In our modern world, a long life is what most men and women are going to have. Therefore, more than at any previous time in history, how to remain healthy, active and content over the long decades is the burning problem facing countless millions. No one welcomes ripe old age if it is to be a burden. We do not want it if it is going to mean retirement and that enforced idleness, which cripples the soul long before it eventually murders the body.

By devoting a mere, twenty minutes or a half hour a day to the pursuit of Yoga you can, as you know by now, avoid such misery. You can enrich your life by developing your inner re­sources in depth, as you never before dreamed possible. You can discover within yourself inner strengths you did not sus­pect were there, potentials you never stopped to cultivate. In short, through Yoga you can find a new understanding of your true self and be something more than you ever were before.

Let us review first the modest minimum physical routines which will make possible your program of retraining.

First, remember to follow certain simple rules of hygiene:

Sleep enough but not too much, in a well-ventilated room but avoiding drafts, making sure that your bed doesn't sag and that you aren't smothered with too many covers. Always sleep with your head to the North and your feet to the South. In this way your body gets the benefit of the earth's magnetic cur­rents flowing harmoniously through it in the proper direc­tion. Your sleep will be infinitely more beneficial if you re­member to do this.

In the morning try if possible to set aside a regular period for your Yoga breathing, relaxation and concentration rou­tines, preferably combined with a few as anis. If you must leave these routines for later in the day, at least make sure of a few minutes given over to deep breathing before you dress. Do the breathing after you have washed, brushed your teeth and cleaned your tongue and also emptied your bladder. Try to establish the habit of evacuating your bowels at this time, too, especially if you plan on the full Yoga routine; but do not force yourself or allow the bowel movement to become a matter of concern.

After your breathing and relaxation exercises, make sure you eat breakfast without gulping. Never skip this first meal, but keep it light. It is a good general rule not to overeat: always get up from the table slightly unsatisfied, as if you could stand another mouthful.

If morning is not a good time for your Yoga exercises, be sure to allocate a regular period for them either at the end of your working day or before going to bed. But do not delay until you stagger with fatigue. If you do, it will be too late for the exercises to do you the maximum good. Do not wait until you are overtired.

Make it a practice sometime during your waking hours to take out five to fifteen minutes for complete relaxation, with your mind a blank and your body completely limp.

Remember to practice Dynamic Breathing at odd moments, whether while taking a walk or sitting relaxed in a chair.

So much for the needs of your body. As for rules of con­duct, a Yogi, remember, expects to live by high standards. He must overcome fear, be honest with himself, be sincere, aware of others and must never hurt anyone. Self-knowledge is a most important goal. One of the objects of Meditation is to learn to see yourself as you really are, which isn't necessarily as others see you. Once you have reached this stage of under­standing of self you will also have reached a far greater under­standing of your fellow human beings. You will then experi­ence a great sense of belonging, of oneness with those around you—something which in this age of isolation and alienation is the greatest possible boon.

Jealousy, anger, envy, hate are not only to be avoided—they are emotions unworthy of one whose philosophy attempts to encompass true understanding of others. As your own self-searching bears fruit, you will find these unwelcome emotions more and more foreign to you. For, knowing that the short­comings of others are no worse than your own, you will look upon them with tolerance. And as you yourself tend more and more to be well-disposed toward those with whom you come in contact, they in turn will respond with greater good will and positiveness toward you.

Tolerance, charity, compassion are to be cultivated and soon will become a happy habit. This in turn will bring its own dividends. You will find yourself more and more at peace with the world, no longer permitting the imperfections of others to act as irritants. But of course this is not your prime aim in making yourself over. Few benefits are ever reaped from good will that is forced or faked in opportunistic fashion. In your relations with others as well as with yourself al­ways remember you must be honest. Only then can you expect to know the joy of true serenity and be able to benefit from it. For there is no pretending with the inner man!

We hope that you have been practicing Concentration and Meditation—practicing them mechanically at first if need be —and that by now they have become sufficiently a habit to carry you a step further. Where at first the object of your concentration may have been a candle-flame and your medi­tation centered on the petals of a flower, now you should be ready to apply the same techniques to the solution of real problems. If you have a decision to make, consider the aspects of the situation at hand from all sides, weighing the pros and cons, projecting yourself into the future, trying to visualize how you would function under the circumstances that are being created. Do not day-dream—really concentrate on what troubles you—and the correct answers will come to you. For the answer to every question that concerns you deeply is within yourself, and you will discover what you must do if only you let the parts of the puzzle fall in place to form a whole. Use the tools of Concentration and Meditation for this.

Sometimes you may find that, having considered every angle carefully, you want to delay your decision—sleep on it. This is an excellent approach. Not surprisingly you will discover the following morning that you know "instinctively" what you really want to do. This is the result of having per­mitted yourself to benefit by the subconscious functioning of association—which we sometimes call intuition at work— with your subliminal mind free to arrive at inevitable con­clusions, or at least conclusions that are inevitable for you.

Concentration of this kind is a sure guide to future action, for it helps you act on the basis of your best and deepest instincts combined with inner knowledge, rather than on shal­low impulse or because you are allowing yourself to be pushed into a decision; pushed either by others or by your own uncer­tain sense of values. Such concentration helps develop inde­pendence of mind and also self-sufficiency, the lack of which is nothing more nor less than a lack of faith in your own self. Learn, therefore, to think straight so that you can trust your­self fully.

Remember Pantajali's definition of Yoga as "the achieve­ment of absolute mastery over the mind and emotions." Once a person has become fully aware of Self, this great teacher al­ways stressed, he never again becomes so lost in what is hap­pening in the world around him that he forgets to live a real inner life of his own.

But you must learn to live your inner life without undue ten­sion. Introspection can mean enlightenment; it can also mean self-destruction. In the process of learning who you are and what you are, there will be a time when, having observed yourself, you will not like what you see, for deep down each of us is his own severest critic. Do not make a career of tearing yourself down. By all means analyze your present shortcom­ings and defects, bring them into the open plane of your mind, but do not dwell on them. Determine to change what you dis­like, and start on the problem systematically, a little each day.

Try also to get a clear insight into the fears and anxieties you have been harboring. Make an actual list of them if you find that otherwise you shy away from grappling with them. Once you have done this, once you have confronted your private ghosts, you will be able to exorcise them in the clear light of day. Let the clean wind and the sunshine of lucid knowledge blow through the hidden corridors of your subconscious. You will become a new person. For, the moment you face fears, most of them turn into nothing—few are realities. It is as President Roosevelt once said, we have nothing to fear but fear itself.

The fears that are real must be faced; that which you cannot change must be accepted. But instead of letting yourself be routed you must learn to live with reality. This is not easy and cannot be accomplished in one swoop, but neither is it as hard as you may think. The main thing here is your own determination. The clear light of reason is your best ally—that is why clear thinking, achieved through Meditation and Con­centration, is all-important to your new orientation. With it will come a courage you hardly suspect you possess!

It is important always to bear in mind the following three maxims:

First, a negative attitude not only presupposes failure but actually invites it. Conversely, you can think yourself into an attitude of success. This is not auto-suggestion. Your thoughts invariably determine your own actions and other people's reactions to you.

Hence the second rule—learn to act as if failure were im­possible. This doesn't mean you are to become arrogant. Far from it. Self-confidence does not preclude modesty. A completely confident person, quietly aware of inner strength and ability, is more likely to be modest about it than the man or woman who must bluster because of inner insecurity. All that you must ask of yourself, then, is to maintain a completely positive attitude and to act on the positive, constructive im­pulses instead of on the self-defeating ones.

Thirdly, and lastly, never permit yourself to doubt that you have within you the strength and ability to overcome whatever difficulties are in your path. Simply learn—and here again Yoga Concentration is your ally—to dig out what is best in yourself and to utilize it. You are never as weak nor other people as strong as, in your moments of despondency, you may imagine. Remember to direct your energy and brain­power instead of allowing them to react automatically, and you will find that you have harnessed a powerhouse.

Most people allow themselves to be defeated by putting off what they want to accomplish, meaning to get things done but never doing them. Learn to see the continuity of action and events. The future is not something beyond you, but a continuation of the present, just as the present is a continua­tion of the past. Therefore the future will never be automat­ically "different" and tomorrow will not be magically "bet­ter" unless you consciously work at changing your patterns. Anything else is a vain and superstitious hope, and the sooner you recognize this the further along you will be. Success is rarely a matter of luck. More often it is a matter of marshaling your forces. Oddly enough it is not intelligence which is the decisive factor here, but determination. Highly intelligent people are often the sensitive ones who vacillate; they also allow themselves to be distracted by extraneous interests from the main tasks they have set themselves. Later on they wonder bitterly why someone less bright, and far less talented, has got ahead of them.

From this it does not necessarily follow that in order to be a success one must have a one-track mind. Rather, it is attack­ing one problem at a time that will make the difference. Allow yourself all the broad interests you feel you need in order to make your life rich in varied experience. But know when to indulge your preferences. Learn to husband your time and your energy.

The Yogis taught that there was nothing beyond human reach for him who believed he could do what he set out to do and kept on trying with complete concentration. This is an excellent thing to keep in mind. You can readily see now why concentration exercises are so very important. Having once mastered the approach, it is up to you to select your attitudes and each day perform some exercise in Dynamic Concentra­tion. Begin simply. Give yourself some task well within your ability and see to it that you do what you have promised your­self at the time you have set for it. Do not let interruptions distract you nor pleasure interfere. The discipline is well worth the effort. Soon you will be experiencing a real sense of delight in accomplishing necessary things which once you were forever putting off until some never-never hour. At the same time the feeling of guilt, of pressure, which procrastina­tion generates will magically leave you.

Getting back briefly to the physical exercises, you might easily apply the concentration discipline to getting your as anas done. This is the best way we know of to conquer that ever-present desire to begin "tomorrow." Tomorrow never comes unless you prepare for it today; learn not to put your­self off with excuses.

As your physical well-being improves through the Yoga routines and your mind quiets down and stops playing tricks on you, you can begin to re-read this book, repeating the les­sons already learned, but exploring more in depth. Always keep in mind that there is no end to learning and growth in general and that this is especially true of Yoga. Keep with it, make it a perpetual program, and you will have found the power to renew yourself, to maintain at maximum level you mental, physical and spiritual development. To many throughout the world Yoga is a gift from the gods. You can make this gift your own, for it is offered to you free if you just make a little effort. Not only will your span of life on earth have then been lengthened, but your existence will be­come that much happier, healthier and more harmonious.