THIS IS THE LAST NEWS LETTER, unless present plans change and new Guidance is given dictating more of them. As you all will recall, I announced a year ago that the HRA Bulletin was being discontinued, but that for those who had recently sent in a gift to Cigbo to help with the Bulletin fund, a series of four News Letters would be sent out during 1958. That arrangement has proved satisfactory so far, but the plan announced at the same time to get out a series of pamphlets or small books to be sold at set prices, has not worked out as expected. The main difficulty is that the cost of notifying everyone that such items were ready would be the same as on a book selling for $3 0r also, the handling and mailing costs would be just as high on a pamphlet as on a large book. As things stand, it looks as though larger books are the answer. However, no decision has yet been reached, and we shall see what might happen.
THIS NEWS LETTER, for instance, has been endowed to the extent of half the cost of stamps, paper and stencils, by one of the seasoned and enthusiastic HRAs who has been slowly testing out various forms of Yoga for us, and who was determined that the News Letters should not starve out before his report was made. So, HRA Richard H., of New Jersey, has our warm thanks both for the research and for the help with the production of the News Letter containing his report. Those who are really interested in his testing and feel they must write to him, may send letters to me, and when several are accumulated, I will forward them. He will try to find time in a very active life to answer briefly when he can. A stamped and self-addressed envelope, naturally, should be sent with your letter if you ask questions or wish a reply. Now for the report, which was made in article form, and we shall see how much space is left for comment and for other material.
YOGA – THE LIVING BESSEMER PROCESS
My Personal Experience by R.H.
I was minding my own business, just waiting to get my hair cut. To while away the time I picked up a copy of “SEE”, issue of September, 1952, and saw an article on yoga by Yogi Rao. This article was the forerunner of others in the magazine and the newspapers. The Newark, N. J. “Star-Ledger” ran a series of five articles dealing with Yogi Rao’s introduction of Doris Duke to the subject. It seems that yoga was being given a “whirl” by the nation’s press at the time.
There was one peculiar aspect on all that was presented: little or nothing was shown or told in plain English of what happened to the individual as a result of taking or undergoing yoga training.
There was much about “prana”, postures and “fires of the Kundllini”, all of which left the reader bogged down with the thought that yogis must be screwballs. Yogi Rao made a plain statement that westerners made the mistake of thinking that the display of unusual physical abilities and powers were the sign of an objective reached in such powers. This, he stated, was incorrect. The ability to display unusual physical powers was a sign of the degree of advancement of the yogi’s goal, which was to “achieve union with the Creator”.
In November, 1952, my mother came to visit us for a few weeks. When I came inside to greet her, it was to see my five-year-old son entertaining her by trying to stand on his head. “Oh, so we have a yogi in the house,” I remarked.
“What is yoga?” my mother asked. My reply was that I did not know, but that it seemed to have something to do with standing on one’s head. Suddenly realizing how little I knew of the subject, I took time to go to the local library and to work through the material found there.
When I had finished, I was in the position of Omar Khayyam when he wrote, “… but evermore came out the same door as in I went”. In other words, I ran into an endless description of the antiquity of the system, its subdivisions, its postures and exercises, also of the yogi miracles. Yogi Rao’s statement of “the visual evidence of progress along the path of union with the Creator” was the limit. As to what the individual actually experiences… nothing. I was on my own. All writers agreed that the yogis agreed that their miracles stem from “control of the breath”, which is regarded in the East as a LIVING FORCE. Regard as you will the Biblical “Seek and ye shall find” as either matter-of-fact statement, or as a promise; it doesn’t matter; for as soon as one starts looking for something, leads start coming to one’s attention continuously.
I began testing, and soon found that “control of the breath” meant suppression of the breath – a slowing down of the breath rhythm to a point that at the time seemed fantastically slow. It had to be done in a fixed ratio between inhalation, retention and exhalation of the breath. Having discovered this, I set off on the strangest experience of my life, one which caused me to find the key to the unknown and the unseen, and which went beyond religion to limitless discoveries.
First of all, yoga is “different”. The West seeks to build will power; the East to minimize it. And to the yogi “the Mind is the rider, and the Breath is the horse”. With concentration or deep thought the thinking process is slowed down or suspended. The yogi, therefore, slows the thinking process by slowing the breathing rhythm. Does this have value? It brings in its wake the power to remove diseases, bodily or mental, for its practice regulates the heart and other functioning parts. Because the will may stay as an obstruction to the attainment of benefits, the yogi outwits the will by using it to bring him to the practice of the exercises, and then in their practice, find it subordinated to the slowed breathing.
In India no novice would start off in yoga without taking instruction from a teacher of the traditional “way”. Without a teacher one has the problems involved in finding the “way”, and the additional ones raised by finding that books on the subject are largely written allegorically, or give discussions of surface features only.
This business of traveling alone necessitates caution, for reasons that will appear.
Yoga is a way of discipline; not only one of exercises, but also one of living the Golden Rule fully. It is a philosophy and a system constructed for the purpose of maximizing the potential of individual who is “made in the image and likeness of the Creator. And none but he who accepts the discipline shall know the experiences.” The proof of the correctness of the philosophy and the effectiveness of the exercises may be judged by the changes that occur in the life of the practitioner or student. All these changes occur by way of “control of the breath”. The key exercise for effecting this control is found in a manipulation of the nostrils while breathing, with the hands being alternated; its name is “Ida-Pingala”.
There is an ostensible reason for doing every exercise – but behind every reason may be one or more concealed reasons. For instance: the picturesque headstand is to benefit glands and vital organs generally. One does it for a time and finds that it is a choice concentration exercise! Either concentrate or fall, in answer to a question as to the need for “concealed reasons” for doing the various exercises, it has been put this way: “If the world at large should know of the remarkable benefits obtained through yoga, people would storm our gates. Our time would be so used up on the superficial that we could not take care of the sincere.”
My start was with but four controlled breaths, once a day. The time of control was less than half that when done by an experienced practitioner. Over a period of 2½ years I worked up to my high point of doing the same number of breaths as required for a minimum day’s stint for a yogi — consisting of three periods of one hour each, at the rate of 80 breaths per hour. For the purpose of this discussion we neglect all other exercises.
The first change I noticed was that in spite of my living in the sooty New York metropolitan area, my skin was becoming clearer. The second, that my intuition was functioning like a naval gunnery range finder. Third, small miracles began to show up — small, but a miracle is a miracle! One was that the “Balance of Chance” seemed to be improved in its behavior towards me. My degree of alertness was increased, and I became happier. The change I liked best was that my understanding of people was developing, and I came to be in closer harmony with them.
“Understanding” is a remarkable thing. It illumines one’s problems and relationships like a burst of internal sunshine. After a certain point, doors of understanding start to open to one and they keep right on opening one after another. As every problem has its answer, so do answers keep coming along as needed. No answer comes until one is ready or competent to cope with it.
One of the first answers to come to me was that of why the skin had become clear. Reports that this was to be expected had been encountered in several places. It was a two-stage answer; first, the lungs would not stay full; after a few seconds more air could be inhaled. This meant that the air was going somewhere, and since the skin was becoming clearer without “treatments” of any kind, or any dieting — there was just one answer. Second and consequently: I was not only breathing through the skin at a newly accelerated rate, but I was a living BESSEMER CONVERTER!
In this process, on which the great steel-making fortunes of the latter half of the nineteenth century were founded, impurities are removed from molten iron by passing air through it in fine streams. By this action the silicon, manganese, carbon and other unwanted elements are consumed. After experiencing the rise in apparent body heat that accompanies the exercises, the proposition does not seem too strange. Recognition of the cleansing properties in air is extended when we observe the clear skin of the citizens of Maine.
What of the yogi: does he actually have impurities consumed within his body by heat derived from oxygen? Since these impurities are largely vegetable in form like, say, chocolate, it would not take much heat to make a change in their condition, bearing in mind that medical doctors tell us that only a few degrees rise in body temperature, as in scarlet fever, is enough to kill the roots of the hair. Air is taken in; air and impurities are expelled; the pressure in the lungs helps to develop the procedure. Thanks to its temperature stabilizing mechanism, the body does not usually consume its impurities by an overall rise in temperature, although it uses the same fuel as does the Bessemer process. The feeling of heat while breathing under control is a direct result of the coursing of a myriad of tiny local air streams through pores and cells, and registering on the nerve ends.
The stricture on the breath has unforeseen effects on the subconscious, one being that of inducing a reaching out for a dependable air supply, beyond the whim of the conscious. When the breath is restrained on a rhythmical basis, the subconscious is greatly disturbed. One becomes aware of an activity which may best be described as a frantic scavenging for air in every cell of the body. As the days stretch into months in the practice of breath control, one becomes adjusted to it, and the sense of the desperate scavenging for air is left behind. A sense of comfort indicates that an adjustment to a new normalcy has been made – and on a level of greater alertness and well being. The subconscious is again at peace.
Ida-Pingala is the great regulator. The West recognizes that the brain, separated into two halves, is a bi-valve whereby the right side controls the left side of the body, and the left side controls the right side of the body. Yoga, via Ida-Pingala, sets about bringing both sides of the brain and body into equal balance and control. To those not involved with the complexities of Western life, the ambidextrousness of Ida-Pingala may be enough to bring brain and body into balance. To us it is but a start, and we should exercise our offside hand so as to duplicate with equal facility any service or action we perform with the other.
There is a saying in the literature on the subject that: “Every man has two brothers; and behind every brother in the light is one in the dark”. As my training in ambidextrousism progressed, I had the experience that many another had been through – whether or not interested in self-development – the unaccountable dropping of some object which was held in the hand. With me this phase lasted about two months. In the course of time it was found to be occasioned by the control of the holding hand passing from one side of the brain to the other, and in so doing uncovering a “gap” in control. Thus we come to find that either side of the brain may be trained to serve either side of the body. At times the control may be noticed at the moment of passing without the dropping of objects. By this and other experiences we find that the word, “occult”, when used to mean “mysterious”, is a misnomer.
To the uninitiated, yoga may well be considered mysterious. But the “occult” is that of astronomy’s “occulting” as of a binary star, where the near star of the pair or the dominant side of the brain is in the light, while the one obscured is “the brother in the dark”. We may feel safe in assuming that the term “occult” drifted from the East in its meaning of “mysterious” because of the difficulty of understanding what was told in answer to inquiries re: yoga – it was mysterious!
In developing both sides of the brain we unlock a treasure house! That is the great secret. Our whole being changes so that we become alert and happy. Obstacles diminish in size, and we become more competent. But believe the educators when they say that children should not be forced to use the off-side hand; it is a very tiring activity, and should be a matter of volunteer effort only. One should try and try again, converting from customary usage of one set of implements after another. When tiredness shows up, as it will very soon, employ the hands in normal usage for a few cycles, and then back again. Even go to writing and printing with either hand.
Among the infinitude of benefits derived from bringing our selves into better balance, is to be found the fact that in artwork we show better control of our lines. If we have cause to toss an object to a distance, it will be found that our accuracy is improved beyond measure. Overall “judgment” is stepped up considerably. But this one took me really by surprise: after spending a lifetime with straight, unruly hair, mine developed a slight wave! Yoga, with its balanced mental and manual activities and control brings improvement in every phase of life and living.
When one finds the outpouring of a cornucopia following the restricting of the breath, one sees reason enough for the effort expended in doing so. But how would one come about thinking up a system like one that would extract benefits from the air? When this system was put together, people were not occupied with the equipment of a mechanical civilization. Assuming that “Mother India” or some other warm area was its birthplace, it will be seen that thoughtful individuals just sat and did some thinking. The most ancient of the thinking exercises is that involved in discovering the answer to the three questions: “Who am I?” “Why am I here?” and “Where am I going?” In the process of analyzing these, the nature of life and living became very thoroughly understood. It was found that life and breath are inseparable. If we have one, we experience the other. If we are young and vigorous we breathe copiously. If we are young and vigorous we have life abundantly. Let’s try another entry to the equation: If we breathe copiously we are vigorous and have life abundantly.
How about youth and age and breath? Out of Tibet and India come stories that populations of whole districts have an average life span of 120 years. One writer reports hearing stories that there are some “mystics” in their fifth century. As a corollary to the inseparableness of life and breath is the knowledge that the aging process is a chemical one. In dealing with this facet, yoga is dead set against the taking of condiments in or as food — in fact, it is against anything that tends to make one look forward with enjoyment to food or pleasure of the flesh. Dedicated practitioners also give themselves enemas by muscular control – a kind of reverse peristalsis.
In starting exercises, one’s first effort is to become peaceful in mind. One may then commence to breathe under controlled rhythm, carefully, cautiously. If one has had heart trouble one should be extra cautious for the physical reason, checking with one’s doctor. So long as one follows a set regimen of exercise, one’s ability to concentrate will improve. As normal “western” citizens we have five human senses. After we breathe under control for a while, we develop others which have been dormant.
What has been presented to the public as “Yoga for the West” is anything but! — Being rather the portrayal of conditions of advanced development, which the student is not likely to reach unless under experienced guidance. What one may do for oneself, starting with a small number of breaths, will give one an idea as to whether to seek guidance. There are mail order courses which can get one started; but there are on record cases where students of at least one of these have “taken off” on some fanciful exercises, and have become depleted of energy, falling victims to spirit obsession, of which the New Testament speaks frequently, as in Matthew IX, 28-52 and Acts X, 38:et al.
Such a phase may be encountered as that where there is seen a scurrying of “subhuman entitles” across the corner of vision. This is to be taken in a relaxed manner and without worry. The phase may last about four months. There is nothing there when one looks directly. These sightings are a perception of the subconscious, and as such may be experienced by a companion not a yogi, since the subconscious of ALL is in communication, potentially, being the power line into which the “synchro motor” of the individual is plugged. It serves no purpose to try to explain what it was the companion thought he saw. Knockings, also, will be heard by all members of one’s family. Again, there is no point in trying to educate them on what is happening. Just – “There is nobody there,” after the ritual of answering the door, will be enough.
There is a yoga rule that (1) exercising in a closed room should not be undertaken, and (2) close-fitting clothing should not be worn at the time. One should conform strictly with this cautioning lest in the effort to concentrate under unfavorable conditions one goes into “automatic”, and becomes a product of the Bessemer process, i.e. cleansed of all impurities. Lest the meaning not be seen clearly, let it be put this way: there are on record cases where the ash remnants of an individual have been found in a closed room; the deceased had been apparently sitting in a chair, clothed. Remnants: ash, shoe eyelets, and a molten watch. Needless to say, these are listed as “unsolved”. I haven’t heard of any lately, but the principle has not changed.
Those who hold some of the learning of the East recognize that Americans are turning to the practice of yoga in increasing numbers. Lou Nova, Doris Duke, Yehudi Menuhin are some of these. Yoga has a strong beachhead. It makes but one claim which most people cannot bring themselves to believe, namely: “There is no imbalance, either mental or physical, which control of the BREATH will not adjust”. Those who take recourse to its teachings receive from the Source; the more they seek, the more they receive. The more conscientiously they accept the discipline, the greater the benefits that become theirs, as have been indicated herein. Step up the intake of BREATH, and step up the intake of ALL GOOD THINGS – for all Life comes to him who breathes – and he has no life at all unless he breathes. The simplicity of the discovery is startling: the more Breath, the more Life; breathe more copiously, live more abundantly.
The effort to attain to “union with the Creator” is acknowledged by the yogi when he says, “I am Brahman”, or “I am one with the Father”. At such a point he has arrived at his destination.
As one progresses in the work, one finds that one has a “last frontier” all to oneself. None may know of this last frontier but the one who exerts himself, who “does the thing”. Under the stipulations for caution as given, there is probably no one who could not receive benefits from this system. As one progresses in the work, one is drawn increasingly to the Biblical parallels. At 180 controlled breaths per day my appetite suddenly cut down. This brought to mind inescapably the reference that: “Man shall not live by bread alone….” There is no Word quite like that one. And bread so perfect.
COMMENT BY MFL: To comment on Yoga is to begin by speaking of the Vedas, and it is all but impossible to touch on the material in a few brief passages. Suffice it to say that it now appears that at a time when the Vedas were already old, there came a contact with the kahunas and their lore. Some of the priests of the older lore tried to add Huna to the older religion current in the land, and the result was Yoga. Yoga may have been pure Huna at the beginning, but it rapidly became mixed with the Vedic beliefs and contaminated.
In trying to identify the Huna elements in Yoga or in the inner order of early Christianity, one must look for the basic (1) beliefs, and (2) practices. The basic belief of Huna was that the High Self existed and was to be reached by certain practices. Once the contact was established, the goal was a form of union of the three selves. This was not a physical uniting of the selves because they are always in as much physical contact as is needed. It was a UNION brought about by the recognition that the High Self was there, and by inviting it to take its proper part in the life of man as a three-self being. It was a union of mind and purposes but it demanded a knowledge of the nature of the shadowy bodies of the three selves and of the shadowy cord with which the inter-blended low and middle selves are connected, united or tied to the High Self. This concept, while simple to understand to one well versed in Huna, was a mystery and a confusing abstraction to the uninitiated. To add to the difficulty of understanding and of passing along the Huna information, there was the grave danger of bringing down the wrath of the established priesthood by contradicting the dogmatic beliefs set forth in the Vedas. A further difficulty came from the fact that in the Vedas there were some beliefs very similar to those held in Huna… and a continuing attempt to blend the Huna and Vedic beliefs into one system of theory resulted in the splitting of yoga into several parts or schools, the most recent of which is the most contaminated from the Huna point of view.
The basic practices of Huna were very simple. One accumulated an extra supply of vital force (mana), then called to the High Self to turn its attention in the direction of the lower man and to accept the extra mana as a gift which was made to flow through the aka cord to the High Self. With the flow went the thought-forms of any prayer for help or guidance. To accumulate the extra vital force the breathing was increased for a time and the low self asked to make the extra force. The word used by the kahunas for this extra breathing was ha, and it was also a symbol word indicating the whole process of contacting the High Self, presenting the force and the prayer, then receiving a return flow of the force changed to a higher and very beneficial form.
The word ha may have been drawn from Huna in formulating Yoga and veiling its meanings sufficiently to prevent the priests from attacking it too vigorously. In Hatha Yoga, we have breathing divided into two parts, the in-breathing is ha, and the out-breathing is tha, the combined words giving hatha.
The symbolic meaning of the word ha seems to have been lost in Yoga, but in early inner Christianity and its source writings, it is easy to identify. In the Dead Sea Scrolls we have recovered copies of the book of Isaiah, and recently a translation was released in which the familiar “prepare ye the way of the Lord” is given as ‘prepare there the way of Huha.” This passage speaks of the individual going into the “wilderness” to make this preparation, and the “wilderness” is the symbol of the state in which one is cut off by sin and guilt complexes or by entity obsessional influences from full contact with the High Self. The “way” or “path” (a pair of words found in Yoga writings also) in Huna indicates the shadowy cord connecting the lower pair of selves to the High Self. To clear it of “blocks” was a vastly important first step. The word Huha gives us, in Huna, “to cause” plus ha or, in other words, to bring about the condition in which all the steps symbolized by ha in Huna can be taken to contact the High Self and make a proper Huna prayer action.
The shadowy or aka cord connecting the High Self and the lower pair was symbolized in Huna by a cord, a thread, a strand of the web of a spider and so on. These symbols also are met in Yoga writings and in the Vedas, although the meaning given them may be very different in the Vedas, where a thread “soul” is mentioned with no distinction made between the thread and the entity, if they were ever considered separate things. The knots in a thread or cord, on the other hand, appear in Yoga as things blocking the path to the High Self and needing to be untied. This untying of the knots was considered in Yoga, just as in Huna, one of the most important and most difficult preliminary steps to be taken before full union or contact with the High Self could be established.
In Yoga one was said to need a cleansing to open the path to the High Self. In Hatha Yoga the breathing and other practices were made for physical cleansing and were supposed to lead to the cleansing away of the “knots” or blocks. In other schools of Yoga there were mental exercises or exercises of worship and selfless service prescribed to open the path. Only in Christian circles, however, was the full significance of the blocking done by evil spirit companions recognized and stressed. Jesus on the cross symbolized the suffering caused by being cut off from the High Self. The cross and the crown of thorns symbolized, in part, the sin and guilt or error complexes, while the two thieves crucified with him, one on either side, symbolize the “companions in sin” or the “eating companions” who are tolerated and who take the vital force that should rightfully be used to supply the High Self for its work on the dense physical level.
While there are things in the article on Yoga given to us by HRA Richard H. which are open to question on the part of a student of the several Yoga systems or of Huna (as we now look upon it), the basic practice of working for a union with something higher is valid, as is the use of the breath in one way or another to make needed changes in physical states or conditions. It is not at all impossible, according to the present indications derived from a study of Huna, to believe that a person who is free from evil spirit influence might be helped to contact with the High Self by the use of breathing exercises. These alone might make for the manufacture of more mana and for supplying it to the High Self so that it could progressively clear the path of blocks.
To leave the subject under discussion for a moment, let me say that much interest has been aroused in Europe and America of late by a religious system called “SUBUD”. The basic idea in it is that there is a Higher Being which can be contacted, but which the uninitiated cannot contact without the help of an initiate. One who has been helped to the contact is appointed an “opener” and he “opens” others simply by meeting a number of times with candidates who do nothing more than ask that they be “opened” and placed in full contact with the Higher God or Power. The contact comes, and while the candidate does nothing but attend the periodic sittings, the Power causes cleansing, causes the candidate to wish to change his ways, and even causes some cleansing to be accomplished at the sittings by physical movements of an automatic kind. The system is very like that of “E-Therapy” introduced by A.L. Kitselman a few years ago. Yoga may help us put Huna to use in our lives, so may Subud, at least in so far as those are concerned who have escaped partial obsession by evil spirits. For the removal of the latter affliction, the direct methods used by the kahunas seem indicated, could we but have able kahunas.
“ON THE TRAIL OF THE POLTERGEIST” is a new book from the pen of HRA Dr. Nandor Fodor (Citadel, $3.95, or order your copy direct from Dr. Fodor, 1160 Fifth Ave., New York 29, N.Y. and he will autograph it to you). Dr. Fodor tells in his book the amazing and fascinating story of a haunted woman and his efforts to help her with psychoanalysis. In the end he comes to a very important conclusion. It is that poltergeist trouble is directly related to sex forces and traumas in that physiological-mental field. Read it and wonder.
THE WORK OP THE TELEPATHIC MUTUAL HEALING GROUP continues on as for the daily sittings being always 3 and 7 P.M. California time. We are back on standard time here now after six months on the daylight saving time. This work continues even with the News Letters discontinued.
THE BIOMETER CLUB members will be hearing from me again soon. Last Spring I had to drop Huna work largely and get on with the job of fixing up the grove and place here at Vista. The grove has been cleaned of dead wood and the berries fought back so that now the thrip is scarcely bothering. Watering lines have been relocated. Road and parking places have had a coat of blacktop rolled on. The house has been given a complete new root and has been painted on the outside and a start has been made on painting the inside. Some repair work has been accomplished and a tool shed built for the two power mowers. I have promised myself and Mrs. Long and Miss Doherty a few scattered days of vacation, and it is my hope that by Christmas I can get back to some serious research on Huna lines and more writing. I may find time and a way to take a stab at getting “opened’ in the Subud manner. Several HRAs report definite benefits, even if they are often hard to describe unless they amount to breaking bad habits and gaining better health. If the system works, it will be “Salvation without tears and with little effort”, which is rather too much to expect, I fear.
BOUND SETS OF THE HRA BULLETINS are almost gone and the early stencils are badly worn. They will not be re-cut. As time allows, however, I hope to go over all the most valuable material in the past Bulletins, collect it, and put it into book form for those who come late to Huna and are anxious to know what was done and tried and decided during ten years of research, testing and speculation. It may be that in trying to save the best material I shall get out several booklets which, expanded and put with the units I wish to write on other subjects, will eventually make a large general book on Huna and its many additions to other closely related pieces of knowledge. The Tarot Cards and their significant order and Huna symbols need presentation. The material given on the Huna hidden in the Bible needs to be enlarged and put into one unit with a good word list from the Polynesian dialects. The matter of the Brunler-Bovis Biometer readings and the use of the Cameron Aurameter need similar treatment, as does the whole subject of psychometric reading and measuring of people and things. So far as I know at this time, Dr. Grace Brunler has not finished a book such as she planned several years ago on the Biometer.
AND NOW an early MERRY CHRISTMAS to you all! This is the ninth time I have sent this greeting to my friends associated with me in the Huna work, and it is with a feeling of sadness that I realize that in all probability it will be the last time such a greeting will go out in a release such as this. Of course, only a few of the HRAs of the first year are still with me, but to me they are very dear. They represent all that has meant love and steadfastness and encouragement to me year after year. Some, also, have gone on, but they are far from being forgotten. My warm aloha goes with my Merry Christmas to each of you. MFL
