Body cleansing and willpower

Vegetarians distinguish themselves through the fact that they consume no meat, whatsoever, but cook through boiling the majority of their food.

Even if you obey all the 'norms' of boiling, like steaming, enzymes - these substances so necessary to the organism - are destroyed, and then you will be fed insufficiently.

Greens boiled in water are almost completely destroyed, and a good example is cabbage, which, through boiling, loses 60% of its initial nutritional value.

One of the most important vitamins, Vitamin C, which acts mainly as a blood purifier, is completely lost through thermal refinement. Mineral salts as well, do not take well to boiling, being eliminated through the water used, even when steaming, so vegetables and greens lose practically all their nutritious properties.

Also, through boiling, proteins lose two thirds of their nutrition value and their structure changes, becoming - through metabolization - residues and acids.

IMPORTANT PRINCIPLES

Our body is an energetic system. Organs are collections of cells with identical patterns of vibration. Cells have the same energetic frequency. Homeostasis keeps them together.

When the body's cellular energy is disrupted, it is what we call sickness.

The energetic system (the body) works best only with efficient fuel. The dynamic cellular equilibrium and health are maintained by the output of energy, as big as possible.

The fuel we absorb through food is far more efficient in the way provided directly through nature, so long as our bodies are also fruits of nature.

You will not have to keep track of calories when eating (false theory, by the way), you do not have to starve yourself, to reject food, there will be no mood-swings and you will need no medication, but this is also not a short-term program, but a permanent one, for a whole lifetime.

You will gain trust in your own body and in the fact that it will receive all the necessary nutrients; the inner energetic level will be high, and the weight will drop (or grow, in the case of those far too thin) and stabilize.

Importance will be given to not only what you eat, but also when and in what combinations.

This will be detailed specifically in another lens.

Besides nutrition, by far the most important and neglected aspect of physical health, universally ignored and misunderstood, is the exercise of physical activities relating to certain purifications necessary to the body.

Of course, everyone with half a mind knows that working out a little bit, maybe running a little each day, or some other physical activity is good for them. But they wouldn't be able to give you reasons why that is good, besides the traditional (losing weight, burning calories, burning fat, keeping your body fit and your heart healthy).

In this segment I don't intend to expose to you the benefits of jogging, running, lifting weights or any such stuff. On the contrary, this will mostly be useless to you unless they are a necessary part of your work curriculum or unless you actually like to do it. Having a hobby that keeps you working, in good health and makes you focus your willpower is a very good thing.

What I am going to expose to you is the category of physical exercises that work on purifying certain segments of the body. These exercises will be employed with mental focus, using specially designated visualization techniques, proprietary to these exercises. I dare go as far as saying that the mental aspect of the exercises, the focus on the intended benefits and results of them, is actually somewhat more important than the physical action itself.

Let me elaborate: Let's assume you are a martial artist that has heard there is a force called Ki, and you want to learn to manipulate that force, amplify it and use it outside your body. Your master has told you to face a training post, and, slowly, being very careful to maintain correct posture, perform slow-motion punches in which you visualize the inner fire in your belly, the generator of ki, firing up, pushing out the fire through your punch and expelling it through your fist. You are to make one thousand punches each day with the correct focusing exercise. And most importantly, your master has placed special emphasis on trying to physically 'feel' the ki inside of you actually moving.

What I have described above is something many martial artists, kiai disciples, aikidokas etc. have been practicing for hundreds of years. Many of you may have heard of, or been doing the exercise for a while. It was the first exercise I was told to do at my first lesson of chinese Wushu.

No matter the human denial in these matters, Ki, Qi, Prana, Inner fire and its assorted names have existed and will continue to exist, despite the ignorant not wanting to accept it's there. Just like air is invisible, so are the aforementioned.
Similar to the exercise above, the exercises I will list for you, for the attainment of specific inner purification of the organism, will be executed slowly, focused, preferably on precise schedules every day with special emphasis on the awareness of the intended effects of the exercise.

Each of the exercises will have the function of energizing some of the body's energy centers (known as the seven stars or seven churches in christianity, or seven chakras - literary wheels - in hindu or tibetan yoga; other different esoteric traditions have different names for these centers of power), cleaning the body's energy channels (meridians, or nadis - the energetic equivalent of the body's circulatory system) and even physically toning, warming up the body, preparing it for longer practice times and/or more advanced exercises. Such warming up is necessary because, not only do we need to have a correct frame of mind and energetic purity at the time of practice, we also constantly block our body's channels and chakras due to incorrect posture, incorrect breathing or eating horribly damaging foods. The impressions we absorb during the day in the form of music and videos, and also incorrect emotions also further damage our body's subtle energy structure.

These exercises are not to be executed sooner than 3 hours after any meal. It is recommended you do not eat for a further 2 hours after them, either, but I can tell you now that you may feel exceedingly hungry afterwards. This hunger would best be compensated through proper breathing exercises, but you may not always be able to stem it, and anyway, breathing exercises are the subject of a different lens.

The most perfect times for the execution of these exercises are twice a day. Immediately after waking up (preferably at sunrise) and immediately before going to sleep (it is recommended to have 2 cycles of REM sleep every night, so going to sleep would be recommended to be done eight and a half hours before sunrise).

If you are wondering upon the restrictions for eating, I can tell you that the best way for you to find out the justification for these restrictions is to try to practice once without having eaten, and once on a full stomach. You will quickly realize that you may feel uncomfortable, full, drowsy. You will also realize you would have become unable to feel the energies coursing through your body as well as before, or even at all.

The series of exercises themselves, called asana in sanskrit (literary translated as 'posture'), will have a certain specific order to be performed in. They will also feature mandatory warming up exercises, vitally important to the proper execution of the asanas themselves, and also to insure you do not have side-effects such as headaches, dizziness or discomfort.

Until you obtain proficiency in these asanas, they will be executed in somewhat short durations (in the beginning, even 5 minutes could be hard to maintain, but this would be a recommended duration to sustain, even in the presence of pain or physical discomfort - this is not to be confused with headaches or the world spinning around you, case in which you should stop execution of the asanas, rest, and resume at your leisure).

After some asanas become comfortable or even pleasurable (after sustained practice and proper conscious observance of the effects) you should, and may even feel the need, to maintain one or more asanas for a higher period of time (hours, and some may maintain the asana during deep meditation for even days - but that is the object of a different lens).



As I stated before, there is a mandatory series of warming up exercises. These exercises must be performed fluidly, carefully, with proper concentration on desired effects.

The series begins as such:

The first thing I have to say about the starting posture is, don't ignore doing it just because it seems simple. It is very important in order to get your body relaxed and your mind ready for awareness.



Starting from a standing upright posture, we will verify that our feet are distanced from each other at about 2 inches, parallel to each other on the outside (which means the heels will be slightly farther apart than the toes). The spine will be as straight as possible, head erect, the chin slightly tilted downwards to maintain the continuity of the spine.
We will do a quick relaxation and surveillance of the body. We will try to feel the body as a whole, with the muscles' contractions, the blood vessels flowing, etc. We will maintain this concentration until we are comfortable that we have gained full consciousness of our body.

Being careful to keep our shoulders relaxed and our spine straight, we will slowly tilt our heads forward until the point where our chins are touching our chests. Be careful that your neck muscles are relaxed. Then, begin rotating your head clockwise (from left to right). Keep the speed as slow as possible, stretching the neck as much as possible. Become aware of every muscle stretching out, imagine the center of energy inside the throat (known as Vishuddhi or Vishuddha Chakra) as a pulsing white ball of light emanating from the projection of the throat on the spine. Rotation in this direction should be maintained for about 2-3 minutes, or, if you feel that it would not be bad going further, keep rotating until it feels complete.

When judging the rotations complete, slowly retract your head back into upright position. Try to become aware of the increased sensation of sensitivity, of Yin. Also try to feel the energies coursing in the throat region, imagine Vishuddhi vibrating and becoming more energized. Maintain this focus and concentration for about 30 seconds.

Slowly tilt your head forward again, and begin rotating in the opposite direction, from right to left. Once more, be careful to check that your neck and shoulder muscles are relaxed, and that you are not moving your torso around as well.
Maintain the rotation in this direction for at least as long as you did in the other.

Now, an important aspect is that the Vishuddhi center has to be correctly energized, with both Yin and Yang energies, and a balance must be obtained. Rotation from left to right is Yin, rotation form right to left is Yang.

Theoretically we should perform equal durations of rotation in every direction. However, in current society, there is a distinct predominance to take in Yin energies from all directions. Yin foods (sugar, meats, greases, milk), Yin vices (alcohol, tobacco), most of everything is Yin, weakening.

The opposite to today's degraded and decadent society with an excess of Yin could be seen in the ancient Spartan society with an excess of Yang. Totally disciplined warriors, raised from a small age in martial training for all of their lives.

The spartans lacked the balance, requiring more sensitivity, relaxation and philosophical education. Our society lacks discipline, Yang. Therefore, you should make some effort during your practices to strengthen your Yang energies more.

Once the counter-rotations are completed, revert to the spine erect position, relax your body as much as possible and become aware of the polar energization of Vishuddhi and the whole neck area.

Become aware of the fluidic energies in the neck being released and flowing freely, aware of the strengthening of your mental faculties, aware of the unification of the perception of time, perceiving past, present and future as a single unified stream.

When ready, move on to the next exercise.

This next exercise is designed to energize two centers of power. The center at the top of the spine, linking to the cerebrum is the back-end of the third eye, the spinal projection of Ajna. The center in the middle of the top of head, the fontanella, is the seat of the crown chakra, the thousand petal lotus of the Sahasrara. It is the seat of divine consciousness, of unification with God.

Besides energizing these two centers, the exercise will further release the fluidic energies in the neck area and increase mentation capacity.

From the starting position, quickly jerk your head to the left two times without tilting it forward or back. Then jerk it to the right two times. Keeping your head to the right, tilt it backwards two times, then, swing your head to the left in tilt it backwards again. Finally, revert to the face-forward position and again tilt it back two times.

Be careful that at no point during this exercise are you to tilt your head sideways. Even when jerking your head left or right, the tilts of the head will be made from front to back only.

Keep repeating the exercise for about 2-3 minutes. As time progresses and you become accustomed to the exercise you will be allowed to shorten the exercises to 1 minute or about 40 seconds in order to have time for the more advanced asanas.

When you finish the jerking movements, retract your head, and try to become aware of the flows of energy in your neck, back and top of your head, the dilation of time and expansion of mentation abilities.

In a related side-note, for people who are mentally tired either at work or in any other stressful environment, you can take 5-10 minutes of free time and quickly go through these exercises to give yourself a quick boost of energy and relax your mind and body. Do not underestimate these warming up exercises, though I am pretty sure if you will practice them once you will realize the benefits instantly.