The Force of Life

It was with delight that we discovered that some of the work of Israel Regardie, whose writings predated by almost seventy years the current interest in the mind's power to heal, has been reprinted for modern-day seekers.

Regardie's writings first came to seekers' attention for his informed perspective on the mystical healing of ailments and all the rest of the life we live. "Hailed as one of the most important figures in twentieth-century Western mysticism, Dr. Israel Regardie was a therapist and chiropractor who practiced a form of psychotherapy based on the work of Dr. Wilhelm Reich. A student of the Bhagavad-Gita, Buddhism, Madame Blavatsky's theosophy, and yoga, Regardie was the author of seventeen books including The Golden Dawn, a monumental study of Western magical ritual."

We are offering here the first chapter of his powerful The Art of True Healing. Reprinted by New World Library, it is available at the modest price of $8.95. "In this edition, editor Marc Allen brings Regardie's work into the twenty-first century -- showing us how to unleash energy to create physical healing and, ultimately, healing in every part of our lives."

Within every man and woman is a force that directs and controls the entire course of life. Properly used, it can heal every affliction and ailment we may have.

Every single religion affirms this fact. All forms of mental or spiritual healing promise the same thing. Even psychoanalysis and other forms of therapy employ this healing power: The insight and understanding that effective therapy can bring releases tensions of various kinds, and through this release the healing power latent within and natural to the human system operates more freely.

Each of these systems teaches its own specialized methods of thinking or contemplation or prayer that will, according to the terms of their own philosophies, renew our bodies and even transform our entire environment.

Very few of these systems, however, actually fulfill in a complete way the high promises they have made. There is little understanding of the practical means whereby the forces underlying the universe and permeating every cell of our bodies can be utilized and directed toward the creation of a new heaven and a new earth.

Each one of us has the power to begin the process of reconstruction for ourselves; each one of us can discover the force that can bring us true healing of our bodies and minds.

The central question, then, is how are we to become aware of this force? What is its nature? What is the mechanism whereby we can use it?

A great many different systems have evolved, widely differing processes by which we may discover the presence of such a power. Meditation, prayer, affirmation, invocation, emotional exaltation, and other forms of declaration made at random upon the universe or the Universal Mind are a few of the methods. All have this in common: By turning the fiery, penetrating power of the mind inward upon itself, and exalting our emotional system to a certain pitch, we may become aware of previously unknown currents of force, currents that are almost electric in their interior sensation, and that are healing and integrating in their effect.

It is the willed use of such a force that is capable of bringing health to body and mind. When effectively directed, it acts like a magnet: It attracts to every one of us who employs these methods the things that we require or fervently desire or that are needed for our further evolution.

The fundamental, underlying idea of this powerful healing system is this: In the ambient atmosphere surrounding us and pervading the structure of each one of our body's cells is a force, a field of energy. This force is omnipresent and infinite; it is present in the most infinitesimal object as it is in the most proportion-staggering far reaches of the known and unknown universes. This force is life itself.

Nothing in the vast expanse of space is dead. Everything pulsates with vibrant life; even the sub-atomic particles of the atom are alive.

The force of life is infinite; we are saturated, permeated through and through, with this force, this energy. It constitutes our higher self, it is our link with the entire universe, it is God within us. Every molecule of our physical system is permeated with the dynamic energy of this force; each cell in our body contains it in abundance.

When we consider this force, when we become aware of it, we are then brought face-to-face with the enigmatic problem underlying all disease: If we are filled with this energy, and if this energy is limitless, how can we become depleted of this healing energy, and become unhealthy and sick?

What is fatigue? How can there be depletion of our energy if vitality and cosmic currents of force pour through us constantly, saturating our mind and body with power?

Essentially, it is because we offer so much resistance to its flow through us that we become tired and ill. How do we manage to defy the universe? How are we able to offer resistance and opposition to the very force that underlies our continually evolving universe?

There are many causes of this resistance to the inward flow of the spirit: Most of us were raised to be complacent and confused and even cowardly from childhood on into adulthood, and most of us have a false perception of the nature of life.

The fact that this is generally unconscious doesn't matter -- are any of us really aware of all the involuntary processes going on within us? Are any of us conscious of the intricate mechanism of our mental processes, and of the processes by which our food is assimilated and digested, and our blood is circulated, bringing nourishment to every cell?

All these are purely involuntary processes, just as, to a large degree, our resistances to life are purely involuntary. We have surrounded ourselves with crystallized shells of prejudices and ill-conceived versions of reality; we have shielded ourselves with a mental armor so dense it affords no entrance to the light of life that surrounds us and envelops us.

No wonder we become sick, impotent, helpless, poor! No wonder the average individual is so unable to adequately deal with life!

The First Step: Understanding

The first step toward freedom and health is a conscious realization of the vast reservoir of energy in which we live and move and have our being. When we reflect upon this repeatedly, and make repeated mental efforts to make this part and parcel of our outlook upon life, part of the hard, inflexible shell of the mind breaks down and dissolves. Then, inevitably, life and spirit pour abundantly through us. Health spontaneously arises, and a new life begins as our point of view undergoes this radical change.

Moreover, it appears that we create an environment in which we attract just those people who can help in various ways, and the things we have longed for manifest in our lives.

The first step is a purely mental one, involving a change in our perception of life, so that we realize we are in the midst of a vast reservoir of healing energy.

The second step lies in a somewhat different direction: It involves learning a process of regulated breathing -- quite a simple process, and, as you will see, quite an effective one when used repeatedly.

The Second Step: Rhythmic Breathing

If life is all about us, all-penetrating and all-pervasive, what is more reasonable than that the very air we breathe from one moment to the next should be highly charged with vitality? To best take advantage of this, we need to take the time periodically to regulate our breathing in a calm, simple way, and to contemplate that life is the active principle in the atmosphere.

We should practice this rhythmic breathing at fixed periods of the day, in a relaxed manner, with no strenuous forcing of the mind, no overtaxing of the will. All effort must be gentle and easy; then skill is just as easily obtained.

Sit comfortably, or lie down, flat on your back, in a perfectly relaxed state. If sitting, the hands may be folded in the lap, or they may rest comfortably on the thighs, palms upward. If lying down, your hands should rest comfortably at your sides, palms upward.

Let the breath flow in while mentally counting very slowly, one . . . two . . . three . . . four. . . . Then exhale, counting the same beat. It is fundamental and important that we should maintain the initial rhythm we have started, whether it be a four-beat count or a ten-beat count or any other convenient one. For it is the very rhythm itself that is responsible for the easy absorption of vitality from without, and the acceleration of the divine power within.

Unchanging rhythm is manifest everywhere in the universe. It is a living process whose parts move and are governed in accordance with cyclical laws. Look at the sun, the stars, and the planets. All move with incomparable grace, with a steady, inexorable rhythm. It is only humankind that has wandered, in its ignorance and self-complacency, far from the divine cycles of things. We have interfered with the rhythmic process that is inherent in nature. And how sadly we have paid for it!

Through quiet, rhythmic breathing, we can attune ourselves once more to the intelligent power that functions throughout nature. Our periods of rhythmic breathing can be at any time of the day or night when there is little likelihood of disturbance.

We should cultivate above all the art of relaxation:

Learn to address each tensed muscle from toe to head as you sit in a comfortable chair or lie flat on your back in bed. Tell it deliberately to loosen its tension and cease from its unconscious constriction. Think of your blood flowing copiously to each organ in response to your command, carrying life and nourishment everywhere, producing a state of glowing, radiant health.

Begin your rhythmic breathing, then add this preliminary exercise, slowly and without haste. Gradually, as the mind accustoms itself to the idea, the lungs spontaneously will take up the rhythm. In a few minutes it will have become automatic.

The whole process then becomes extremely simple and pleasurable.

It is difficult to overestimate the importance or effectiveness of this simple exercise. As the lungs take up the rhythm, automatically inhaling and exhaling to a measured beat, they communicate it and gradually extend it to all the surrounding cells and tissues. Just as a stone thrown into a pond sends out widely expanding ripples and concentric circles of motion, so does the motion of the lungs. In a few minutes, the whole body is vibrating in unison with their movement. Every cell seems to vibrate sympathetically. And very soon, the whole organism comes to feel as if it were an inexhaustible storage battery of power. The sensation -- and it must be a sensation -- is unmistakable.

Simple as it is, the exercise is not to be taken lightly or underestimated. It is upon the mastery of this very easy technique that the rest of this system stands. Master it first. Do it enough times so that you can completely relax and produce the rhythmic breathing in a few seconds.

From The Art of True Healing: The Unlimited Power of Prayer and Visualization by Israel Regardie, published by New World Library. The original version © 1932 Dr. E.I. Regardie; this edited version © 1997 Marc Allen.

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