Control of the Body & the Senses

by Ernest Wood

Relaxation and muscle balance are necessary to the practices of concentration and meditation so that (1) the body may not be injured by the mental efforts and (2) the mental work may not be spoiled by bodily discomfort. Third, we have to remember that bodily attitudes are associated with states of feeling, such as lying down with sleep, and kneeling with prayer. That has to be taken into consideration when you are selecting a posture, but there is no objection to your lying down to concentrate or meditate, so long as you find that it does not conduce to sleepiness.

Try to select an attitude for concentration which will be free from disturbing associations. It is generally found advantageous to sit upright with the eyes closed, the hands resting, and the head and neck straight but not stiff.

You will probably find that the body is not as obedient as you would like it to be. It is often restless and impatient or troubled by trifling sensations, even when you have removed any causes of discomfort that there may be. Do not permit this. The body must be your servant. Will you be master? Raise yourself up, and say: "I will". Do not wish, but say: "I will". If the body is not bright and obedient, train it. Tomorrow, and each day for one month set aside some time every day and do the following exercises.

1. Standing still.

2. Nerve exercise.

3. Relaxing.

4. Breathing exercises.

5. Stretching and bending exercises.

Do all these faithfully every day for one month. If you miss one day begin again on the next and then do the exercises for one full month without missing once. This will give you an opportunity of doing something that is at once beneficial to the body and valuable training for the will. Train your body as a fancier would train a prize dog; do not starve it or beat it, but do not indulge it harmfully.

If you find that under this new regime old dirt comes to the surface, and the body becomes weak and ill -- an effect due to past indulgence, not to present strainstop the practice for a few days. Then begin all over again, and thus go on again and again until the body is sound, clean, and strong. Continue until weakness and sluggishness disappear. If necessary, make a change in your diet, in the direction of the "cheerful" foods, avoiding both "heavy" and "exciting" things. --

The Five Bodily Exercises

1. The Standing Exercise.

With your watch in sight try to stand perfectly still (except for breathing and blinking) in front of a mirror for three to five minutes. Make no response to any twitching, tickling, itching, creeping, aching, or creaking feelings that may arise. Think "stillness", not "not-movingness".

2. Nerve Exercise.

Sit down with your elbow resting and hand raised, and look intently at the palm and fingers, keeping them quite still. Very soon you may feel creeping sensations in the muscles and a tingling in the fingertips, with a sensation of something flowing off. Something does flow off, and has even been photographed occasionally during the last fifty years; but now observe that you can reverse the flow by an act of will. Send it back up the arm. Let it flow and reverse it several times, keeping the hand quite still.

Afterwards practice this without looking, for both hands and feet, and use the mood of it to reverse the currents at times when you may become excited by unusually "nervous occasion". I call it "nerve-fluid continence". There may be times, however, when you will feel this flow -- perhaps even in floods -- and some intuition will instruct you to let it go, and some other intuition may even tell you where it is going.

3. The Relaxing Exercises.

The first part of this work is to acquire the feel of relaxation, for which I recommend the following. Hold one arm out in front about level with the shoulder, loosely, with the elbow a little bent and the hand drooping from the wrist. With the other hand hold a book, edge upwards under the forearm, and try to find the pivotal point of the horizontal arm, so as to get it well balanced on the book. When you are satisfied that the arm will rest balanced on the book without falling, use your imagination to relax it progressively from the fingertips, thinking the withdrawal of energy slowly into the shoulder. When the arm feels relaxed, suddenly pull away the book. The arm should fall lifeless, if it is relaxed. (You could treat this as a game on some occasions, getting a second person to hold the book and pull it away unexpectedly.) Try this several times, as you may not at first achieve the required mental feeling, on which follows the physical obedience.

Once you have caught the feeling of relaxation practice it lying down. Stretch yourself progressively, beginning with the toes and feet and legs, then up the trunk, fingers and arms also, to the neck -- stretch the neck especially, wriggling it about and entirely loosening it (this is very important) -- chin, lips, cheeks and nose, brow, and scalp. As you proceed, let each part in turn sink back into relaxation, until at the completion of the process you give a sigh of physical pleasure which empties your lungs, which then quite naturally start breathing again in a gentler manner and with a slower tempo than before. Now you should feel a cat-like luxury, with a complete disinclination to rise.

Continued on the next page:
* Breathing Exercises;
* Stretching and Bending Exercises;
* Extras

This article is excerpted from the book Concentration: An Approach to Meditation, by Ernest Wood. Reprinted with permission of the publisher, The Theosophical Publishing House, www.theosophical.org

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