Jay shri krishna
LKrishna THINKING
A MAJOR-LEAGUE baseball pitcher once pitched a game when the temperature was over one hundred degrees. He lost several pounds as a result of the afternoon's exertion. At one stage of the game his energy sagged. His method for restoring his ebbing strength was unique. He simply repeated a passage from the Old Testament—"But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." (Isaiah 40:31) Frank Hiller, the pitcher who had this experience, told me that reciting this verse on the pitcher's mound actually gave him a renewal of strength so that he was able to complete the
game with energy to spare. He explained the technique by saying, "I passed a powerful energy-producing thought through my mind."
How we think we feel has a definite effect on how we actually feel physically. If your mind tells you that you are tired, the body mechanism, the nerves, and the muscles accept the fact. If your mind is intensely interested, you can keep on at an activity indefinitely. Religion functions through our thoughts, in fact, it is a system of thought
discipline. By supplying attitudes of faith to the mind it can increase energy. It helps you to accomplish prodigious activity by suggesting that you have ample support and resources of power.
A friend in Connecticut, an energetic man, full of vitality and vigor, says that he goes to church regularly to "get his batteries recharged." His concept is sound. God is the source of all energy—energy in the universe, atomic energy, electrical energy, and spiritual energy; indeed every form of energy derives from the Creator. The Bible emphasizes this point when it says, "He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength." (Isaiah 40:29) In another statement the Bible describes the energizing and reenergizing process: "...in Him we live (that is, have vitality), and move (have dynamic energy), and have our being (attain completeness)." (Acts 17:28) Contact with God establishes within us a flow of the same type of energy that re-creates the world and that renews
springtime every year. When in spiritual contact with God through our thought processes, the Divine energy flows through the personality, automatically renewing the original creative act. When contact with the Divine energy is broken,
the personality gradually becomes depleted in body, mind, and spirit. An electric clock connected with an outlet does not run down and will continue indefinitely to keep accurate time. Unplug it, and the clock stops. It has lost contact with the power flowing through the universe. In general this process is operative in human experience though in a less mechanical manner.
A number of years ago I attended a lecture at which a speaker asserted before a large audience that he had not been tired in thirty years. He explained that thirty years before he had passed through a spiritual experience in which by self- surrender he had made contact with Divine power. From then on he possessed sufficient energy for all of his activities, and these were prodigious. He so obviously illustrated his teachings that everyone in that vast audience was profoundly impressed.
To me it was a revelation of the fact that in our
consciousness we can tap a reservoir of boundless power as a result of which it is not necessary to suffer depletion of energy. For years I have studied and experimented with the ideas which this speaker outlined and which others have expounded and demonstrated, and it is my conviction that the principles of Christianity scientifically utilized can develop an uninterrupted and continuous flow of energy into the human mind and body. These findings were corroborated by a prominent physician with whom I was discussing a certain man whom we both know. This man, whose responsibilities are very heavy, works from morning until night without interruption, but always seems able to assume new obligations. He has the knack of handling his work easily and with efficiency. I commented to the physician that I hoped this man was not setting a dangerous pace that might possibly lead to a breakdown. The physician shook his head. "No," he replied, "as his physician I do not think there is any danger of a crack-up, and the reason is that he is a thoroughly well-
organized individual with no energy leaks in his make-up. He operates a well-regulated machine. He handles things with easy power and carries burdens without strain. He never wastes an ounce of energy, but every effort is applied with maximum force." "How do you account for this efficiency, this seemingly boundless energy?" I asked.
The physician studied for a moment. "The answer is that he is a normal individual, emotionally well integrated, and, what is more important, he is a soundly religious person. From his religion he has learned how to avoid drainage of power. His religion is a workable and useful mechanism for
preventing energy leaks. It is not hard work that drains off energy but emotional upheaval, and this man is entirely free from that."
Increasingly people are realizing that the maintenance of a sound spiritual life is important in enjoying energy and personality force.
The body is designed to produce all needed energy over an amazingly long period of time. If the individual takes reasonable care of his body from the standpoint of proper diet, exercise, sleep, no physical abuse, the body will produce and maintain astonishing energy and sustain itself in good health. If he gives similar attention to a well-balanced emotional life, energy will be conserved. But if he allows energy leaks caused by hereditary or self-imposed emotional reaction of a debilitating nature, he will be lacking in vital
force. The natural state of the individual when body, mind, and spirit work harmoniously is that of a continuous replacement of necessary energy.
Mrs. Thomas A. Edison, with whom I often discussed the habits and characteristics of her famous husband, the world's greatest inventive wizard, told me that it was Mr. Edison's custom to come into the house from his laboratory after many hours of labor and lie down on his old couch. She said he would fall asleep as naturally as a child, in perfect relaxation, sinking into a deep and untroubled slumber. After three or four, or sometimes five hours he would become instantly wide awake, completely refreshed, and eager to return to his work.
Mrs. Edison, in answer to my request that she analyze her husband's ability to rest in a manner so natural and complete, said, "He was nature's man," by which she meant that he was completely in harmony with nature and with God. In him there were no obsessions, no disorganizations, no conflicts, no mental quirks, no emotional instability. He worked until he needed to sleep, then he slept soundly and arose and returned to his work. He lived for many years, and was in
many respects the most creative mind ever to appear on the American continent. He drew his energy from emotional self-mastery, the ability to relax completely. His amazingly harmonious relationship with the universe caused nature to
reveal to him its inscrutable secrets.
Every great personality I have ever known, and I have known many, who has demonstrated the capacity for prodigious work has been a person in tune with the Infinite. Every such person seems in harmony with nature and in contact with the Divine energy. They have not necessarily been pious people, but invariably they have been extraordinarily well organized from an emotional and psychological point of view. It is fear, resentment, the projection of parental faults upon people when they are children, inner conflicts and obsessions that throw off balance the finely equated nature, thus causing undue expenditure of natural force.
The longer I live the more I am convinced that neither age nor circumstance needs to deprive us of energy and vitality. We are at last awakening to the close relationship between religion and health. We are beginning to comprehend a basic
truth hitherto neglected, that our physical condition is determined very largely by our emotional condition, and our emotional life is profoundly regulated by our thought life.
All through its pages, the Bible talks about vitality and force and life. The supreme over-all word of the Bible is life, and life means vitality—to be filled with energy. Jesus stated the key expression, "...I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." (John 10:10) This
does not rule out pain or suffering or difficulty, but the clear implication is that if a person practices the creative and re-creative principles of Christianity he can live with power and energy. The practice ot the above-mentioned principles will serve to bring a person into the proper tempo of living. Our energies are destroyed because of the high tempo, the abnormal pace at which we go. The conservation of energy depends upon getting your personality speed synchronized with the rate of God's movement. God is in you. It you are going at one rate and God at another, you are tearing yourself apart. "Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small." The mills of most of us grind very rapidly, and so they grind poorly. When we become attuned to God's rhythm we develop a normal tempo within ourselves and energy flows freely.
The hectic habits of this age have many disastrous effects. A friend of mine commented upon an observation made by her aged father. He said that in early days when a young man came courting in the evening he sat with his intended in the parlor. Time in those days was measured by the deliberate, ponderous strokes of the grandfather clock, which has a very long pendulum. It seemed to say, "There—is—plenty—of—time.
There—is—plenty—of—time. There—is—plenty—
of—time." But modern clocks, having a shorter pendulum with a swifter stroke, seem to say, "Time to get busy! Time to get busy! Time to get busy! Time to get busy!" Everything is speeded up, and for that reason many people are tired. The solution is to get into the time synchronization of Almighty God. One way to do this is by going out some warm day and lying down on the earth. Get your ear close down to the ground and listen. You will hear all manner of sounds. You will hear the sound of the wind in the trees and the murmur of insects, and you will discover presently that there is in all these sounds a well-regulated tempo. You cannot get that tempo by listening to traffic in the city streets, for it is lost in the confusion of sound. You can get it in church where you hear the word of God and the great hymns. Truth vibrates to God's tempo in a church. But you can also find it in a factory if you have a mind to. A friend of mine, an industrialist in a large plant in Ohio, told me that the best workmen in his plant are those who get into harmony with the rhythm of the machine on which they are working. He declares that if a worker will work in harmony with the rhythm of his machine he will not be tired at the end of the day. He points out that the machine is an assembling of parts according to the law of God. When you love a machine and get to know it, you will be aware that it has a rhythm. It is one with the rhythm of the body, of the nerves, of the soul. It is in God's rhythm, and you can work with that machine and not get tired if you are in harmony with it.
There is a rhythm of the stove, a rhythm of the typewriter, a rhythm of the office, a rhythm of an automobile, a rhythm of your job. So to avoid tiredness and to have energy, feel your way into the essential rhythm of Almighty God and all His works. To accomplish this, relax physically. Then conceive of your mind as likewise relaxing. Follow this mentally by visualizing the soul as becoming quiescent, then pray as follows: "Dear God, You are the source of all energy. You are the source of the energy in the sun, in the atom, in all flesh, in the bloodstream, in the mind. I hereby draw energy from You as from an illimitable source." Then practice believing that you receive energy. Keep in tune with the Infinite.
Of course many people are tired simply because they are not interested in anything. Nothing ever moves them deeply. To some people it makes no difference what's going on or how things go. Their personal concerns are superior even to all crises in human history. Nothing makes any real difference to them except their own little worries, their desires, and their hates. They wear themselves out stewing around about a lot of inconsequential things that amount to nothing. So they become tired. They even become sick. The surest way not to become tired is to lose yourself in something in which you have a profound conviction.
A famous statesman who made seven speeches in one day was still boundless in energy.
"Why are you not tired after making seven speeches?" I asked. "Because," he said, "I believe absolutely in everything I said in those speeches. I am enthusiastic about my convictions."
That's the secret. He was on fire for something. He was pouring himself out, and you never lose energy and vitality in so doing. You only lose energy when life becomes dull in your mind. Your mind gets bored and therefore tired doing nothing. You don't have to be tired. Get interested in something. Get absolutely enthralled in something. Throw yourself into it with abandon. Get out of yourself. Be somebody. Do something. Don't sit around moaning about things, reading the papers, and saying, "Why don't they do something?" The man who is out doing something isn't tired. you're not getting into good causes, no wonder you're tired. You're disintegrating. You're deteriorating. You're dying on the vine. The more you lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have. You don't have time to think about yourself and get bogged down in your emotional difficulties. To live with constant energy it is important to get your emotional faults corrected. You will never have full energy until you do.
The late Knute Rockne, one of the greatest football coaches this country ever produced, said that a football player cannot have sufficient energy unless his emotions are under spiritual
control. In fact, he went so far as to say that he would not have a man on his team who did not have a genuinely friendly feeling for every fellow player. "I have to get the most energy out of a man," he said, "and have discovered that it cannot be done if he hates another man.
Hate blocks his energy and he isn't up to par until he eliminates it and develops a friendly feeling." People who lack energy are disorganized to one degree or another by their deep, fundamental emotional and psychological conflicts. Sometimes the results of this disorganization are extreme, but healing is ever possible.
In a Midwestern city I was asked to talk with a man, formerly a very active citizen of that community, who had suffered an acute decline in vitality. It was thought by his associates that he had had a stroke. This impression was given by the shuffling manner in which he moved, by an
extraordinary lethargic attitude, and by his complete detachment of himself from the activities to which he had formerly given a large portion of his time. He sat despondently in his chair hour after hour, and often he would weep. He exhibited many of the symptoms of a nervous
breakdown. I arranged to see him in my hotel room at a certain hour. My door was open and through it I could see the elevator. I chanced to be looking in that direction when the elevator door opened and this man came shuffling down the hall. It seemed that at any moment he would topple over, and he gave every evidence of scarcely being able to negotiate the distance. I asked him to be seated and engaged him in conversation, which conversation was rather fruitless, for it revealed little enlightenment because of his tendency to complain about his condition and his inability to give thoughtful consideration to my questions. This was apparently due to his enormous self-pity. When I asked him if he would like to be well, he looked up
at me in the most intense and pathetic manner. His desperation was revealed by his answer which was that he would give anything in the world if he could regain the energy and the interest in life which he formerly enjoyed.
I began to draw out of him certain facts regarding his life and experience. These were all of a very intimate nature and many of them so deeply imbedded in his consciousness that it was with the utmost difficulty that his personality yielded
them up. They had to do with old infantile attitudes, fears that stemmed from earliest days, most ot them deriving from the mother-child relationship. Not a few guilt situations appeared. It seemed that over the course of the years these
factors had accumulated like drifting sand across the channel of a river. The flow of power was gradually decreased so that an insufficient amount of energy was passing through. The man's mind was in such a complete state of retreating that a process ot reasoning and enlightenment seemed quite impossible.
I sought for guidance and found myself, quite to my surprise, standing beside him and placing my hand upon his head. I prayed, asking God to heal the man. I suddenly became aware of what seemed to be the passing of power through my
hand which rested upon his head. I hasten to add that there is no healing power in my hand, but now and then a human being is used as a channel, and it was evidently so in this instance, for presently the man looked up with an expression of the utmost happiness and peace and he said simply, "He was here. He touched me. I feel entirely different."
From this time on his improvement was pronounced, and at the present time he is practically his old self again, except for the fact that he now possesses a quiet and serene confidence which was not present previously. Apparently the clogged channel in his personality through which the passage of power had been impeded was opened by an act of faith and the free flow of energy was renewed. The facts suggested by this incident are that such healings do take place and that a gradual accumulation of psychological factors can cut off the flow of energy. The further fact is stressed that these same factors are susceptible to the power
of faith to energy within an individual.
The effect of guilt and fear feelings on energy is widely recognized by all authorities having to do with the problems of human nature. The quantity of vital force required to give the personality relief from either guilt or fear or a combination of each is so great that often only a fraction of energy remains for the discharge of the functions of living.
Energy drainage occasioned by fear and guilt is of such an amount as to leave little power to be applied to a person's job. The result is that he tires quickly. Not being able to meet the full requirements of his responsibility, he retreats into an apathetic, dull, listless condition and is indeed even ready to give up and fall back sleepily in a state of enervation.
A businessman was referred to me by a psychiatrist whom the patient had been consulting. It appeared that the patient, generally regarded as quite morally strict and upright, had
become involved with a married woman. He had attempted to break off this relationship but was encountering resistance from his partner in infidelity, although he had earnestly besought her to abandon their practice and allow him to return to his former state of respectability.
She had threatened him with the possibility that she might enlighten her husband concerning these escapades if he insisted in his desire to cease the relationship. The patient recognized the fact that if the husband became apprised of the situation, it would result in disgrace for him in his
community. He happened to be a prominent citizen and prized his high standing.
As a result of his fear of exposure and a sense of guilt he had been unable to sleep or rest. And since this had gone on for two or three months he was in a very serious slump in energy and did not possess the vitality to perform his job efficiently.
Inasmuch as some important matters were pending, the situation was serious.
When the psychiatrist suggested that he see me, a clergyman, because of his inability to sleep, he remonstrated by saying there was no way in which a clergyman could correct the condition which caused his sleeplessness, but, on the contrary, he felt that a medical doctor might supply effective medication. When he stated his attitude to me I simply asked him how he expected to sleep when he had two very annoying and unpleasant bedfellows with whom he was attempting to sleep.
"Bedfellows?" he asked in surprise. "I have no bedfellows."
"Oh, yes, you have," I said, "and there is nobody in this world who can sleep with those two, one on either side."
"What do you mean?" he asked.
I said, "You are trying to sleep every night between fear on
one side and guilt on the other, and you are attempting an impossible feat. It makes no difference how many sleeping pills you take, and you admit you have taken many such pills, but they have had no effect upon you. The reason they do not affect you is that they cannot reach the deeper levels of your mind where this sleeplessness originates and which is siphoning off your energy. You must eradicate fear and guilt before you will ever be able to sleep and regain your strength."
We dealt with the fear which was of exposure by the simple expedient of getting him ready in mind to face whatever might ensue as a result of doing the right thing, which was of course to break off the relationship regardless of consequences. I assured him that whatever he did that was right would turn out right. One never does wrong by doing right. I urged him to put the matter in God's hands and simply do the right thing, leaving the outcome to God.
He did that, not without trepidation, but with considerable sincerity just the same. The woman, either through shrewdness or some expression of her own better nature or through the more doubtful expedient of transferring her affections elsewhere, released him. The guilt was handled by seeking God's forgiveness. When this is sincerely sought it is never denied, and our patient found surcease and relief. It was astonishing how when this double weight was lifted from his mind his personality once again began to function normally. He was able to sleep. He found peace and renewal of strength. Energy quickly returned. A wiser and thankful man, he became able to carry on his normal activities.
A not infrequent case of diminishing energy is staleness. The pressure, monotony, and unceasing continuity of responsibilities dull the freshness of mind which a person must have to approach his work successfully. As an athlete
goes stale so does the individual, whatever his occupation, tend to come upon dry and arid periods. During such a condition of mind the expenditure of greater energy is required to do with difficulty what one formerly did with comparative ease. As a result the vital powers are hard put to it to supply the force required, and the individual often loses his grip and power.
A solution for this state of mind was employed by a prominent business leader, president of the board of trustees of a certain university. A professor who had formerly been outstanding and extraordinarily popular had begun to slip in
teaching ability and in the power to interest students. It was the verdict of the students as well as the private opinion of the trustees that this teacher must either recover his former capacity to teach with interest and enthusiasm or it would be necessary to replace him. This latter expedient was entertained with hesitancy for the reason that there still remained a normal expectancy of several active years before he reached the age of retirement.
The businessman above referred to asked the professor to come to his office and announced to him that the board of trustees was giving him a six months' leave of absence with all expenses paid and with full salary. There was only one
stipulation, and that was that he go away to a place of rest and give himself over to gaining a complete renewal of strength and energy.
The businessman invited him to use a cabin which he himself owned in a wilderness setting and made the curious suggestion that he take no books except one book, the Bible.
He suggested that the professor's daily program be walking, fishing, and some manual work in the garden; that he read the Bible every day for such a period as would enable him to read the Book through three times in the six months. He further suggested that he memorize as many passages as possible for the purpose of saturating his mind with the great words and ideas which the Book contains.
The businessman said, "I believe that if you spend six months outdoors chopping wood, digging in the soil, reading the Bible, and fishing in the deep lakes you will become a new man."
The professor agreed to this unique proposal. His adjustment to this radically different mode of life was an easier one than he or anyone who knew him expected. In fact, he was surprised to find that he actually liked it. After he became conditioned to active outdoor living he discovered that it had an immense appeal for him. He missed his intellectual associates and his reading for a while, but forced back upon the Bible, his only book, he became immersed in it, and to his amazement found, as he put it, "a library within itself." In its pages he found faith and peace and power. In six months he was a new man.
The businessman now tells me that this professor has become, as he puts it, "a person of compelling power."
Staleness passed away, the old-time energy returned, power surged back, zest for living was renewed.
Jay shri krishna
LKrishna THINKING
Contact MAIL. lkrishna.htat@gmail.com
0 Comments