Page:Hatha yoga - or the yogi philosophy of physical well-being, with numberous excercises.djvu/11

Rh barefooted; whether rubber boots are particularly conducive to "magnetism" and vitality, and so on. We give this merely as an illustration, not that we wish to waste time in discussing the merits or demerits of rubber soles, and glass bed feet as a preservative of magnetism. A little observation will teach the man that all of nature's answers show him that he gets much of his magnetism from the earth, and that the earth is a battery charged with it, and is always willing and anxious to give forth its strength to man, instead of being devoid of it and to be dreaded as being anxious and likely to "draw" the magnetism from man, its child. Some of these latter day prophets will next be teaching that the air draws Prana from people, instead of giving it to them.

So, by all means, apply the nature test to all theories of this kind—our own included—and if they do not square with nature, discard them—the rule is a safe one. Nature knows what it is about—she is your friend and not your enemy.

There have been many and most valuable works written on the other branches of the Yogi Philosophy, but the subject of Hatha Yoga has been dismissed with a brief reference by most of the writers upon Yoga. This is largely due to the fact that in India there exists a horde of ignorant mendicants of the lower fakir class, who pose as Hatha Yogis, but who have not the slightest conception of the underlying principles of that branch of Yoga. These people content themselves with obtaining control over some of the involuntary muscles of the body (a thing possible to anyone who will devote to it the time and