Record of Yoga

Notes on Physical Transformation

c. January 1927

4 mistakes—

1) Began on a mistaken or merely theoretic knowledge—about absorption from outside

2) Giving up of food is not the condition for finding the secret, it is the result of finding the secret.

3) Cessation of hunger, feeling fed, refusal of food by the body not a sign; it proceeds from the body vital, not from the body substance

4) The entire secret can be found and made effective only when the body is brought into the right condition. A process of adaptation is necessary.

5) Transition

Continuity of consciousness, continuity of energy, continuity of Ananda, continuity of substance

Body substance sacred; earth herself; to be mastered, adapted and transformed, not forced and martyrised

Athanatogen.

1) Pranayama

2) Gland processes

3) Absorption from outside

4) Light process

5) Physical support—transformation of ordinary food; body power of living or etheric assimilation

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The attempt to transform the body through the renunciation of food has not succeeded as was expected or in the time given and for the following reasons.

1) The knowledge or idea with which it was begun was imperfect and not applicable under the present circumstances. In reality what was chiefly relied upon was a great dynamic energy and the power of the will and aspiration to bring the divine realisation into the body. These forces can do miracles under the right conditions; and now they are quite strong enough to produce miraculous results on the subjective plane, in the physical consciousness, the physical mind and the vital physical, but the most material is not yet ready. The attempt was therefore premature. In order that it should succeed, one of two things was necessary, either a right entire knowledge and process or else the divine Grace supporting a complete descent of the highest supramental Truth and a complete ascent to meet it of the supramental from below. These things should have been got first and firmly founded, for till then there can be no effective divinisation of the material body.

2) The entire giving up of food cannot be the condition of the realisation; it must be, if it is to be done, one result or circumstance of the realisation.

3) It is a mistake to think that cessation of hunger, a sensation of being fed or the refusal of food by the body is a sign that the material frame is ready for living without sustenance. Hunger and the rest come from the vital in the body. It was this bodily vital which was ready and desirous of abstaining from food, but the most material parts were not ready. But being without a voice and accustomed to obey and act only as an instrument, they gave no sign except the fading of the flesh and physical weakness.

Now this material part is most important and indispensable. It is the earth herself in the concrete. It is part of the crude stuff you have to use for building the divine physical substance and you cannot do without it. Therefore it must be respected and not forced before it is ready. It has to be mastered and transformed, but not done violence to or neglected.

4) The entire secret for which you are seeking can only be found and applied effectively when the material body is ready and

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for that a process of adaptation is indispensable. The final secret, even if you find it, must remain only a theory until this adaptation is made. What you need to find out first is a secret of the transition. For you are physically in a period of transition. The period of victorious realisation comes later.

Four physical things have to be attained; stability and continuity of consciousness, stability and continuity of energy, stability and continuity of Ananda, stability and continuity of substance.

The first she has gained; it gives a certain mukti, liberation, conscious immortality, and can give great results, but not by itself the complete result aimed at.

The second is beginning to come, but as it brings you a step nearer to the completeness, it is itself also more dependent than the first on its instrument, the body. It can exist in itself, but for its completeness it must become an entirely physical and material strength, for which there should be as a tool a strong body.

The other two stabilities and especially the last are still unattained. The last is the most difficult of all; it is the greatest achievement, the one problem that really has yet to be solved and on which the terrestrial security of the others depends.

My advice to you is not to mind retracing your steps; she should take food again and build up the body again as a necessary support. At the same time as a general rule try to use the food to the best advantage by concentration upon it and upon the body's reception of it and its right assimilation so that finally the body can maintain itself in full force and substance with a minimum quantity of stuff, a supreme quality and a maximum of assimilation. When that has been attained, the necessary adaptation will have neared completion. Advance progressively at first; rapidity will be possible afterwards. Do not mind the initial difficulties.

Remember however that the food problem is only a detail and do not exaggerate its importance. The main thing is to bring down and up the highest supramental from above and the deepest from below, to unite them and to obtain the support, sanction and constant effectuating action of what you call the divine Grace which is a descent from the Truth of the Supreme determining all from the plenitude of the Eternal. When you get these things in

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their fullness, the true material miracles will be possible in their marvellous rapidity and splendour.

Equanimity, patience, steadfast faith, steadfast will, dynamic aspiration, increasing knowledge-power are the things you need in their harmonious convergence that you may fulfil and conquer.

The power of subjective realisation in the physical is there as you see more from day to day; it will become absolute. The power through the subjective on the objective is increasing and will infallibly increase still more and become perfect. The direct power on the most material plane is the one thing still obstinately resisted. Persevere, satisfy the conditions, and it will come to you like the others.

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