Page:Hatha yoga - or the yogi philosophy of physical well-being, with numberous excercises.djvu/240

240 reproductive organism, and their effect upon the general health of the individual. With these organs in a weakened condition the entire physical system feels the reflex action and suffers sympathetically. The Complete Breath (described elsewhere in this book) produces a rhythm which is nature's own plan for keeping this important part of the system in normal condition, and, from the first, it will be noticed that the reproductive functions are strengthened and vitalized, thus, by sympathetic reflex action, giving tone to the whole system. By this we do not mean that the animal passions will be aroused—far from it. The Yogis are advocates of continence and chastity, and purity in the marriage relation as well as out of it. They have learned to control the animal passions, and to hold them subject to the control of the higher principles of the mind and will. But sexual control does not mean sexual weakness, and the Yogi teachings are that the man or woman whose reproductive organism is normal and healthy will have a stronger will with which to control himself or herself. The Yogi believes that much of the perversion of this wonderful part of the system comes from a lack of normal health and results from a morbid rather than from a normal condition of the reproductive system.

The Yogis also know that the sex-energy may be conserved and used for the development of the body and mind of the individual, instead of being dissipated in unnatural excesses as is the wont of so many uninformed people.

We give in the following pages, one of the favorite Yogi exercises for producing this result. Whether