Makch 1, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



327 



tract from a letter sixty pages long which 

 he addressed me a year ago: 



Thus I decided to follow Vivekananda's advice: 

 " Practise hard : whether you live or die by it 

 doesn't matter." My improvised chela and I be- 

 gan with starvation. I do not linow whether you 

 did try it ever * * * but voluntary starvation is 

 very different from involuntary, and implies more 

 temptations. We reduced first our meals to twice 

 a day and then to once a day. The best authori- 

 ties agree that in order to control the body fasting 

 is essential, and even in the Gospel the worst 

 spirits are said to obey only those who fast and 

 pray. We reduced very much the amount of food, 

 disregarding chemical theories about the need of 

 albumen, sometimes living on olive oil and bread; 

 or on fruits alone; or on milk and rice; in very 

 small quantities— much less than I formerly ate 

 at one meal. I began to get lighter every day, and 

 lost 20 pounds in a few weeks; but this could not 

 stop such a desperate undertaking * * * rather 

 starve than live as a slave! Then besides we 

 practised asana or postures, breaking almost our 

 limbs. Try to sit down on the floor ajid to kiss 

 your knees without bending them, or to join your 

 hands on the usually unapproachable vipper part 

 of your back, or to bring the toe of your right foot 

 to your left ear without bending the knees * * * 

 these are easy samples of posture for a Yogi. 



All the time also breathing exercises : keeping 

 the breath in and out up to two minutes, breathing 

 in different rhythms and positions. Also very 

 much prayer and Roman Catholic practises com- 

 bined with the Yoga, in order to leave nothing 

 untried and to be protected against the tricks of 

 Hindu devils! Then concentration of thought on 

 different parts of the body, and on the processes 

 going on within them. Exclusion of all emotions, 

 dry logical reading, as intellectual diet, and work- 

 ing out logical problems. * * * I wx'ote a Hand- 

 book of Logic as a Nehenprodukt of the whole 

 experiment.' 



After a few weeks I broke down and had to in- 

 terrupt everything, in a worse state of prostration 

 than ever. * * » My younger chela went on un- 

 shaken by my fate; and as soon as I arose from 

 bed I tried again, decided to fight it out, even feel- 

 ing a kind of determination such as I had never 

 felt before, a certain absolute will of victory at 

 any price and faith in it. Whether it is my own 



'This handbook was published last March. — 

 W. J. 



merit or a divine grace, I can not judge for cer- 

 tain, but I prefer to admit the latter. I had been 

 ill for seven years, and some people say this is a 

 term for many punishments. However base and 

 vile a sinner I had been, perhaps my sins were 

 about to be forgiven, and Yoga was only an 

 exterior opportunity, an object for concentration 

 of will. I do not yet pretend to explain much of 

 what I have gone through, but the fact is that 

 since I arose from bed on August 20, no new 

 crisis of prostration came again, and I have now 

 the strongest conviction that no crisis will ever 

 return. If you consider that for the past years 

 there has not been a single month without this 

 lethargy, you will grant that even to an outside 

 observer four successive months of increasing 

 health are an objective test. In this time I under- 

 went very severe penances, reducing sleep and food 

 and increasing the task of work and exercise. My 

 intuition was developed by these practises: there 

 came a sense of certainty, never known before, as 

 to the things needed by the body and the mind, 

 and the body came to obey like a wild horse tamed. 

 Also the mind learned to obey, and the current of 

 thought and feeling was shaped according to my 

 will. I mastered sleep and hunger, and the flights 

 of thought, and came to know a peace never known 

 before, an inner i-hythm of unison with a deeper 

 rhythm above or beyond. Personal wishes ceased, 

 and the consciousness of being the instrument of 

 a superior power arose. A calm certainty of in- 

 dubitable success in every undertaking imparts 

 great and real power. I often guessed the thoughts 

 of my companion * * * we observed generally the 

 greatest isolation and silence. We both felt an 

 unspeakable joy in the simplest natural impres- 

 sions, light, air, landscape, any kind of simplest 

 food; and above everything in rhythmical respira- 

 tion, which produces a state of mind without 

 thought or feeling, and still very intense, inde- 

 scribable. 



These results began to be more evident in the 

 fourth month of uninterrupted training. We felt 

 quite happy, never tired, sleeping only from 8 p.m. 

 to midnight, and rising with joy from our sleep 

 to another day's work of study and exercise. • • * 



I am now in Palermo, and have had to neglect 

 the exercises in the last few days, but I feel as 

 fresh as if I were in full training and see the 

 sunny side of all things. I am not in a hurry, 

 rushing to complete . 



And here my friend mentions a certain 

 life-work of his own about which I had 



