Vera Stanley Alder Quotes

Herein lies the true secret of breathing because most people do the exact opposite and drop the whole chest and let the muscles sag whilst breathing outwards. At first, practise every day until you have gained control of the diaphragm muscle, using it to push the air up and out in expiration. This pulls the intestines from their usual sagging position, thus accelerating the whole digestive system. It is also the foundation for all your future breathing work. It raises the chest and inclines the oxygen to pass upwards into the head and cleanse and invigorate the mind.

Correct breathing also performs a constant massage of the internal organs by raising them up and down, thus curing constipation when it is caused by faulty insufficient breathing (as is often the case) which holds the muscles of the abdomen in a static position. Therefore the first thing to do is to make sure that you know how to breathe from the physical standpoint, and how to control the muscle of the diaphragm. This muscle forms the dividing line between the chest and the stomach just below the ribs. Place the fingers upon the diaphragm muscle just below the ribs and under the centre breast bone. In this arched hollow lies the muscle upon which correct breathing depends. Take a slow breath, drawing the muscle upwards and inwards, following its movement with the fingers, fill the lungs with air right up to the collarbones. Then breathe out slowly whilst tucking the diaphragm still further inwards and upwards!

Conversely, a shallow, quick breath only half-nourishes, and is the partner of fear, nervousness and self-consciousness; whilst the uneven uncontrolled breath allows the person to become ‘beside themselves* with the emotional disturbance and indecision.

Correct breathing must be deep, slow, even, and controlled by the mind and will. If it is deep it allows all the necessary rays and forces of nature to be drawn in and to reach every part of the body. If it is slow, then all possible benefits can be obtained before it is expelled again. If it is even, a rhythm is established in time with the rhythm of nature; the various vibrations of the body tune in with each other, and with the cosmic life-giving rays, thus producing a complete harmonious integration. If it is controlled by the mind and will, outside influences cannot upset the personal rhythm, nor distract the individual from his goal.

We can get on top of the world in most circumstances if we know and practice correct breathing, but without it we will always be working on one cylinder, and at the bottom of our form. For correct breathing feeds our minds as well as our bodies.

A Yogi, or eastern sage, who wishes to perfect himself begins with the breath, and by its means obtains control over every nerve and function in the body, and finally arrives at super-normal experiences and an ecstasy... Whereas a citizen of Western civilization is usually brought up without any knowledge of the science of breathing whatsoever, his breath being successively restricted by taboos and inhibitions throughout childhood, adolescence, and finally by the anxieties, depressions, bad air and smells, and the nervous rush of modern life. The final result is that the average person hardly breathes at all (compared with what he should do) and therefore is relatively half-conscious most of his days.

It is no exaggeration to say that if even five minutes a day were spent in mental and physical breath control, a person’s whole life would be made anew. For, besides the physical atoms of the air, such as carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, there are literally thousands of different radiations playing through the atmosphere, some of them infinitely subtle and powerful, which come from planets far outside our solar system! These can, and should, be drawn upon by us in correct breathing, specialized through our endocrine glands, and used in our most vital thinking and creative activities.

Usually... a person’s breathing has become automatic from childhood upwards, being determined by his childhood’s environment, circumstances and heredity. This automatic breathing is usually very inferior because of our ‘modern’ way of life, and leads to permanent inferior health. Therefore one of the first things which must be taken in hand is an understanding and mastery of the science of breathing.

Breathing is really a very complex activity. It does not only consist of taking in air, absorbing oxygen from it and letting it out again as carbonic acid gas! The breathing has a tremendous effect on the character, determining the mood, courage, strength of purpose, health and inspiration from day to day.

Some say ‘Man is what he eats’ and some say ‘A man’s thinking determines his character’. It might be even more true to say ‘A man’s life and character are governed by his breathing’! This is because a person can neither digest what he eats nor act up to his ideas unless his breathing qualifies him to do so. p. 101

The Principle of Sharing which will eventually rule all these arrangements will produce an attitude to property and possessions impossible to visualize to-day. If a person has more than his share he will feel as uncomfortable and ashamed as one now does who has insufficient. The misfortune of not knowing how to give and to share will produce the inferiority complex of the future. The Christian admonition that “if a person ask of thee thy coat give him thy cloak also” will be understood by all. Those who need something will not rob, but will state their need at their Community Centre and will thereby be given by their neighbors a much greater choice of goods than they could attain by attempted theft. Furthermore, tastes and requirements will become successively reduced and simplified in measure as peoples’ needs become choice and few.

Even the attitude towards Law itself will have changed. In the dim past the laws of the earliest great civilizations were founded upon the ultimate Divine Principles and Laws which were at work behind all manifesting life, and which were earnestly studied by the priesthood who were usually the law-makers by virtue of that same study. Today many of those old laws would still be invaluable but for the fact that although they have stood the test of time they have been cumbered up by a succession of haphazard man-made laws which depended not upon the Ageless Wisdom for their worth, but upon the mood of some rather mediocre Government.

In the future it will be impossible to draw the line between the work of scientist, healer and teacher. Their findings will synthesize ever more closely, bringing successive simplifications and illumination. The contributions of all these branches of research would be used by the Council for Social Law, whose work in conjunction with International Law and with the psychologists would be to establish a code and an ideal everywhere which would reduce the necessity for legal control to a minimum.

The importance of the goodwill of every single human being in this respect would be brought home to them. Not merely the service of their hands but that of their hearts and minds would be held in esteem as the riches of the community.

Every seventh year the Governments would likewise take pause, consider their own progress, go through a process of re-election, re-arrangement and rest. All this organization would be founded upon the belief that man was not made for work, but work for man, and that the aim of all living is to allow man to reach his highest ethical and intellectual development in order to be of service to the cause of progress.