It has been definitely proved that although character traits and limitations are transmitted from parent to offspring, disease, as a rule, is not. Nature has seen to it that a new generation should always have a good start in life. We all know how a pregnant woman, lacking calcium in her blood, will lose some of her teeth in order that the foetus may build bones out of the needed material.
Many other similar adjustments are made in a woman's body at the time of pregnancy so that the child may be born physically normal in spite of its mother's limitations. From the moment food begins entering the child's body the latter develops either normally or not, both physically and mentally, all according to what is given it to eat — proper or improper food. A vivid proof of this contention is a comparison between breast-fed and bottle-fed babies. Whereas the former are known for their sturdiness and absence of sickness, the latter are sickly most of the time and do not develop as well.
Not only in growing children, but also in adults, nutrition is an important factor in maintaining health. We must eat the right foods in order to be well — we all know that; conversely, when we eat the wrong foods we encourage disease.
What becomes of the food after we eat it? First, it is broken up into small particles and mixed with saliva in our mouth and sent to the stomach. There it is mixed with various digestive juices, then sent to the small intestines where it is mixed with additional secretions from our organs and glands — the liver, pancreas and spleen. Now in the form of a smooth creamy liquid it begins to be absorbed through the walls of the small intestines into our lymphatic system, and then into the blood. The latter carries the assimilated food to every cell of our body where it is used for building muscles, nerves, bones, to repair tissues, and to be burned up to produce energy, and do other necessary work in the body.
The various glands in our body manufacture their juices from certain elements in the foods, mainly from minerals. When the foods consumed by us lack these elements lesser quantities of juices are produced. Foods eaten later on get less juices than are needed for complete digestion with the result that these foods are not digested properly and enter our blood stream in a less-assimilable, partly undigested, and fermented form. This upsets the blood balance and impedes its proper functioning because, in order to do its work properly, the blood has to have a certain consistency and content. Trying to rid itself of the harmful ingredients the blood deposits them in various parts of the body. Continuous overloading of the blood with foods causes continuous depositing of the unwanted matter. Gradually, these deposits are built up into boils, pimples, rashes, tumors, and similar external and internal growths. On the other hand, when it lacks some necessary ingredients for its proper work, the blood takes them away from various parts of the body, thus causing deficiencies and eating away parts of organs, as is the case in tuberculosis, cancer, ulcers, et cetera.
What is the purpose of nature in doing that? You see, nature is very clever and highly efficient. In order to maintain life (even in an inferior shape) it will sacrifice the less important for the sake of the more important. Should blood circulation stop for a few moments death will follow; whereas, even a diseased body can survive and carry on for various lengths of time, sometimes for many years.
Given the right opportunity our body can readjust and remedy itself by the reverse process to the one of creating disease. Better foods containing needed minerals and vitamins will supply our glands with the necessary ingredients for the manufacture of sufficient quantities of digestive juices which will properly digest the foods eaten by us, supply our blood with enough elements to build new healthy cells, and wash away bit by bit all accumulated growths of dead cells in the body. These are the natural processes of building health and overcoming disease which is brought on by incorrect foods and overcome by the use of the right ones. There are additional factors influencing these processes—such as living and working conditions, amount of rest and sleep, proper mental attitude, and the like, but they all hinge on, and are closely connected with, the main factor of health or sickness — which is the food we eat.
Our blood travels continuously over each cell of the body every few seconds. It brings to the cells food for nourishment and oxygen to burn up wastes. It picks up the latter, carries them to the lungs, and other channels of elimination, where they are expelled.
The blood nourishes the hair on our head as well as the nails on our toes, our kidneys, nerves, stomachs — every nook and corner of our body. It is easy to conclude that when there is disease in the body the blood carries it around. All diseases are in the blood stream and so also all diseases are one — a disease of the blood.
To get rid of a disease we must give the blood a chance to purify itself by not adding any more waste material to that already accumulated, and, on the other hand, by bringing in only those materials which will build a healthy body. Little by little our blood will carry out all dead and diseased tissues, dispose of them through various channels of elimination, and thus rid the body of abnormal conditions.
Once we understand the basic cause of all diseases we will be able to treat every one of them successfully by one and the same method of procedure; namely, cut out all harmful foods and substitute a diet of foods that will build health and longevity. What these foods are we shall learn in the succeeding articles of this book.
In conclusion, we should like to dispel an erroneous notion deeply seated in the minds of the majority of people that each person inherits a predisposition to certain diseases which his parents were afflicted with. In reality, it is not the disease which is inherited by the individual; but he is conditioned to a mode of living, and mainly to a mode of eating. The kinds of food, and the ways of preparing them, are transferred from one generation to another in the same family. As a rule, a daughter will imitate the ways of cooking and the use of the same types of food as her mother used to prepare for the family. A son who liked certain dishes his mother excelled in will prevail on his wife to prepare the same for him and his children. National and regional limitations and customs also play their part in molding a family's eating habits.
In this way, similar foods and living habits create similar conditions of health. That is why a son, in time, will acquire the same sicknesses his father was suffering from, while a daughter will similarly be predisposed to her mother's ailments. Rational living is the only thing that will predispose every person to normal health with no diseases of any kind to contend with.
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Good health is not an accident. While most people are born normal, that is, in fair health, quite a few are not. Anyone can readily understand that men, and especially women, who are heavy smokers or drinkers, also those suffering from the consequences of venereal diseases, as well as other chronic afflictions, can offer a poor heredity to their offspring. Good health begins before one is born. If you want to have healthy children you must be healthy yourself, and live a wholesome life.
Good health is acquired and maintained only through correct living. You could not imagine yourself living in dissipation, subsisting on a diet of candy, pastry, and soda pop, working long hours indoors, getting very little rest and sleep, and still looking the picture of health and feeling fine. This is simply impossible. We are created by nature according to certain definite and infallible laws, and when we break these laws we must suffer the consequences-disease and premature death.
When we look closely at our present-day living we will admit that we have strayed rather far from living according to nature's laws. The primitive man lived a simple life: he ate foods in their original form just as nature grew them; he lived outdoors where he had plenty of sunshine, pure air to breathe, bodily exercise to keep his outer, as well as inner, muscles in good shape; and he had hardly any worries or dissipations. In contrast to that, we now live in an age of great comforts and little physical exertion; we breathe in the polluted air of our cities; we hide from sunshine and the outdoors; and, worst of all, we gorge ourselves with devitalized, manufactured-for-profit foods; we indulge in stimulating drinks, and waste our nervous energy on modern pleasures. Is there any wonder that we have to pay a heavy price for this wholesale breaking of nature's laws? Take a look at our overcrowded hospitals, insane asylums, and jails, and you will understand what havoc our modern living wreaks on us.
True, lately we have learned quite a bit about hygiene and nutrition; we have succeeded in increasing the span of human life somewhat over man's span of a few hundred years ago — but this is nothing in comparison with primitive man's longevity (remember the multicentenarians of the Bible?). With all these modern discoveries we are still in a sorry state. It is an accepted fact and no surprise to anyone that no single person in our modern countries is in perfect health. This, in itself, is a tacit admission that something is wrong with us, because normally a person should be well — not sick. Diseases pile up upon humanity so fast nowadays that the medical science cannot keep up with them. Our hospitals refuse admittance for lack of bed space and our cemeteries are expanding fast. No wonder it costs so much to be sick and buried!
What is then the main cause of our present-day deterioration in health? The worst offense against our body is our mode of eating. When we stop to analyze the basic causes of all the sickness in and around us we cannot help noticing that, as bad as they are, all other causes lead to less destruction than our eating habits. We will also notice that any bodily function performed by us involuntarily will do us less harm than our voluntary actions will.
To explain the latter we must take an example of an involuntary action like breathing. In that we can never run out of air in our lungs completely, because we breathe automatically and not through the conscious effort of our will, so we are never in danger of suffocation. Take as another example our eyes. They are protected by eyelids, eyebrows, eyelashes, tear glands, et cetera and cannot be harmed unless we begin straining or abusing them in some conscious way. All of our inner functions are performed involuntarily and would be much worse off if we had anything to say on the matter. Our body adjusts itself in many ways to various conditions and changes in occupation, climate, temperature, altitude, et cetera, without our even noticing it. In this manner, nature takes care of all our involuntary functions without much of our own conscious participation.
However, when it comes to food consumption, we are more on our own since we are free to eat whatever and whenever we feel like eating. While in some regions of the earth, or among certain groups of populations, people live correctly and enjoy a good measure of health, others are either periodically deprived of food altogether, or else are confined to a very limited variety of it. As a result of these conditions they develop various deficiency diseases. Again,, some people confine themselves to certain traditional foods and also prepare the latter according to some established custom. For instance, Hungarians are known to use an abundance of greasy fried foods; Italians, too many starchy foods (spaghetti, etc.); Spanish people use highly spiced foods, and so on. All this leads, accordingly to either positive or negative conditions of health — specific ones for each group or region. Some regions are known for the exceptionally robust health and longevity of their inhabitants, whereas in others certain diseases prevail which are common to the whole population. English people as a rule suffer with gout and rheumatism; Jewish people with diabetes; Hungarians, with kidney and bladder troubles; the Spanish, with ulcers of the stomach arid tuberculosis; mountain people everywhere, with goiter,, and so on down the line.
In this country we are fortunate, or perhaps rather unfortunate,, to have all the foods we want, so we all habitually overeat; we also-eat the wrong types and combinations of foods, not knowing or caring which of them are best suited to our body requirements; we eat too often, thus not giving our digestive system a chance to-assimilate the food properly; we often eat at the wrong time, and in unfavorable circumstances, as, for instance, when not hungry,, when excited, or when in a hurry.
However, the most destructive thing in our dietary customs, is our consumption of foods devitalized, highly concentrated, overcooked and denatured through the processes of food manufacturing whose object is to render these foods more appealing to the eye, nose, and palate, so as to make them more salable, also to. make them easier to handle and store. On top of that, many injurious chemicals are added to manufactured foods in order to* keep them from spoiling for long periods of time, add color,, texture, softness, et cetera. There are no less than four hundred* twenty different chemicals which are being added to various manufactured food products in this country today. We are told that, used in small quantities, these chemicals are harmless, but our body is not made by nature to handle these foreign, often caustic, substances, and as a result it is unable to either assimilate or eliminate them. They gradually accumulate in our body, interfere with all its normal functions, cause derangements of various kinds and bring on sickness and premature death. Thus, through foods, just as the saying goes, we actually dig our own graves with our teeth.
We can see for ourselves that trying to cure disease is not the answer to the present plight of humanity. The wiser thing to do is to prevent sickness by living properly so that one will be immune to disease rather than fall prey to it. In spite of the fact that we all know quite well, and wholeheartedly agree with, the old saying — "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" — very few of us are concerned with doing anything about it.
The average person's reasoning is as follows: As long as I am not sick, why bother? But what does the word "sick" mean? Must one be laid up with fever or contagious disease to be classified as sick? Ordinarily, when you tell someone who is up and about that he is sick he will become offended. Perhaps, if we used the term "deficient," it would make a much stronger appeal to the afflicted person. In fact, most of us are deficient in one thing or another; quite a few — in a number of badly needed body elements. We are not sick in bed, yet our digestion may be poor; we are constipated; we suffer from gases, belching, bad mouth odors; for seemingly no reason we get blotches, pimples, boils, infections, headaches; we feel tired, sleepy, dizzy, our hair keeps falling out, our eyes weaken, our teeth develop cavities, we experience scores of other unfavorable reactions, yet we go around maintaining that we are not sick. True, we are not sick in bed, but we have deficiencies which slowly but surely lead to more serious complications. Are we able to enjoy living in such conditions of health? Definitely not! Enjoying life in the conventional sense of the word means possessing much worldly wealth, going places, eating and drinking, gambling and dissipating freely. This is called having a good time, and is the ultimate goal of most people. But how long can this last, and what does it leave for us or our posterity? This kind of living destroys the person and breeds a sick progeny. The real enjoyment of life is found in the constant feeling of supreme vitality, the exhilarating consciousness of youth no matter at what age, the lightness of step, the feeling of strength and adequacy to any task, the feeling of cleanliness of body and mind, the desire to do things, to accomplish something big and worth while. Only perfect health produces such emotions, and how worthy are they of a little effort and attention to be paid to this-matter!
To be in good health we must learn for ourselves the principles of healthful living and abide by them as closely and as religiously as possible when we are still in good health, instead of waiting until we get sick, old, and decrepit when it is too late to do much about it.
The first basic principle of regaining and maintaining good health is living as close to a natural life as possible. This does not mean that we have to go back to living in caves, fight wild beasts, eat raw meat and the roots of plants. By all means, take advantage of the wonderful technical and cultural improvements civilization has brought us but, at the same time, remember not to break nature's laws. In all your ways of living try to follow natural instincts.
You must spend a good part of your time outdoors to get good pure air and plenty of sunshine. Substitute the primitive man's physical exertion with active sports, brisk walking, gardening, outdoor breathing, get plenty of rest and sleep, and, above all, eat simple wholesome foods as much in their natural state as possible. After all, we are made of the food we eat, and it is what we put into our bodies that can make us ill or well.
Nature did not intend us to eat fired foods — else it would grow cooked foods on bushes. Any food that can possibly be eaten raw should be consumed that way, because cooking robs the food of its vitality — you eat dead food; food that cannot grow again when planted; food which has lost most, or all, of its precious vitamins and minerals. Whatever has to be cooked should not be fried or overcooked. Quick cooking or steaming in sub-boiling temperatures are the ideal methods of preparing fired foods. Abstinence from tobacco, alcohol, sweets, medicines, and, for that matter, from any kind of man-made preparations will go a long way towards building and maintaining good health. We have to learn also the proper ways of eating and correct combinations of foods, eating to reduce or to gain weight, eating to look and feel young. We have to know the food values and therapeutic properties of foods.
We shall take up all these matters in detail in the succeeding chapters, but here let us leave you, dear reader, with this all important thought — keep as close as possible to nature if you desire to be well, to stay young, and to live long.
Good health is acquired and maintained only through correct living. You could not imagine yourself living in dissipation, subsisting on a diet of candy, pastry, and soda pop, working long hours indoors, getting very little rest and sleep, and still looking the picture of health and feeling fine. This is simply impossible. We are created by nature according to certain definite and infallible laws, and when we break these laws we must suffer the consequences-disease and premature death.
When we look closely at our present-day living we will admit that we have strayed rather far from living according to nature's laws. The primitive man lived a simple life: he ate foods in their original form just as nature grew them; he lived outdoors where he had plenty of sunshine, pure air to breathe, bodily exercise to keep his outer, as well as inner, muscles in good shape; and he had hardly any worries or dissipations. In contrast to that, we now live in an age of great comforts and little physical exertion; we breathe in the polluted air of our cities; we hide from sunshine and the outdoors; and, worst of all, we gorge ourselves with devitalized, manufactured-for-profit foods; we indulge in stimulating drinks, and waste our nervous energy on modern pleasures. Is there any wonder that we have to pay a heavy price for this wholesale breaking of nature's laws? Take a look at our overcrowded hospitals, insane asylums, and jails, and you will understand what havoc our modern living wreaks on us.
True, lately we have learned quite a bit about hygiene and nutrition; we have succeeded in increasing the span of human life somewhat over man's span of a few hundred years ago — but this is nothing in comparison with primitive man's longevity (remember the multicentenarians of the Bible?). With all these modern discoveries we are still in a sorry state. It is an accepted fact and no surprise to anyone that no single person in our modern countries is in perfect health. This, in itself, is a tacit admission that something is wrong with us, because normally a person should be well — not sick. Diseases pile up upon humanity so fast nowadays that the medical science cannot keep up with them. Our hospitals refuse admittance for lack of bed space and our cemeteries are expanding fast. No wonder it costs so much to be sick and buried!
What is then the main cause of our present-day deterioration in health? The worst offense against our body is our mode of eating. When we stop to analyze the basic causes of all the sickness in and around us we cannot help noticing that, as bad as they are, all other causes lead to less destruction than our eating habits. We will also notice that any bodily function performed by us involuntarily will do us less harm than our voluntary actions will.
To explain the latter we must take an example of an involuntary action like breathing. In that we can never run out of air in our lungs completely, because we breathe automatically and not through the conscious effort of our will, so we are never in danger of suffocation. Take as another example our eyes. They are protected by eyelids, eyebrows, eyelashes, tear glands, et cetera and cannot be harmed unless we begin straining or abusing them in some conscious way. All of our inner functions are performed involuntarily and would be much worse off if we had anything to say on the matter. Our body adjusts itself in many ways to various conditions and changes in occupation, climate, temperature, altitude, et cetera, without our even noticing it. In this manner, nature takes care of all our involuntary functions without much of our own conscious participation.
However, when it comes to food consumption, we are more on our own since we are free to eat whatever and whenever we feel like eating. While in some regions of the earth, or among certain groups of populations, people live correctly and enjoy a good measure of health, others are either periodically deprived of food altogether, or else are confined to a very limited variety of it. As a result of these conditions they develop various deficiency diseases. Again,, some people confine themselves to certain traditional foods and also prepare the latter according to some established custom. For instance, Hungarians are known to use an abundance of greasy fried foods; Italians, too many starchy foods (spaghetti, etc.); Spanish people use highly spiced foods, and so on. All this leads, accordingly to either positive or negative conditions of health — specific ones for each group or region. Some regions are known for the exceptionally robust health and longevity of their inhabitants, whereas in others certain diseases prevail which are common to the whole population. English people as a rule suffer with gout and rheumatism; Jewish people with diabetes; Hungarians, with kidney and bladder troubles; the Spanish, with ulcers of the stomach arid tuberculosis; mountain people everywhere, with goiter,, and so on down the line.
In this country we are fortunate, or perhaps rather unfortunate,, to have all the foods we want, so we all habitually overeat; we also-eat the wrong types and combinations of foods, not knowing or caring which of them are best suited to our body requirements; we eat too often, thus not giving our digestive system a chance to-assimilate the food properly; we often eat at the wrong time, and in unfavorable circumstances, as, for instance, when not hungry,, when excited, or when in a hurry.
However, the most destructive thing in our dietary customs, is our consumption of foods devitalized, highly concentrated, overcooked and denatured through the processes of food manufacturing whose object is to render these foods more appealing to the eye, nose, and palate, so as to make them more salable, also to. make them easier to handle and store. On top of that, many injurious chemicals are added to manufactured foods in order to* keep them from spoiling for long periods of time, add color,, texture, softness, et cetera. There are no less than four hundred* twenty different chemicals which are being added to various manufactured food products in this country today. We are told that, used in small quantities, these chemicals are harmless, but our body is not made by nature to handle these foreign, often caustic, substances, and as a result it is unable to either assimilate or eliminate them. They gradually accumulate in our body, interfere with all its normal functions, cause derangements of various kinds and bring on sickness and premature death. Thus, through foods, just as the saying goes, we actually dig our own graves with our teeth.
We can see for ourselves that trying to cure disease is not the answer to the present plight of humanity. The wiser thing to do is to prevent sickness by living properly so that one will be immune to disease rather than fall prey to it. In spite of the fact that we all know quite well, and wholeheartedly agree with, the old saying — "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" — very few of us are concerned with doing anything about it.
The average person's reasoning is as follows: As long as I am not sick, why bother? But what does the word "sick" mean? Must one be laid up with fever or contagious disease to be classified as sick? Ordinarily, when you tell someone who is up and about that he is sick he will become offended. Perhaps, if we used the term "deficient," it would make a much stronger appeal to the afflicted person. In fact, most of us are deficient in one thing or another; quite a few — in a number of badly needed body elements. We are not sick in bed, yet our digestion may be poor; we are constipated; we suffer from gases, belching, bad mouth odors; for seemingly no reason we get blotches, pimples, boils, infections, headaches; we feel tired, sleepy, dizzy, our hair keeps falling out, our eyes weaken, our teeth develop cavities, we experience scores of other unfavorable reactions, yet we go around maintaining that we are not sick. True, we are not sick in bed, but we have deficiencies which slowly but surely lead to more serious complications. Are we able to enjoy living in such conditions of health? Definitely not! Enjoying life in the conventional sense of the word means possessing much worldly wealth, going places, eating and drinking, gambling and dissipating freely. This is called having a good time, and is the ultimate goal of most people. But how long can this last, and what does it leave for us or our posterity? This kind of living destroys the person and breeds a sick progeny. The real enjoyment of life is found in the constant feeling of supreme vitality, the exhilarating consciousness of youth no matter at what age, the lightness of step, the feeling of strength and adequacy to any task, the feeling of cleanliness of body and mind, the desire to do things, to accomplish something big and worth while. Only perfect health produces such emotions, and how worthy are they of a little effort and attention to be paid to this-matter!
To be in good health we must learn for ourselves the principles of healthful living and abide by them as closely and as religiously as possible when we are still in good health, instead of waiting until we get sick, old, and decrepit when it is too late to do much about it.
The first basic principle of regaining and maintaining good health is living as close to a natural life as possible. This does not mean that we have to go back to living in caves, fight wild beasts, eat raw meat and the roots of plants. By all means, take advantage of the wonderful technical and cultural improvements civilization has brought us but, at the same time, remember not to break nature's laws. In all your ways of living try to follow natural instincts.
You must spend a good part of your time outdoors to get good pure air and plenty of sunshine. Substitute the primitive man's physical exertion with active sports, brisk walking, gardening, outdoor breathing, get plenty of rest and sleep, and, above all, eat simple wholesome foods as much in their natural state as possible. After all, we are made of the food we eat, and it is what we put into our bodies that can make us ill or well.
Nature did not intend us to eat fired foods — else it would grow cooked foods on bushes. Any food that can possibly be eaten raw should be consumed that way, because cooking robs the food of its vitality — you eat dead food; food that cannot grow again when planted; food which has lost most, or all, of its precious vitamins and minerals. Whatever has to be cooked should not be fried or overcooked. Quick cooking or steaming in sub-boiling temperatures are the ideal methods of preparing fired foods. Abstinence from tobacco, alcohol, sweets, medicines, and, for that matter, from any kind of man-made preparations will go a long way towards building and maintaining good health. We have to learn also the proper ways of eating and correct combinations of foods, eating to reduce or to gain weight, eating to look and feel young. We have to know the food values and therapeutic properties of foods.
We shall take up all these matters in detail in the succeeding chapters, but here let us leave you, dear reader, with this all important thought — keep as close as possible to nature if you desire to be well, to stay young, and to live long.
Happiness may be defined as being at peace and harmony with ourselves and our surroundings. We cannot be happy when we, or our beloved ones, are sick or when our lives are filled with outer and inner disturbances and contradictions. As far as we are able to surmise, the object of life in this universe is progress, which is expressed by ever higher attainments of body and mind. That would be impossible to achieve without harmony.
The search for happiness is a normal desire on the part of every living being. To avoid pain, physical or mental, and to find peace is something we are all striving for. Even the person who commits suicide or the criminal who kills to rob — in spite of destroying themselves in the action — are motivated by a desire to escape from their present state of tension and find peace. Whatever means are employed, it is obvious that the desire to achieve happiness is the greatest driving force in life. Where can we find happiness? Is it in worldly possessions, or perhaps in a position of dignity? in easy living or in harmonious family life? or elsewhere? Let us take a few examples and analyze the matter.
Supposing you always longed to possess something of special value to you — money, property, a new car, and the like. When you did not have the object of your desire you were unhappy, especially so, when you have seen others enjoying the very things you have been yearning for. Let us say that you pursued your goal for a certain length of time until finally you attained it. When that took place you, no doubt, felt happy. After a while you got accustomed to your new possession; its novelty wore off; the thrill was gone; soon you began seeking other things, once more feeling dissatisfied and unhappy. This is a normal sequence of events in most cases and is a clear indication that happiness is not a result of the mere possession of the material things in life.
Now let us take an example of a different nature. Let us say that you have been working on and off all your life and had little fun out of it. You continually dreamed of retiring and living an easy life. Finally you managed to cast off your obligations and lol — you found out that your happiness in leisure did not last long either. After running around for a while you got tired of it, settled down, and soon were doomed to a life of inactivity, loneliness, and misery.
The majority of people are unhappy due to what they consider the drudgery of their existence. In the course of their daily obligations they are forced to perform the same actions over and over, day in and day out, until they become, as the saying goes, "sick and. tired of it." This may equally happen while attending school in adolescence, while doing housework, on a job, or in a business. This belief of living in drudgery is nothing but a state of mind which can be changed into a more healthful attitude by one's power of will as we shall see later.
Another source of unhappiness is the interrelation in a family — man and wife, parents and children, et cetera. We must learn to deal with all situations so that everyone in the family is treated fairly and life goes on in harmony as a result.
Temporary contentment may be found in financial security, love, social position, power, and other similar attainments of spirit. All these cannot be considered as material things; they are achieved by us through our own mental efforts. The more consistently we train our faculties, the more qualified we become. Yet, with all that, we many not achieve happiness if our minds are in a state of disharmony. We see that some people are contented with little, while there is never enough for others. Many are never happy no matter how much they possess.
From all these deliberations we can surmise one thing — that true happiness may be found only within ourselves. It is our state of mind that will make and keep us happy or miserable, no matter what our situation may be. We must train ourselves to find contentment and happiness wherever we are, in favorable circumstances or not, in wealth as well as in poverty. We must make up our minds to always be happy — then we will be so.
However, since all of us are human, and, to our chagrin, we are apt to observe others ahead of ourselves in material or spiritual attainments — it is not too easy a thing for us to be perfectly contented with our own meagre lot. In such circumstances it is of great help to learn how to get along contentedly with what we have, while training ourselves for the subsequent achievement of the better things in life which we are striving for.
What is it that you and I want mostly out of life? Of course, each individual has his own aspirations which are different from those of the next fellow. Some want health, others financial independence, still others are looking for marital bliss, power, refinement, and so on. Only the possession of a healthy combination of these factors is conducive to happiness because no one can be happy while being endowed with one worthy qualification and lacking in all others.
What are the most essential personal attainments without which happiness is unthinkable? Doubtless, the first one would be normalcy — physical as well as mental. We must be healthy in body and mind in order to be able to survive and enjoy our existence.
Next on the list are economic security, social adjustment, and harmony in family life.
Outside of these, which may be classed as basic essentials of happiness, there are many others which are more in the category of personal ambitions. They are not as indispensable to happiness as the ones above-mentioned but they all play important roles in our lives adding zest and interest to them and making living so much more worth while.
Before we go into the study of each separate factor of happiness let us ask ourselves, so that there will be no doubts or misapprehensions about it later on: Is it worth the trouble? Is it really more beneficial to us to learn and acquire the knowledge of life rather than to follow the line of least resistance believing that ignorance is bliss, and the less you know about yourself, the better off you are?
No doubt, for a while, it is easier to take the lazy way out. Ages ago, when life was not as complicated as it is today, one could get by without much knowledge of its meaning. In those days, people lived a simpler and more natural life, were guided by their natural instincts and inclinations, ate plain wholesome foods and did not have to contend with all the destructive influences which we have to face nowadays.
As it is now we live in an age of speed, competition, commercialism, and greed. We have strayed away from normal natural life; we seek excitements; we easily become addicts of harmful habits; and, to make things worse, we are virtually surrounded by highly injurious artificial foods, drinks and medicines manufactured for profit only, regardless of the harm they cause. We are forced to use the latter, whether we like it or not, mainly because they are available everywhere to the exclusion of the simple, natural, wholesome foods God meant for us to live on. As a result of this unnatural existence we deteriorate in physical as well as mental health, get old prematurely, bring forth a sickly posterity, and end up in grief and misery. Only a very few fortunate ones among us, thanks to their inherited physical sturdiness and favorable circumstances, are able to carry mediocre health and contentment into ripe age.
The great majority, however, fall prey to a multitude of diseases before, or soon after, they reach the early age of forty. What little happiness they might have had in their youth is later obliterated in sorrow and despair. No amount of hope or prayer alone can save the ignorant victim from the ravages of cancer, heart disease, polio, arthritis, and the host of other ailments plaguing humanity today. No, ignorance is not bliss, and you are not better off by knowing less! One must find out for himself what is good for him and abide by it if he wants to live long and be happy. There is no justification or excuse for ignorance or neglect — you get just as much out of life as you put into it and nothing comes to you as a gift, you must work for and deserve everything you possess.
Unquestionably, the first and most vital factor of happiness is physical health. Most of our misery has its origin in sickness. Without health, happiness has no firm foundation, and where it does exist it is shallow and transient. To be happy we must first be healthy. Success in life is also dependent on our state of health. Not many sickly people were ever able to achieve success because that requires, in most cases, hard work and perseverance, which are inconceivable without good health.
With the realization of the paramount importance of health as a factor in achieving happiness we are going to devote the greater part of this book to the subject of acquiring and maintaining good health. It will constitute the backbone of our philosophy of happiness as, by rights, it should.
It is not only the state of our physical health that helps make us happy or miserable. Our mental attitude is also a very important factor in this matter. We cannot be happy when our minds are filled with worry, fear, hatred, jealousy and similar negative emotions. We must learn to recognize and overcome these destructive feelings.
It is our intention to take up each one of these factors of happiness separately in the following chapters and explain how to eliminate the negative, and acquire the positive, ones.
The first step for you in achieving happiness is to make up your mind to devote yourself to learning the truth about it, and to practice following the truthful methods religiously after you have acquired the knowledge of them. Once you get on the right road nothing can deter you from finding your goal, since you will always see its bright light ahead of you and will never cease to yearn to get to it.
In this long journey you must not get discouraged if things do not work out for you swiftly or perfectly just as you wish them to do. It takes time and hard work to achieve perfection. We all have our occasional shortcomings and failures, but with perseverance we are always able to overcome them. Let us learn also to content ourselves with less where we cannot have things fully our way. Compromise for the time being while you visualize and strive for an improvement in the future.
To sum up our attitude on the matter — happiness is not where you find it, but where you make it; you must learn to make it and work hard to keep it.
The search for happiness is a normal desire on the part of every living being. To avoid pain, physical or mental, and to find peace is something we are all striving for. Even the person who commits suicide or the criminal who kills to rob — in spite of destroying themselves in the action — are motivated by a desire to escape from their present state of tension and find peace. Whatever means are employed, it is obvious that the desire to achieve happiness is the greatest driving force in life. Where can we find happiness? Is it in worldly possessions, or perhaps in a position of dignity? in easy living or in harmonious family life? or elsewhere? Let us take a few examples and analyze the matter.
Supposing you always longed to possess something of special value to you — money, property, a new car, and the like. When you did not have the object of your desire you were unhappy, especially so, when you have seen others enjoying the very things you have been yearning for. Let us say that you pursued your goal for a certain length of time until finally you attained it. When that took place you, no doubt, felt happy. After a while you got accustomed to your new possession; its novelty wore off; the thrill was gone; soon you began seeking other things, once more feeling dissatisfied and unhappy. This is a normal sequence of events in most cases and is a clear indication that happiness is not a result of the mere possession of the material things in life.
Now let us take an example of a different nature. Let us say that you have been working on and off all your life and had little fun out of it. You continually dreamed of retiring and living an easy life. Finally you managed to cast off your obligations and lol — you found out that your happiness in leisure did not last long either. After running around for a while you got tired of it, settled down, and soon were doomed to a life of inactivity, loneliness, and misery.
The majority of people are unhappy due to what they consider the drudgery of their existence. In the course of their daily obligations they are forced to perform the same actions over and over, day in and day out, until they become, as the saying goes, "sick and. tired of it." This may equally happen while attending school in adolescence, while doing housework, on a job, or in a business. This belief of living in drudgery is nothing but a state of mind which can be changed into a more healthful attitude by one's power of will as we shall see later.
Another source of unhappiness is the interrelation in a family — man and wife, parents and children, et cetera. We must learn to deal with all situations so that everyone in the family is treated fairly and life goes on in harmony as a result.
Temporary contentment may be found in financial security, love, social position, power, and other similar attainments of spirit. All these cannot be considered as material things; they are achieved by us through our own mental efforts. The more consistently we train our faculties, the more qualified we become. Yet, with all that, we many not achieve happiness if our minds are in a state of disharmony. We see that some people are contented with little, while there is never enough for others. Many are never happy no matter how much they possess.
From all these deliberations we can surmise one thing — that true happiness may be found only within ourselves. It is our state of mind that will make and keep us happy or miserable, no matter what our situation may be. We must train ourselves to find contentment and happiness wherever we are, in favorable circumstances or not, in wealth as well as in poverty. We must make up our minds to always be happy — then we will be so.
However, since all of us are human, and, to our chagrin, we are apt to observe others ahead of ourselves in material or spiritual attainments — it is not too easy a thing for us to be perfectly contented with our own meagre lot. In such circumstances it is of great help to learn how to get along contentedly with what we have, while training ourselves for the subsequent achievement of the better things in life which we are striving for.
What is it that you and I want mostly out of life? Of course, each individual has his own aspirations which are different from those of the next fellow. Some want health, others financial independence, still others are looking for marital bliss, power, refinement, and so on. Only the possession of a healthy combination of these factors is conducive to happiness because no one can be happy while being endowed with one worthy qualification and lacking in all others.
What are the most essential personal attainments without which happiness is unthinkable? Doubtless, the first one would be normalcy — physical as well as mental. We must be healthy in body and mind in order to be able to survive and enjoy our existence.
Next on the list are economic security, social adjustment, and harmony in family life.
Outside of these, which may be classed as basic essentials of happiness, there are many others which are more in the category of personal ambitions. They are not as indispensable to happiness as the ones above-mentioned but they all play important roles in our lives adding zest and interest to them and making living so much more worth while.
Before we go into the study of each separate factor of happiness let us ask ourselves, so that there will be no doubts or misapprehensions about it later on: Is it worth the trouble? Is it really more beneficial to us to learn and acquire the knowledge of life rather than to follow the line of least resistance believing that ignorance is bliss, and the less you know about yourself, the better off you are?
No doubt, for a while, it is easier to take the lazy way out. Ages ago, when life was not as complicated as it is today, one could get by without much knowledge of its meaning. In those days, people lived a simpler and more natural life, were guided by their natural instincts and inclinations, ate plain wholesome foods and did not have to contend with all the destructive influences which we have to face nowadays.
As it is now we live in an age of speed, competition, commercialism, and greed. We have strayed away from normal natural life; we seek excitements; we easily become addicts of harmful habits; and, to make things worse, we are virtually surrounded by highly injurious artificial foods, drinks and medicines manufactured for profit only, regardless of the harm they cause. We are forced to use the latter, whether we like it or not, mainly because they are available everywhere to the exclusion of the simple, natural, wholesome foods God meant for us to live on. As a result of this unnatural existence we deteriorate in physical as well as mental health, get old prematurely, bring forth a sickly posterity, and end up in grief and misery. Only a very few fortunate ones among us, thanks to their inherited physical sturdiness and favorable circumstances, are able to carry mediocre health and contentment into ripe age.
The great majority, however, fall prey to a multitude of diseases before, or soon after, they reach the early age of forty. What little happiness they might have had in their youth is later obliterated in sorrow and despair. No amount of hope or prayer alone can save the ignorant victim from the ravages of cancer, heart disease, polio, arthritis, and the host of other ailments plaguing humanity today. No, ignorance is not bliss, and you are not better off by knowing less! One must find out for himself what is good for him and abide by it if he wants to live long and be happy. There is no justification or excuse for ignorance or neglect — you get just as much out of life as you put into it and nothing comes to you as a gift, you must work for and deserve everything you possess.
Unquestionably, the first and most vital factor of happiness is physical health. Most of our misery has its origin in sickness. Without health, happiness has no firm foundation, and where it does exist it is shallow and transient. To be happy we must first be healthy. Success in life is also dependent on our state of health. Not many sickly people were ever able to achieve success because that requires, in most cases, hard work and perseverance, which are inconceivable without good health.
With the realization of the paramount importance of health as a factor in achieving happiness we are going to devote the greater part of this book to the subject of acquiring and maintaining good health. It will constitute the backbone of our philosophy of happiness as, by rights, it should.
It is not only the state of our physical health that helps make us happy or miserable. Our mental attitude is also a very important factor in this matter. We cannot be happy when our minds are filled with worry, fear, hatred, jealousy and similar negative emotions. We must learn to recognize and overcome these destructive feelings.
It is our intention to take up each one of these factors of happiness separately in the following chapters and explain how to eliminate the negative, and acquire the positive, ones.
The first step for you in achieving happiness is to make up your mind to devote yourself to learning the truth about it, and to practice following the truthful methods religiously after you have acquired the knowledge of them. Once you get on the right road nothing can deter you from finding your goal, since you will always see its bright light ahead of you and will never cease to yearn to get to it.
In this long journey you must not get discouraged if things do not work out for you swiftly or perfectly just as you wish them to do. It takes time and hard work to achieve perfection. We all have our occasional shortcomings and failures, but with perseverance we are always able to overcome them. Let us learn also to content ourselves with less where we cannot have things fully our way. Compromise for the time being while you visualize and strive for an improvement in the future.
To sum up our attitude on the matter — happiness is not where you find it, but where you make it; you must learn to make it and work hard to keep it.
