PART I
How to Understand Yourself

5.WISDOM AND RELAXATION

Man's great inner fortress of wisdom cannot be stormed by mental effort or physical force. We have accustomed ourselves to accept hard work, study, patience, long hours, and aching muscles as the payment required for achievement, but the higher plateaus of knowledge, intuitive perception, and subconscious inner power cannot be commanded or subdued by force. Since the factor of force is so firmly identified with achievement, man perhaps has a logical excuse for missing the only true path to inner knowledge, that is, complete relaxation. In his frantic quest to accomplish, he applies more and more force to an increasingly resistant universe, and often achieves less and less for his efforts. The inability to relax the mind and the body has wearied more minds and bodies in the past few decades than any other single condition. People suffer from migraine, insomnia, constipation, stomach problems, and other ills, and ofttimes their doctors ex­plain there is nothing organically wrong with them. These people are suffering from nervous tension and cannot relax!

There are enough problems today to cause tension—hot and cold wars, space and race wars, economic and social day-to-day problems—and anyone might well lose his ability to relax be­cause of them. Humanity is weary, and there is national exhaus­tion from too much stress and force. But mere agreement that there is sufficient cause for an overdose of tension does not help you or others to relax. The causes are real; they are here now; and the effects are growing daily. Society, reacting to stress, grows more tense and draws even further away from self-understanding and relaxation.

What is the parallel to wisdom and relaxation? Faith comes from within. Self-confidence and abilities are not forced; they flow from the inner mind. But the road to inner wisdom remains closed to us as long as tension is present. Just as the winter snows fill the mountain passes and restrict traffic, so does tension block the channels for communicating with the inner consciousness. Does this not explain, in part, man's growing concern about him­self? Would not this division of the mind account for some of his illness and loss of confidence and his diminished will power? Indeed, it does. How can man halt this ceaseless mill-race? When will he pause and take stock of himself? Each must make his own decisions, and each must decide for himself when he has finished with fruitless effort. When he is ready to listen and relax, he is ready for knowledge.

How can nervous tension rob one of health and success? Tensions transmit stress via the communication system of the body to all the vital organs. We recognize the everyday results of tension, such as fatigue, headaches, sleeplessness, and nervous indigestion. Medical authorities agree that the ravages of tension are very serious. Tension damage to tissue is best repaired during periods of coordinated (mental and physical) relaxation. Should the periods of relaxation be too short, or the proper coordination between mind and body not be present for deep relaxation, the body must suffer. Since few of us are able to relax at will, we rely upon nighttime sleep for the periods of relaxation so essential to bodily repair.

More than ten million Americans suffer from insomnia. Ten­sions are robbing these millions of the relaxation and rest so necessary to their health and well-being. You may sleep and still remain tense throughout the night. When you awaken as tired as when you went to bed, either your body or your mind failed to completely relax, even though you may have slept for several hours. Tests prove that one or two hours of complete relaxation, both of mind and body, are more effective in tissue rejuvenation than ten hours of fitful sleep. Unsolved problems create tension. Certain unsolved problems can attract our atten­tion with such force that we become fascinated and cannot relax at night. Try as we may to think of something else, our thoughts, like homing pigeons, return to the worries and problems of the moment. So throughout the night the wheels of thought continue to turn; the body remains tense, the mind and body resisting sleep and relaxation. This is the plight of the insomniac, and upon such a premise has grown the multimillion-dollar-a-year sleeping-pill empire. Can those plagued with tension learn to relax? Can the insomniac sleep without pills? Can the tense and the nervous be trained to relax the mind and body any time they choose? Yes, and they must if they are to survive with any measure of contentment.

Transitional sleep is a method of controlled relaxation. The ensuing chapters explain in detail how the coordination of men­tal and physical factors are utilized to achieve deep relaxation. We shall explain how specialized suggestions break the fascinat­ing hold of tension and permit one to relax with ease. You will learn how conditioning is the master key to controlled relaxa­tion. You will learn that knowledge, power, wisdom, and health are not products of force, but accrue, rather, from silent inward powers that we vitalize and set into motion with positive at­titudes. We shall describe how tensions can be removed by specialized suggestions at certain receptive levels of awareness and relaxation. You will learn how to remove the shackles of ignorance, ill health, and failure through the modern miracle of transitional sleep. You will learn how to plant the seeds of success in the fertile soil of the inner mind. You will learn how to reverse the downward spiral of destruction, and to release the inner strength of the universal mind. Transitional sleep per­mits you to guide your own destiny from any point on the tone scale upward to the goal of your own choosing. Are you ready?

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