LESSON FIRST - SUPREME CONTROL OF CONDITIONS
Conditions are thought made. Change your thought and you will change your condition. To agonize and struggle in a bad condition is like struggling in quicksand, you get in deeper. Tell your bad conditions to another and you multiply them. If the heavens are falling and the earth is slipping under your feet, grab a big Turkish towel, walk briskly into the supreme sanctuary of the body,--the bath-room, take a thorough salt-water bath, with a few drops of perfume in it to awaken your self-respect. Then in a quiet, darkened room take a good sleep of ten to fifteen hours. Then rise and eat slowly, quietly and happily some nourishing food. God, Himself, could do nothing with Elijah, until He had given him a long sleep and a good meal. Then Elijah went forth and crowned a King, appointed a Prophet, established a Kingdom, and rode Home in chariots of fire. Once you make a start, the world is at your command. Let go of the past. Stop the foolish thinking that conditions hold you, it is you holding onto conditions. Quit your self-pity, blaming others, and saying you are the victim of circumstances. Stop whining, and begin singing, then will your feet be loosed from the stocks and the iron gates open outward before you. Look away from yourself.
=IS YOUR WILL ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL?= Awake it. See if you are sailing, or drifting. Set the compass of your Mind to new thoughts, fresh purposes, selfless desires, fill your sails with boundless hope, and let your daily voyage spell SERVICE in a big way. You are not a chip on the River of Life, you are a Supreme Master in a Universe of Facts. You think you are stuck in the harbor mud, but it is only that the tide is out. Command your Will to put up the sails, God will send you wind and tide to bear you out of the stale, sordid mental and bodily conditions you are living in, give you wider horizon, and a limitless ocean of experience. If anybody does not wish to sail with you, leave them on the shore. Let go of your past, break away from conditions that hold you in slavery. Seek new scenery, form new surroundings, begin a new Supreme Life.
=KEEP YOUR BODY SUPREME:= Go back to Nature; be a fine animal. Get into the sunshine, the silent woods, the open fields. Magnetize your body by walking thru the dew barefooted, by sleeping on the grass, or half buried in the sand. Tuberculosis, rheumatism, insomnia are unknown to wild animals. Our bodies are sick and weak because we have denatured ourselves. Make friends of the wild animals, they will teach you how to keep well. They have not a single case of nervous prostration in all their vast forest home. Learn to relax. Drop your tension and you check confusion. Stop a few minutes sometime in the day and quiet your nerves, rest your muscles, calm your senses, sooth your thoughts, somewhere in the sunshine, or under the shade of an old apple-tree. Eat simply, slowly, nuts, dates, cereals, fruits. Drink abundantly of water between meals. Dress less somber, study your personal appearance, give it harmony. Keep your body well groomed. A bath and hair cut will change the out-look of life. Quit habits that weaken the body. Never talk about your bodily weakness, illness, or condition, nor listen to those of others. Criticise your body and it will fail you. Praise your body and it will serve you. Take air-baths, cold water plunges, or cold water sponges, every morning. Fix your mind upon having a sound and energized body and you will attract it. Exercise, walk, run, play, work, and learn to rest. Change your habits of living. Cut out the grouch. Stop nagging. You're sour because your pores are stopped up; get a buck-saw and take a sweat. You're morbidly blue because your solar plexus has gone to sleep; give it half an hour of internal vibration. Don't knock the weather, like it, get into it, let it put iron into your blood. Plunge into a storm, it will act as tonic on your spirit. A dip in the ocean will add magnetism to your body. Your body is a mighty fine engine of marvelous energy. Over-fed, under-fed, over-burdened, neglected, abused, weakened, shamefully talked about, yet year after year it goes on generating the divinest thing in the universe--Life. It transmutes profane elements into divine energy, washes a river of blood free of tons of poison, supports a brain that builds and rules limitless empires, sustains a vision that dissolves darkness into light, the unknown into the known, upholds the image of, and is "the Temple of the Living God." Your body is Supreme. Keep it divine. Strip your body bare and lie in the sunshine. Let it soak deeply into the tissue, it will magnetize your body, and renew it with youth. Take these sun-baths every sunny day possible by lying on a couch before a large window, or even better, out in the open air. If you want a magnetic body that is supple, elastic and youthful give it sun-baths and air-baths daily.
