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Yogi Calisthenics
Password for March: “The Universe is mine. I am It.” ...
Having learned to decombobitate and concentrate yourself,
the next step is Meditation. Without concentration you can
do nothing, but concentration without meditation is profitless.
By meditation you devisualize and introspifficate the superior
or upper brain. Begin by short- circuiting your left leg by tying
around it a strip of red flannel, which polarizes your electrical
energ y. Now place your chin in your left hand with your right
hand upon your solar plexus. In about half an hour you will
begin to feel the ether. The moment it comes stand upon your
left foot and swing with the right, like a pendulum, slowly at
first and gradually increasing to 75 per minute. Do this for
40 minutes then shift. While you are penduluming hold your
left hand at the small of your back and the right on top of your
head. You now have confluensillated the five rivers of life in
your solar plexus and are now meditating and sending out
vibrations of Love, Encouragement, and Happiness. To stop
vibrating, remove the red flannel bandage, cough three times,
and strike your right foot against the floor”
— “Home Course in New Thought. Conducted by
Panamahatma McGinnis,” Chicago Daily TribuneIf the Yogi is an instantiation of the human’s destiny to become superhuman,
then it is inevitable that this process must begin with the concerns of the most
quotidian humanity. For Yogananda, as for his universalist predecessors, the fig-
ure of the Yogi embodied every human’s potential to reach this (super)natural
goal. Consequently, his teaching often eschewed the esoteric and philosophical
for the mundane and practical. The legacy of Yogananda’s lineage, carried on
in the West by the SRF, lies in the esoteric practice of Kriya Yoga, the goal of
which is nothing short of total enlightenment. However, Yogananda’s success as