Lastly, students, let plain living and high thinking be your motto.  Do not be afraid to eat when you are hungry and so long as you exercise and work with brain and body even two square meals a day are permissible.  Do not grow ethereal and airy, because then you will not amount to much in the world’s work.  Students, who are perfect Brahmacharies, will not care half as much for lots of food as ordinary folk do.  A constant feeling of satisfaction and fullness is present in such.  But hard workers must never present in such.  But hard workers must never be under-nourished and they require more food than others.

SLEEP.

It is the depth and relaxation in sleep that counts.  High-strung people find it hard to relax and keep tossing on their pillows.  Bathe your feet in cold water in hot season and in cool water in cold season.  That will draw off the surplus blood gurgitating in your brain.  Also bathe the nape of the neck.  The student should engage in meditation before falling to sleep, as during sleep the Man leaves the physical form and goes to super-physical planes and it is the last train of thought in your mind that determines and conforms you to the special super-physical influence you are to obtain.  The physical benefits too shall be great.  You will feel more rested in this way and your sleep will be sleeping a sounder and more refreshing sleep than otherwise.  One of the chief signs of success in Mental and Physical Control is that your sleeps are undisturbed and peaceful.

During sleep you are in a passive, relaxed condition and all sorts of unseen influences play around you.  It is good therefore to enclose yourself in an Astral Shell.  Concentrate upon your aura and picture it as extending some 18 inches all around you and forming a shell around you.  Now take this affirmation to concentrate your mind.

1.  I am charging my aura with my Will-Force.

2.  It is strong, strong, strong and can and will resist, repel and drive off all bad influences and admit only pure and holy influence.

3.  It will remain around me right along the period of my sleep.

The student is advised to surround himself in this “auric Shell” even when awake so that it may beat off all malign and harmful thought-forces.  As he grows in Will-Power and Self-Confidence, a Protective Aura will form around him naturally and will be felt by others.

RELAXATION VERSUS CONTRACTION.

The student should learn to relax his body completely so that it shall lie still and limp and soft as cotton.  He should be able to tense and contract his muscles so that they will become hard as iron.  In all the physical exercises you will find two special actions (1) Muscle contraction (2) Stretching.  When you contract muscle and harden it, you have sent currents of nerve-force and will to that part; when you relax