How To Keep Young As every condition and event affecting physical life is due to the interaction of inner plane thought-cell activity with the physical environment, it is apparent that in maintaining youth both of these factors should receive adequate attention. Youth, of course, pertains not merely to the body, but equally to the intellect and the emotions. While it does not necessarily follow that one who well retains his youth will live to great age, it does seem reasonable to assume that those who do live long lives have within themselves qualities which are advantageous in retaining youth. And it so happens that even though no comprehensive astrological research as yet has been attempted relative to those who remarkably retain their youth, such research has been conducted relative to 80 men and 70 women each of whom lived more than seventy years. The analysis of the charts of these 150 individuals, and the conclusions reached, constitute Chapter Four of the book, BODY DISEASE AND ITS STELLAR TREATMENT. This analysis reveals that Mars thought-cells in any association with Sun thought-cells, Mars thought-cells in any association with Moon thought-cells, Jupiter thought-cells in harmonious association with either Sun thought-cells or Moon thought-cells, active Sun thought-cells or active Moon thought-cells, each and all are conducive to length of life. This in turn signifies that deliberately cultivating the aggressive type of thinking in association with thoughts of significance or thoughts of domestic life, cultivating an attitude of faith and good cheer relative to thoughts and events affecting the significance of domestic life, and cultivating thoughts of significance and thoughts about the domestic life will aid in lengthening any person’s life. And because such thinking thus cultivated does lengthen the life, and has no age producing proclivities, we may be sure that the cultivation of such thinking, together with other thinking which is typical of youth, will greatly assist any individual to keep young. Any amount or any type of thinking alone, however, will not keep a person young; for what the thoughts can accomplish depends upon the amount of resistance encountered in the physical environment. Youth is not merely a particular desirable state of mind and feeling, but is also a particular and desirable state of the body. Body and mind have outgrown childish incompetence, they are prepared for the joys and responsibilities of maturity, but they have not yet acquired the physical disabilities, the dulling of interests, and the lack of emotional response of old age. Youth is not signified by years. Instead, it is represented by that period of life during which, apart from years and birthdays, maximum efficiency is present. And not only because of the opportunities for personal development, but also because of the possibilities in aiding the cosmic work, it is a period which should greatly be prolonged. And it can be greatly prolonged through proper selection of foods and other physical environmental factors, and through the cultivation of properly selected thoughts and emotions. What is sought in making such selections is to keep the body active, supple and resilient, the mind keen, enthusiastic and forward looking, and the emotions strong, sensitive and harmonious. Regardless of years, any person having such a body, mind and habitual emotions is young. Foods For Keeping Young —It was pointed out in B. of L. lesson No. 153 that as the chemical composition of people is different, their chemical requirements in the way of foods also differ. And the chart of birth with the progressed aspects at the time, together with physical observations, indicate the foods of which a given individual at a certain time has special need. These foods, because they assist in maintaining health and vigor, also aid in keeping young. But as important as special foods are to individuals with a definite thought-cell, and therefore chemical makeup, it may be pointed out that in spite of any foods provided them all plants and animals higher in the biological scale than single celled organisms finally grow old because they cannot get rid of the products of combustion. The ashes from the fires of life gradually accumulate and clog the organic engine. Even the arteries of the human machine become impregnated with such impurities, harden and fail properly to perform their functions. No longer getting their accustomed nourishment from the blood stream, the tissues necessarily shrink from lack of food, and the skin that covers them, no longer held in place by vigorous flesh, wrinkles to adjust itself to a smaller area. It is thus obvious that proper elimination is one key to physical fitness and is an essential aid to keeping young. As youth implies a vigorous physical body let us consider the relation of fuel to fatigue: According to the Nutrition Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution the net efficiency of the human muscular system in relation to the fuel burned is slightly more than 21%. Steam engines have a net efficiency of from 15% to 25%. In a muscle is fuel brought by the blood and stored as glycogen, or animal starch. When the muscle is used this fuel is consumed, and after it is used up the muscle uses the sugar in the blood to continue its work. If the work is excessive, such as to call out the so-called second wind of the athlete, the adrenal glands secrete adrenaline into the blood, and this not only tends to neutralize the various toxins formed by fatigue, but causes the liver, which is the emergency fuel bin of the body, to release its glycogen into the blood stream as simple sugar. The adrenaline also speeds up the circulation so that the toxic acids formed by muscular activity are more rapidly carried away from the muscle, and the muscle is more quickly supplied with the simple sugar now in the blood for fuel. When a muscle is used until the lactic acid and other toxins it contains are excessive it will no longer work and is said to be too tired. A little rest, however, enables the blood stream to carry away these fatigue products and supply the muscle with new fuel, and it is again ready for work. If overworked, a muscle may recover very slowly, but a muscle is rarely damaged permanently through over exercise, as repairs are readily made. But a muscle may be, and often is, permanently damaged through lack of exercise. When not exercised the waste products are not carried from the muscles properly, and the circulation being deficient it does not receive sufficient nutrition from the blood stream. Consequently the muscle weakens, grows flabby and subject to disease, and may even atrophy and become incapable of use. To prevent such conditions violent exercise is not necessary, but some sensible exercise is. Such exercise as is afforded by outdoor games or indoor setting up exercises increases the circulation, toning up the muscles and strengthening the internal organs. Keeping the muscles supple and well nourished is a valuable physical measure for prolonging the period of youth. This necessary nourishment is not obtained, however, unless the chemical elements and vitamins that go to make up the human body are supplied in the food. The human body contains no alchemical laboratory for transmuting carbon into silicon or sulfur into potassium. Not only each of the sixteen chief elements that go to make up the physical constitution, but various other chemicals and compounds in less amounts must enter the body as a part of the food we eat. If we get no iodine, (salt) for instance, there is trouble with the thyroid gland, and goiter develops. Iodine is abundant in sea foods, and those eating such foods do not have goiter. But whole sections of the world that are removed from sea foods and other means of getting iodine foods are now recognized as goiter areas in which this trouble is prevalent. In addition to vitamins and small amounts of elements other than these sixteen, such as copper and nickel, the human body is made up of and requires for its maintenance, oxygen, carbon, sodium, sulfur, silicon, hydrogen, potassium, phosphorus, iron, fluorine, nitrogen, calcium, magnesium, chlorine, manganese and iodine. While a list of the foods containing each of these elements may easily be compiled, it would serve no practical purpose as many of the elements are common to the ordinary diet. Instead, we need to know the foods that are needed to keep the blood stream slightly alkaline and thus avoid easy fatigue and acidosis. These are given in a table in B. of L. Lesson No. 153. And we need to know what vitamins and what other foods are specially needed by a given individual most of the time, and what vitamins and what other foods are specially needed by most people at specific times in their lives. These special food requirements are explained in B. of L lessons No. 222, No. 223, No. 224 and No. 225. In these lessons is indicated why an individual with a certain planet prominent and afflicted tends, because of the strain on certain endocrine glands, to need certain vitamins and elements, and what foods to eat to get them. And in them is indicated why an individual at the period of his life when a progressed affliction forms to a given planet needs—because of the tendency of the aspect to stimulate or depress the action of certain endocrine glands and thus disturb the chemical balance of the blood stream—more than the normal amount of certain vitamins and certain elements, and in what foods these vitamins and elements may be found. These lessons also indicate those who should refrain from eating certain foods, and the periods during which other people who usually can eat these foods with impunity, should refrain from eating them. The information thus revealed by the birth chart and progressed aspects is of vast benefit not only to those who wish to keep young, but also to those who wish to keep in good health. But the foods which are the special requirements of a given individual, and those of which he will have special need at definite periods in his life, can be ascertained properly only by one conversant with astrology. To those who have no access to this vastly important information it may be pointed out that the selectivity of the nutritive system is highly specialized. In general, if we need certain vitamins and elements and eat foods containing them, unless we are very ill, these vitamins and elements will be extracted and proper use made of them. (Of course, this was written in 1942 when all produce was organic and no synthetic chemicals were used on farms or in gardens. But that all changed after WWII and wide spread synthetic chemicals come into use and destroyed the various soil foodweb and reduced the nutrients in the non organic food of today.) If, therefore, instead of confining our diet to a few staples, we vary our diet so that we eat at different times many kinds of food, we may be reasonably sure not only that such variety will afford the necessary vitamins and elements, but that these will be assimilated and properly used. Yet even when thus assimilated these afford energy only when brought in contact with oxygen. Therefore, as pointed out in detail in B. of L. lesson No. 153, proper breathing is necessary for health; and it is also necessary to retain youthfulness. Elbert Benjamine
Posted on: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 23:44:01 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015