Preface
I have written this book in the hope to be of service. I would have been glad to find a book like this one when I sorely needed it. I looked for it everywhere, but could find the information and guidance I desired only picemeal, some here, some there, never complete. I said to myself that others would have the same problem and possibly I could make it easier for them than it hand been for me to find the answer. And so I wrote this book.
Several years ago I was suddenly and without warning stricken with severe vascular spasms which made it impossible for me to walk more than twenty paces without stopping until the spasm had passed. It took me five minutes to go up a short flight of stairs. The city where I lived is famous for its picturesque hillside location with its winding and climbing streets and passages. To me they were sheer torture. I could be seen walking ten steps at a time, then stopping, while the spasm in the heart region seized me with a brutal hand, pretending to admire something in a shop window or perusing a particularly interesting item in the newspaper I was always carrying with me. My strange behaviour struck people as funny and eccentric and pretty soon I had an established reputation of queerness.
The condition remained stationary for a few months and despite the discomfort and pain it caused me, I accepted it and had almost become resigned to it. Such is human nature.
One day, however, the spasms got worse and did not yield to a short rest. They seized me ever more frequently, even when resting in bed. One night they became so severe that a doctor had to be called. He found me in bed, twitching like a fish out of water. The attack lasted for hours. In the morning I was transferred to a clinic, where I stayed - in bed - for six weeks. For several weeks after that I was allowed to get up and sit in my room or on the balcony, but was unable to walk more than a few steps. A whole winter went by and when spring came I could see from my balcony joyous crowds of people walking down to the lake, many with rucksacks on their backs, prepared for a mountain excursion. Walking, mountain climbing had been my pastime before I fell ill and it was hard for me to think that I would probably never make an excursion again.
The medical diagnosis had been angina pectoris, vascular spasms. The treatment consisted of absolute rest, strict diet, medication. I had been examined very thoroughly by two specialists who employed all the most modern methods of auscultation and diagnosis. They finally came to the conclusion that there was nothing wrong, organically. Several more weeks went by until I was permitted to leave the clinic, with the warning that I must maintain diet and medication, rest as much as possible, and strictly avoid any physical or mental exertion. I was given to understand that a deviation from these rules would be most dangerous and that I should consider myself lucky to be able to maintain this mode of life for the rest of my days. (I was then over fifty.)
During my convalescence I had plenty of time to think and to read. Among the books friends brought me, I found one, in French, on Hatha Yoga, with glowing promises of health, happiness and peace of mind. Somehow I was impressed, and besides, I had nothing to lose. Slowly and gradually I took up some of the exercises prescribed by the book and was greatly surprised to note an almost immediate improvement. In time, I became bolder and worked out a little system of physical and mental exercises which I performed morning and night. Soon I was able to walk a little and, in secret, began to take short, then longer and longer walks. I threw away the remaining medicine and did not renew the prescription.
When, three weeks later, the doctor came to check up on me, I triumphantly announced that I thought I was well again. He examined me, made several tests, and agreed with me that I had greatly improved. It was plain to see that he thought it miraculous. Nevertheless, he urged me to continue the treatment and to be very careful. I had not said a word of my own method. I saw that he was very pleased with himself and I was only too glad to let him have all the credit.
It was not his treatment, however, which I continued, but my own. As I went along I felt the need for more thorough instruction in Yoga. That is when I ran into difficulties. I found all sorts of books and treatises; some were too primitive and downright silly, others too technical and esoteric. Besides, all of them treated only one aspect of the subject. What I wanted and needed was a clear, simple, not too technical, but nevertheless accurate, and above all, complete outline of the whole subject, adapted to western understanding. I was unable to find it and, therefore, determined to write it myself.
Now I walk again and am a different person, in more ways than one. A little less than a year after I was stricken, I climbed a 10,000 foot mountain near the Matterhorn. As I looked out on the hundreds of snowy mountain peaks glittering in the brilliant rays of the rising sun, I praised God and formed the silent wish that others like me would come to know and to practise this most ancient, most potent, most wonderful of remedies for all human ills - YOGA.
"Having taken as a bow the great weapon of the Secret Teaching,
One should fix on it the arrow sharpened by Constant Meditation,
Drawing it with a mind filled with THAT,
Penetrate, O good-looking youth, that Imperishable as the mark.
The pranava (Aum) is the bow; the arrow is the self;
Brahman is said to be the mark.
With heedfulness it is to be penetrated.
You should become one with it, as the arrow with the mark."
- Mundaka Upanishad II - 3-4.
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