13KB
Wallace D. Wattles Ultimate Collection — Chapter-103: Lesson 7 The Retention of Youth
- Source: /library/Wallace D. Wattles Ultimate Collection/source-file.pdf
- PDF pages: 439–443
- Pages without text: none
- Note: Work: The Personal Power Course, section 7 of 10.
Lesson 7 The Retention of Youth Table of Contents Is it worth while to achieve health, wealth, and ability if, when we reach the age of forty five or fifty years, we are to begin to lose it all - to begin to go down hill, grow slower of step, dimmer of vision, steadily weaker in mind and body until we are reduced to absolute helplessness and dependence? If we go the common way of the world, just as we become most effective we shall begin to become ineffective; just as we gain what we want, we shall begin to lose it all. If one is to be counted “old” and “a has been,” a “back number” at fifty, life is hardly worth while. Many sweeping assertions have been made by metaphysical teachers and writers concerning the retention of youth and the conquest of old-age idea; but we are still lacking a well attested scientific demonstration on this point. In this lesson we will consider the known psychological and physiological facts in the matter, and try to draw legitimate conclusions as to what is possible for us to do. First, we are compelled to conclude that old age is not a constitutionally inherent necessity of the body itself. The body does not really grow old; it is being perpetually renewed. The processes of cell destruction and cell-building are continuously going on, and modern physiology has ascertained that these processes are much more rapid than we have supposed; in the body of a healthy adult person of forty-five, there is probably not a single cell which is three years old. So far as his body is concerned, the man of forty-five is no older than one of twenty. The man of forty-five has nothing physical that he has kept from infancy; he has nothing physical that is “old.” The only thing about him which he has retained from his infancy is the subconscious mind. His subconscious mind, so far as our observation goes, is forty-five years old; but his body is less than
three years old. Why does this young body now begin to present the assurance of progressive age and decay? The subconscious mind has built the body from infancy, according to the impressions it received before birth. The conformation and appearance of the man's body have been determined by heredity, and of this heredity there are three distinct branches. First, there is the heredity of life, which comes from God, or the Supreme; and in this must lie the power to change and set aside all other heredities, for the source of all must be greater than all. Second, there is the heredity received from the race as a whole. It is this racial heredity which gives us the general idea of old age. For countless centuries men and women have begun to present the appearance of age at approximately the same period after birth; and the belief in the inevitability of a progressive physical and mental decline, beginning somewhere between forty and sixty, has been firmly fixed upon the subconscious minds of the race, and is automatically transmitted from parents to children. How the limit of life came to be fixed at about seventy years I do not know; but there is no physiological reason why it might not as well have been fixed at five hundred or a thousand years. It appears to be wholly a matter of subconscious impression. The third branch of heredity is that received from our immediate parentage. It is this heredity which gives us the individual variations as to the time and manner of our growing old. Some people begin to show signs of age at forty, and others not until sixty; in some the indications take the form of gray hair and failing sight, and in others we see wrinkles, and loss of flexibility; and so on. In some the mental faculties remain unimpaired until the end, while in others they begin to fail at half a century; and all these variations are the result of subconscious impressions received from the immediate ancestry of the individual, and from his environment. This, then is the phenomenon which confronts us: We see the body as continuously renewed up to a varying period which we call “middle life”; and after that period is reached, we see that the process of renewal does not keep pace with that of destruction; there appears to be a gradual but constant decline in power. And since we know that the subconscious mind is in charge of all the bodily processes, and is the real source of all vital power, we must ask the question whether the subconscious mind itself grows old; whether man is started in life with a certain amount of vitality, and must perish, mind and body, when that vitality is expended; whether he is like a wound-up machine, capable of
running only for a fixed period of time, or whether he may, so to speak, wind himself up again, and renew his power. The latter hypothesis appears to be in accord with the facts. We see sick people, whose vitality seems to be almost entirely gone, take a new start and build themselves up into robust health and strength; we see people who present all the signs of old age take up physical or mental culture, and apparently renew their youth; we see, in many ways, the demonstration of the claim made by Professor James, based on the phenomenon of the “second wind” of the athlete, that man has an unknown, and apparently limitless reservoir of vital power upon which he may draw at will - when he learns how. Seeing and taking into account all these phenomenon, we come to the conclusion that man does not grow old at fifty or sixty because his vitality is exhausted, and he cannot renew it, but because the renewing process has been suspended by the subconscious in obedience to the racial impression it has received. And, if that be true, it follows that if we change the impression, we can change the period of old age, or do away with it altogether. The logic of this conclusion appears to be impregnable; so completely so that it is admitted even by materialistic physicians and physiologists, who say that there is no physical reason why man should not retain youth and life indefinitely. If there are no physical reasons there can only be mental reasons; and the mental reasons can be removed if it is possible to change the mind. We come then to the CRUX of the whole matter in the question whether the racial and ancestral impressions of old age can be removed from the subconscious. And the impression of perpetual youth and continuous renewal put in their place. Theoretically, we KNOW that this can be done, because we know that the subconscious can be impressed in any desired way; but practically we find the matter in hand to be one of unusual difficulty. The idea of old age has been fixed upon the subconscious by racial thought and experience for countless centuries, and it is so firmly imbedded as to seem almost a part of the very texture of the mind itself; it will not be removed by a few repetitions of the opposite idea. When the individual sets himself against the mighty tide of a racial experience in which all men and women have shared for a hundred thousand years, he undertakes no light task. He has not only to overcome the influence of the almost unanimous belief of all living people, but he has to overcome the subconscious legacy received from countless millions who have passed on. He has to
overcome the suggestion of old age continuously received externally from those around him, and he has to overcome the belief in old age, fixed as a rock in his subconscious mind by the thoughts and experiences of all those of the race who have preceded him. It is not easy to do this, but it is possible. It is possible because man can think what he wants to think and by scientifically thinking what he wants to think, he can impress what he wishes upon the subconscious mind. To retain youth, man must think continually and only of the processes of renewal as going on within his body; he must not, for an instant give thought and attention to the processes of destruction. He must think renewal, talk renewal, FEEL renewal, until the subconscious retains only the impression of renewal; or at least, until the impression of destruction has become so thoroughly subordinate to, and a part of, the impression of renewal. He must absolutely close his eyes to the appearances presented by his environment; he must not see age, decay, or senility anywhere or in any person. He must think in terms of construction; the destructive processes of Nature, even though they may be but a necessary prelude to construction, he must ignore. At all times, and under all conditions, he must be active to stamp upon his subconscious mind the thought that his body is being renewed in every part; it must be his sole thought concerning his physical organism, that it is being perpetually renewed, through and through. He must hold this thought of perpetual renewal so steadily, continuously, and with such deep and sustained FEELING that it will supercede in the subconscious the impression received by the racial experiences of the centuries. This matter of FEELING is most important, for as we have more than once explained in these lessons, it is only those thoughts which are accompanied with deep feeling that reach and impress the subconscious mind. To impress the subconscious mind with the idea of perpetual youth and renewal, you must FEEL YOUNG, all the time; and to do that you must ACT YOUNG. You must not adopt the customs and mannerisms of “old age”; you must exercise and play like a young person. You must look upon the world and all it contains from the viewpoint of a young person; otherwise you will inevitably come to FEEL old, and if you do, you certainly begin to present the appearance of age. Get the viewpoint of a young person, and be careful to keep it; mentally take and hold the position of youth. It is not necessary that you should be frivolous or undignified; but it is absolutely essential that you should act and feel young. If you do not class yourself with the young, you will certainly class yourself with those who are older; and that is admitting the old-age idea, and will lead to your classing yourself among the down-and-outs. Hold the mental attitude of youth,
and take the physical attitude of youth. If you would do this, you cannot take life too seriously; you must play a great deal. Normal youth is always ready to play; and the person who feels young seeks play and amusement. If you are a young person, you will not only want the more staid and quiet mental pleasures, but you will seek for physical sports - games, and out-door enjoyments of the strenuous kind. How can you retain the mental attitude of youth if you say: “I used to play tennis, or golf, or baseball; but now croquet is strenuous enough for me?” That is equivalent to saying: “I am a has-been.” You must play those games which require activity, and flexibility of the muscles; that is the only way in which you can retain activity and flexibility. If you are to hold the frame of mind required, you will have to drop exercise, and put play in its place. You do not wish to admit that you are taking exercise to retain your youthful vigor and flexibility; you simply play because you ARE young, and so enjoy playing. Be careful that you do not get into this mental attitude; “I am growing old, but I will make believe that I am young.” The truth is that you ARE young; there is not an “old” cell in your physical body, and your mind is a mere infant, so far as its duration is concerned. Youth is to be retained, not by a skillful and strenuous make-believe, but by steadily recognizing the FACT, and refusing to be misled by the appearance. The old age of the body is an appearance, brought about by a deeply stamped but erroneous subconscious belief. If the opposite subconscious belief is established, the appearance of old age will be supplanted by the manifestation of the real TRUTH of youth. And to accomplish this, you must take, objectively, the attitude of youth; you must think youth and FEEL youth; you must mentally recognize and dwell upon the process of constructive renewal until the subconscious is thoroughly foiled and permeated with the thought of it. How much can you accomplish? Can you retain youth indefinitely? Well, some people are accomplishing a great deal in that direction. There are people who, at sixty-five and seventy, look as young, and to all appearance are as young as those of thirty and thirty- five; they have lost nothing in mental or physical power. If that is possible for them, it is also possible for you; because He that is in them is also in you. By following the instructions in this lesson, you can greatly increase constructive action; you can begin to present more of the appearance of youth; you can add to your mental and physical vigor; you can prolong your own youth, and you can help to put the next generation in a position to complete the conquest; and that is worth more than all.