its influence upon health and vitality has long been recognized, not only by psychologists and those who pay special attention to problems of mental healing, but also, as a rule, by physicians and even by the general public. ”

“ Functional Activity-The Secret of Power
Vitality means normal functioning. When the organs of the body are all performing their duties satisfactorily, you can practically be sure of a plentiful supply of vitality. So it can truly be said that proper functioning is the secret of power. ”

“ Why not throb with superior vitality! Why not possess the physical energy of a young lion? For then you will compel success. You will stand like a wall if need be, or rush with the force of a charging bison towards the desired achievements. This book sends forth a message of paramount importance to those who need added efficiency. Adherence to the principles laid down herein will add to the characteristics that insure splendid achievements. They will increase the power of your body and mind and soul. They will help each human entity to become a live personality. ”

“ That condition of vigor, poise, vitality, and harmony which we call good health depends on the degree of control exercised over the physical body by that "second or subliminal personality, the superior spiritual self, the man's own oversoul, which," as Doctor Quackenbos so truly observes, "superintends all physical functions and procedures, and influences mental and moral attitudes." ”

“ The spur of ambition was blunted; he had no vitality with which to feel the prod of it. He was dead. His soul seemed dead. He was a beast, a work-beast. He saw no beauty in the sunshine sifting down through the green leaves, nor did the azure vault of the sky whisper as of old and hint of cosmic vastness and secrets trembling to disclosure. Life was intolerably dull and stupid, and its taste was bad in his mouth. A black screen was drawn across his mirror of inner vision, and fancy lay in a darkened sick-room where entered no ray of light. ”

“ The possession of these pulsating, vibratory forces proves that one's physical development has closely approached to perfection. To such vital individuals life opens up opportunities that are almost countless. ”

“ The health of your body, the same as the health and strength of your mind, depends upon what you relate yourself with. This Infinite Spirit of Life, this Source of all Life, can from its very nature, we have found, admit of no weakness, no disease. Come then into the full, conscious, vital realization of your oneness with this Infinite Life, open yourself to its more abundant entrance, and full and ever-renewing bodily health and strength will be yours. ”

“ Thus we shall gain the great word, the word that gives soul to every word, spirit to every thought and inner power to every statement.
Give soul to every spoken word and you can heal yourself by saying, "I Am Well;" you can emancipate yourself from every adverse condition by saying, "I Am the Freedom of Divine Truth;" and you can cause every atom in your being to thrill with life and power by saying, "I Am the Strength of the Infinite." Give spirit to every thought you think and every condition you picture in the mind will be realized in the body. ”

“ Concentrate your mind on the one whom you wish to heal, then build a mental vision of him; see him in consciousness just as whole and perfect as if he was really radiant with health. Make believe that he is standing before you a perfect picture of physical perfection, work on your vision until you can produce and hold the most beautiful idealized picture of human beauty of flesh, form and character. Never forget to illumine your perfect thought-patient with a divine light of spiritual radiance. ”

“ But it will be real, practical, healthy, soul-saving, in the very deepest sense of that word, just in proportion as your eye is single and your heart pure; just in proportion as you hunger and thirst after righteousness, and wish and try simply and humbly to do your duty in that station to which God has called you, and to learn joyfully and trustingly anything and everything which God may see fit to teach you. Then as your day your strength shall be. ”

“ We hope this period will settle the question, Which is the master of health, happiness, and being, — mind or body? Not a blade of grass springs up, or a spray buddeth within the vale, or a leaf unfolds its fair outlines, or a flower starts from its cloistered cell, only as the result of mind. ”

“ If evil, why? If good, am I radiating as much as I might and should?"
For myself I want every man and woman I meet or shake hands with, to feel that I am physically strong, healthy, and vigorous; that I have vigor and health of mind; that I think for myself, rather than accept the opinions of others, and that in character, in spirit, in soul, I am healthy, vigorous, sincere, pure, true; that my emotions, my aspirations, my ambitions are noble and upward. I want to radiate spiritual health. ”

“ When you begin to realize this you will begin to control your thoughts, to regulate and discipline your mind, and to rebuild the inward temple of your soul, eliminating all useless and superfluous material, and incorporating into your being thoughts alone of joy and serenity, of strength and life, of compassion and love, of beauty and immortality; and as you do this you will become joyful and serene, strong and healthy, compassionate and loving, and beautiful with the beauty of immortality. ”

“ Whereas the spirit must lovingly embrace the body, as the roots of a tree embrace the ground, drawing thence rich nourishment, warmth, impulse. Or, rather, the body is itself the root of the soul,—that whereby it grows and feeds. The great tide of healthful life that carries all before it must surge through the whole man, not beat to and fro in one corner of his brain. ”

“ We are saved in the true sense of the term when the body is filled with the power of health and wholeness, when the mind is illumined with the light of eternal truth, and when the soul is abiding forever in the splendors of the cosmic realms. ”

“ Vigor of body, of mind, passions, desires, reason, all that goes to make up a human soul, were in the full tide of existence; and I was here surely not to contemplate death, but to fulfil the functions of life—of a new life. ”

“ Health means harmony, concord, rhythm between every part, and the power of the one individual intelligence to use it all, to act or refrain from action, and to hold and maintain through all, repose, equilibrium, and self-mastery.
The physical body we know to be a thing of sense and time. We know its beginning, its gestation, its entrance and exit on this material plane. Its secrets are all involved in the subtle relations it bears to the soul that inhabits, unifies, and utilizes it. ”

“ Yet, again, there are in the world human helpers, who work there in their subtle bodies while their physical bodies are sleeping, whose attentive ear may catch a cry for help. And to crown all, there is the ever-present, ever-conscious life of God Himself, potent and responsive at every point of his realm,—that all-pervading, all-embracing, all-sustaining Life of Love, in which we live and move. ”

“ Let excellence be reckoned by thee as the body, contemplation as the soul. The two [form] one complete spiritual man, composed of sensible and intelligible parts. And as it is not possible that the soul reach existence and birth without the accomplished formation of the body, so it is not possible that contemplation, the second soul, the spirit of revelations, be formed in the womb of the intellect which receives the fulness of spiritual seed, without the corporeal performance of excellence, the dwellingplace of the knowledge which receives revelations. ”

“ The wisdom of a hundred medicine men, made rich by long years of life, was in it, with strength, true strength—which is utterly devoid of arrogance or vanity—the calmness of a meditative mind, vast dignity and high authority. ”

“ The whole journey of life on the physical plane here below is so designed and planned as to make the natural aging and decay of the physical body supplement, unfold and develop the Spiritual Body, through the right use of the faculties, capacities, and powers of the Human Soul—the Individual Intelligence.
These are aspects, uses and powers of that subtle something we call Life; that Principle that
Normal use that insures growth and development, range and power of action, is also, from first to last, a refining process ”

“ It must not be forgotten that we mold not {51} alone what we call character, but that we manifestly produce effects upon our tissues that are lasting. Indeed it is these that count the most, for health at least. It is the physical basis of will and intellect that is grooved by what we call habit. ”

“ Let us learn of the real and eternal, and prepare for the reign of Spirit, the Kingdom of Heaven, — the reign and rule of universal harmony, which cannot be lost, or remain forever unseen.
Mind, not matter, is causation. A material body only expresses a material and mortal mind. A mortal man Sickness in thought. possesses this body, and he makes it harmonious or discordant, according to the images of thought impressed upon it. You embrace your body in your thought, and you should delineate upon it thoughts of health, not of sickness. ”

“ Think as you inhale of whatever qualities you would like to possess, and believe that you are inhaling them. Select seven qualities—Love, Health, Wisdom, Usefulness, Power to Do Good, Success, Opulence—will cover the average human desires. The very unworldly will substitute spiritual knowledge for opulence. Fill your mind with the idea that you are drawing in these qualities with your breaths, and exhaling all that is weak or unworthy. ”

“ Will this theory furnish the basis for a true interpretation of telepathy?
The relations between the individual and the forces of the ethereal realm are also determining as regards health.
Health and Happiness.
For health and illness are by no means the mere and exclusive consideration of the physical life. Health, in its complete significance, is mental and even moral, and involves, in its higher aspects, the entire question of the spiritual life. Health, successful achievement, and happiness are an indissoluble trinity, when interpreted in their full integrity and in their inter-relations. ”

“ SANITARIUMS IN SPIRIT LIFE. I think it will be interesting to you to learn something of the sanitariums of spirit life, where the grown people—those who while in the body were weak and struggling in spirit, whose natures were but partially unfolded, whose higher qualities of being were stunted or warped in growth, and who, through lack of opportunity, power, and favorable conditions generally were unable to grow in grace, beauty, and sweetness of spirit—gain health, strength, vigor, and power. ”

“ We know that courage, assurance, and conscious power are necessary for the fulfillment of purpose, because intention precedes action. Will-power is an indication of HEALTH, and the constant exercise of these mental faculties exerts a steady, regular, and strengthening influence over the bodily functions. We translate mental energies into physiological industry. These faculties impart tone to the system, sustain the processes of nutrition, circulation, assimilation, secretion and excretion, and their distinguishing characteristics are vigor, tension, and elasticity. ”

“ If ideas of health and triumphant achievement are brought into consciousness, we at the same time experience a state of energy, a feeling of courage and capability and joy and a stimulation of all the bodily processes. ”

“ It is this feeling that every heart contains the germ of some perfection that makes our life so profoundly interesting, and, it may be added, our responsibilities for the cultivation or neglect of any such germ or capacity so serious and engrossing. ”

“ The sign of vigour, the sign of life, the sign of hope, the sign of health, the sign of everything that is good, is strength. As long as the body lives, there must be strength in the body, strength in the mind, [and strength] in the hand. ”

“ When have I known that lightness and vivacity of mind which the divine flow of health, even in calamity, produces in some men, and would produce in me, no doubt—at least, when not soured by misfortune? ”

“ Then, standing with this freedom as a spiritual springboard, we leap again into conscious mastery over a still finer law of being, and we begin the dominion of our emotional self. Subjecting feeling into a finer force, we mingle it with the stream of higher thought force and pour a new inspiration into life. ”

“ To come into full harmony with the Supreme, you must purpose to LIVE; to live to the utmost of your capabilities in body, mind, and soul. This must mean the full exercise of function in all the different ways, but without excess; for excess in one causes deficiency in the others. Behind your desire for health is your own desire for more abundant life; and behind that is the desire of the Formless Intelligence to live more fully in you. So, as you advance toward perfect health, hold steadily to the purpose to attain complete life, physical, [Pg 70] mental, and spiritual ”

“ But, in whatever form thought and meditation may take, keep the key held to the divinest melody of life. In that way shall the spiritual life gather its rich strength and infinite energy." The principle is one that every life which has given to the world noble results, has acted upon, consciously or unconsciously, as may be. ”