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Chapter One

A Provocative Introduction

The words to Ode to Joy in the Frontispiece are excellent for introducing joy as used within this book. Certainly joy intoxicates and opens the doors to your own heaven on earth. However, since joy will also “unite together what society’s sword did divide,” society has tightly suppressed joy and replaced it with reaching for ‘happiness’. Happiness stabilizes society with its promise of contentment, security and peace. Joy, on the other hand, leads constantly to an ever-expanding world as you reach for more and more, in this world and beyond. Joy promises self-determination in your own created heaven while happiness mandates submission to an ever-contracting world of external controls and goals. 

Joy is encountered in childhood with the overflowing of life and excitement as a new imagined game is created and played. Then many experience it again in finding the oneness of first love and its creation of a new world. A smaller percentage of individuals find joy in fulfilling their own chosen future or in meeting a sudden, overpowering need that requires supernormal powers. Almost everyone has heard of the joy of following the heart with unrestrained vitality and how miracles can occur in reaching for deep desires. Friedrich von Schiller, philosopher, poet and author of Ode to Joy, explained that joy is found with the balance and union of reason with feeling and then making each moment in life a game. 

For the majority of people, however, making life a game is the antithesis of being responsible and secure in life. People perceive life as a trial and as doing one’s duty. Children may play games but as one becomes mature, it is generally believed that games must be put away. Instead, one must assume the responsibility of supporting oneself and family as well as supporting society and its institutions. However, a few people do remember that when they were able to make their duty a game, suddenly their world would change. A child, for instance, can be told to clean a bedroom and amidst much grumbling and moaning will retreat to do his or her duty. However, a few children can become intrigued in some portion of the duty and ‘open’ to the task whereupon the duty becomes joy and the room ends up being cleaner and more organized than it ever was before. Game playing likewise is used by some adults as a method to find both joy and increased accomplishment stimulated by the demands of duty or need.  

Over the years, the authors spent considerable time and effort teaching Eastern practices to average Americans so that they could at least awaken to the fact that it was possible to play games. The fundamental Eastern practices, many of which are already becoming absorbed into our culture, are useful in obtaining self-awareness and the realization of one’s bondage to society. But to fully experience joy and evolution one must look to the West and its creative, productive and joyous individuals who managed to gain full control of their own lives. It was after all, their techniques that put the West far ahead of the East in terms of social and technical evolution. There is one major problem that exists in the West, however, and that is so few people seem able to take advantage of the increased personal freedom and time to seek and play a game that leads to evolution and joy.  

In studying what keeps the majority of the people of the West from finding joy and evolution despite all of their freedom and ‘toys’, some very surprising constraints were found.  We initially started comparing the physiology of children with adults to determine what physical changes that occur in maturing might decrease the ability of adults to play games.

There is one very significant, yet seldom noted, change that becomes more and more evident as the average individual ages and that is the gradual loss of the full usage of the perineal and lower abdominal muscles. This loss, although known for many years by physiologists, has only recently become known to the general public through studies of urinary incontinence. When these muscles are reactivated, not only is incontinence reversed, but a remarkable increase in vitality and sexual response is also found.  

In teaching Eastern practices to the elderly, we noted that the majority had lost the ability to completely empty the lungs. This loss of control is due to the loss of the lower abdominal muscles that press upwards upon the lungs to fully empty the air out of the lungs. It is these muscles that are used within groups seeking vitality or action. Consider, for instance, children shrieking in joy, fans cheering at a football game, or a drill sergeant exhaling deeply while barking a strong, spoken command.  

Children spend a considerable amount of time experimenting with and developing their lower muscles, much to the concern of parents. For instance they spin, hold their breath, fall on their prats or buttocks, and rub, massage and pound their perinea. (This also became a major concern of the early Eastern system of Yoga.)  Assertive and creative adults can be easily observed using strong and deep exhalations to make themselves effective. It is in the depths of the abdomen that many individuals look for answers, increased strength or the continuation of effort.  

This lower region is also the physical center of the outstretched human body in which the ancient world placed the heart or the center of being. This center or lower heart was believed by many to be located within the mysterious sacred bone, the sacrum, at the end of the spine that contained the soul. This sacral heart became known as the seat of love or intention, feelings, the inner Will, as well as the power to direct one’s own life. The Bible described how what was placed in the sacral heart determined the future and how girding the loins around the heart could activate this love.

It is quite a shock to modern individuals that there is no physiological basis at all for assigning the controlling heart or center to the blood-pumping organ in the chest as is done in modern times. The effects that one experiences can be traced to imagination or the change in the load on the pumping heart. Modern individuals, in denying gut feelings, also attempt to relate love and feelings to a mythical bosom that supposedly surrounds and contains the heart in the chest. Again it is very surprising when positive feelings in this region are traced to responses of the nipples. The activity of the nipples is as suppressed in our modern society as is the sacral heart and probably for the same reason. The past view of the physiology of the body is still apparent with the red double curved heart symbol still used on valentine cards which does not, of course, look anything like the pumping heart. To see the source of the valentine heart, one must become obscene and stare at the rear of someone bending over.

Children can develop a certainty in what they will attain in the future and then manage to reach their goal. This was known to be the manifesting of a strong love placed in the sacral heart. This love allowed an individual to transcend nearly any limitation in life. Almost everyone is familiar with the physiological process of placing a love in his or her heart. Children are familiar with the tensions and breath that are associated with giving your word and then ‘crossing your heart and hoping to die.’ Many adults also perceive this process as they think of steeling themselves or willing something to happen such as ‘giving your word.’ This act involves using a particular downward, thrusting breath and tensions in the lower abdomen that feel as if something is being pulled up into the lower abdomen.

Children rely upon their deep inner feelings that arise from the lower heart, as do truly creative individuals, as they find some demand or need for special knowledge, insights or strengths. As most people mature, however, conditioned thoughts and responses gradually replace the feelings rising from below. Conditioned thoughts and responses are reinforced, whereas gut feelings are generally overridden by what you have been taught to be right. For instance, children must learn to suppress their inherent distrust for some relative or a gut attraction for something glittering in the street. Unfortunately, if the rising feelings are not allowed to normally flow freely, they gradually lose their accuracy and strength and the individual becomes more tightly bound to the suggestions or concepts offered by the outer world. 

However, there is a difference in individuals who learn to listen and respond to their inner rising powers. They are readily perceived as being self-confident people who know where their life is leading them. They indicate awareness not only of their future, but also a trust that they will have whatever powers are required to meet that future. It is these people that shape the world. 

We had already become convinced that the modern Western world contained a much higher percentage of these world-shapers than the East. It seemed natural that we then sought to find times in history when this percentage of creative people changed greatly. We looked for indications of social structures that either encouraged or discouraged the rise of inner powers within individuals. In reviewing history it did not take much time to select the reign of Constantine the Great, the Dark Ages and the Reformation.  

Studying the time of Constantine initially offered quite a challenge, because history does not seem able to separate his reign from the power of the later Catholic Church. However, it seemed quite important to attempt to uncover what had been happening to individuals during his reign since it was obvious that individuals began to lose inner powers after his death with the world sinking into the Dark Ages. The question then became what was gained during Constantine’s rule that was lost during the Dark Ages and was this regained in the Reformation?  

We started the search attempting to determine what happened before, during and after Constantine that might indicate what individual powers were gained and how. Before Constantine, the attempt of the State to suppress human individual powers seemed quite obvious and can even be found today in our present government as questionable groups are jailed and isolated. However, despite this forceful type of control by the State, the early Christians thrived and manifested very special inner powers. Constantine became very much aware of these powers when he found them deeply seated in important posts within his own government. The Christians were multiplying quite rapidly as new members continually increased their ranks and Constantine obviously found their personal lives to be quite exemplary. The next awareness of increased power of individuals that Constantine reported was the rise in the power of his soldiers who brought him victory over what were reported to be vastly superior numbers of equally trained soldiers. 

It seemed to us that the sudden rise in the numbers of educated, creative and highly functional Christians was something new in history. How did a group of highly persecuted people, whose leader had to be crucified earlier, manage to evolve into becoming a dominant force in Constantine’s Roman Empire? The other question was how could one group of highly regimented and trained Roman soldiers suddenly become far better than other equally trained Roman soldiers? Obviously something unusual had happened. 

Constantine publicly stated that the reason for the improvement of his soldiers was due to his solar vision of the combined Greek letters khi and rho (or ??) and his later vision that indicated these letters referred to a power that would give him victory. No one knows for sure what khi and rho exactly meant to Constantine, but there are a lot of related words in Greek that begin with khi and rho. Many of them are related to communication from the gods, oracles or other powers such as chrio, chrao or the word that he finally used, christos. Christos was the adjective of the word chrio which meant to touch, coat, prick, stimulate or anoint. 

In order to understand what all of this meant to Constantine, we had to first understand what it meant to Constantine to be a henotheist as he declared himself to be. This meaning is not readily available and we had to use philology as well as physics to arrive at the answer.  Henotheism must mean the belief that God was one in union (heno comes from eis meaning one or union) which can be compared with monotheism which is the belief in one isolated god (mono means alone and one). This definition of a union associated with a God was then reinforced by remembering that Constantine was also a follower of Sol Invictus or accepted the belief that the sun was either God or the symbol of God. Physics then enters into the definition of henotheism since the sun, flames or a remote incorporeal God must have three separate natures: 1) the energy of the sun or God, 2) the radiation of the sun or God and 3) the absorption or anointing of the sun or God on an individual. In all cases the three natures were all the same energy or stuff. The Will of God, must be the same as the radiance of God, which is the same as that envisioned or the touch of the radiance upon an individual. According to henotheism, God was therefore the union of three identical natures as was the sun.  

It is very easy to read of Jesus teaching about the presence of an inner manifested power of God to understand where the early Christians gained their inner powers and their trust in them. Constantine must have likewise instilled this same trust in his soldiers. They had to learn to trust the inner guidance from the radiance of Sol Invictus or God more than their trained in-unison thrust and parry type of fighting. Coordinated movement no doubt worked well against unorganized and untrained forces, but unexpected individual action was obviously an advantage against similarly trained troops.

Constantine’s belief in an inner personal power derived from the radiance of God is made quite apparent in his demand that all of the Christian churches accept his concept of Christos.  

He had all of the leaders of the individual churches meet with him in Nicea in 325 CE and agree to a simple declaration that could be reduced to, “The creator God created Christos which was the same as God. Christos then manifested God’s Will on earth.”  This statement, once explained, seems quite simple and straightforward and supports the henotheistic view and the personal experiences of most individuals. Sol Invictus, as a result, became the symbol for the source of Christos that the Christians then accepted. They changed their meeting dates from the ancient Sabbath demanded by the Jewish Ten Commandments to the day of the Sun or Sunday. The Christians also observed the day of restoration of the sun, or the 25th of December as a holiday as well as the old Roman Easter celebration for the rebirth of life at spring. Even much later in the 5th century, Leo the Great stated that it was the custom of many Christians to stand on the steps of the church of St. Peter and pay homage to the sun by obeisance and prayers. Jesus, became portrayed the same as Constantine with the aureole of the sun shown behind their heads indicating the Christos of Sol Invictus or God that gave them their inner powers of greatness.  

Under Constantine’s rule the Empire flourished, including such things as rebuilding destroyed temples in Jerusalem while building the exemplary city of New Rome or Constantinople. The religions were subordinate and supported by the State, yet otherwise free to extend their own religious and spiritual pursuits. The Christians assumed charge of public Welfare and we assume Education since they were so literate and educated.  

However, things changed greatly following the death of Constantine and the son who continued his rule following his death. The easiest and perhaps most accurate method of describing what happened next was the organization of the Catholic Church and its attempt to rewrite history. In order to insure their rewrite, all opposing documents were burnt including the entire library at Alexandria. The Church readily admitted to this vandalism but justified it as removing all traces of an Arian Heresy that existed under Constantine and his son. The very word ‘heresy’ points to the nature of the change that was brought about. The word comes from the Greek hairesis which means ‘taking or choosing for one’s self.’ The literal usage of the word heresy then implies that the citizens or members of the early churches were making their own choices and relying upon their own inner powers rather than that of a controlling religious hierarchy. If the later Catholic Church had not written so much against the Arian Heresy, knowledge of much that occurred under Constantine would not be known. In essence it was decried as being too simplistic, logical and scientific in describing the relationship of God to Christ and to the humans below. It was also condemned because it denied that Jesus was God.  The Catholic Church did not support the basic concept of the Christians under Constantine that each individual could open to the radiance, or as the Jews called it, the Kabod or Glory of God.  

It seemed to us that we had found the reason for the rise in individual powers encountered under Constantine buried in the official Catholic Encyclopedia under its section of the Arian Heresy. That this view of an inner power supported with the radiance of God was correct was, of course, supported by the resulting lack of inner power of almost everyone during the following Dark Ages after the Arian Heresy was eliminated. This seemed to be the perfect example of the baby being thrown out with the bath water. 

In seeking some indication other than the Catholic Encyclopedia as to the methods that the early Christians and Constantine’s soldiers used to increase their inner powers, we considered one old writing that Constantine no doubt found useful. This writing, now called the Sermon on the Mount, ended up being placed near the front of the New Testament by the early framers of the Bible. Its teachings are also supported by the Gospel of Thomas written at the same time or even earlier and buried until 1945.   

In order to find the original teachings, however, we had to translate the original Greek which yielded a powerful guide. The Beatitudes for instance, gives a cogent description of the early Christians as being fully aware yet not filled with self-importance. They were sensual, alive and responsive, open to new ideas and concepts. The Sermon then describes such things as the lower heart, called the tameion or lower storehouse, as the dwelling place of the inner powers that must be approached, recognized and trusted. When the Sermon is translated literally it is filled with advice that can be summarized as telling how to play a game in life.  

In rewriting the history of Christianity, perhaps the greatest loss to mankind was the shifting of the word agapao. This powerful word that originally meant metaphysical and transformational love was demoted to mean charity or caring. Agapao originally meant finding total union with the object of love such as found with experiencing joy or a game with others where the individuals and the world become as one. Rather than finding a true union or oneness with God or one’s neighbor, one now loves God by giving money to a church. Neighbors are to be loved by exhorting them to follow the dictates of institutions. Rather than ‘taking in’ poor families or individuals and making them a part of a home or community, we allow the poor to be isolated and made dependent upon social institutions through charity. Without agapao it would be impossible to play games with others and any attempts to do so without it would obviously result in anarchy as many groups have already discovered. Tragically, the denial of the transformational power of agapao, or a higher love, results in the increasing isolation and depression of most citizens, which only increases with age. 

Sometime before the 5th century the world started to change because of the suppression of inner powers that can be attributed to the loss of the fundamental teachings of Jesus and the acceptance of external powers rather than inner powers. The inhabitants of the Western world became helpless slaves to Religion and the State, and the Dark Ages began. The separation of science and religion must have also taken place somewhere in that period of time. This is perhaps exemplified in the Catholic writings, mentioned above, against the earlier beliefs of the Arian Heresy, which were described as being too simplistic and logical. This criticism is a characteristic of one of the underlying philosophies of religion. This philosophy, named Fideism (from Latin fides, faith), is based upon the view that since God is unknowable, the more confusing and complex an explanation is, the more likely it is to be correct. This is, of course, diametrically opposite to an underlying philosophy of science which uses the concept that the simpler an explanation is, the more likely it is to be correct.  

The Catholic Church after Constantine, redefined science and placed the view of the Priesthood above experimental or physical evidence or the Church above any physical institution or thought. A scientist was therefore required to have a license from the Church to make scientific statements that were agreed to by Church authorities. This edict was enforced even through the start of the Reformation. Science could not make statements that contradicted the beliefs of the Church. We would argue that this requirement permanently modified science such that science learned to avoid any statements that might conflict with the Church. In particular, they avoid discussing metaphysical forces such as electric, magnetic, gravitational, molecular etc. forces as well as the mystical transformational properties of energy as it changes from one form into another such as from coal, to heat, to steam, to driving a turbine and to electrical energy. How energy is able to do this or what its basic nature is remains undefined, and since it is obviously metaphysical in nature, it is excluded from scientific discussion. The nature of radiation is likewise not discussed even though cosmologists describe a radiation as a necessary part of the creation of the universe. It can also be argued that by not publishing articles based upon subjective experiences, modern psychology also follows this trend. Similarly, modern physiology does not discuss feelings or any coupling forces between individuals and the basis for life is left to religion alone. Only with the rise of quantum mechanics is this barrier starting to break down and the word metaphysical becoming accepted by more and more scientists.  

The Reformation leading out of the Dark Ages followed what can be described as a general re-awakening of people that probably started with the resurfacing of the heresy of Constantine’s time or the taking or choosing for one’s self. The later awakened ones or resulting superior individuals have recently been labeled as self-actualized individuals by the psychologist Abraham Maslow. The awakened ones before the rise of the Catholic definitions were known as the righteous, dikaiosune, or ‘balanced’ individuals. Almost everyone meets these individuals who are commonly described as having a radiance of their own that is no doubt the radiance of what is within them. Many of these individuals are the innovators and leaders of the modern developing world.  

Martin Luther, a founder of Protestantism, had to recognize the rising powers within the individuals in his country, but, not wishing to bypass the power of the clergy, described the rising inner powers of the citizens as the manifesting of a ‘priesthood of all believers.’ The ‘power’ of the believers was later stated by modern churches (probably in fear of the loss of their own power) to be limited to supporting the leadership of the church and not a source of inner powers resulting from the touch of a Higher Source. However, the damage to the autocracy of the Church had already been done and this ruling is certainly not a concern with the majority of modern day Western Christians.  

The question that remains is what was happening in the developing Western world that spawned the creative and exceptional people, the dikaiosune? It was definitely related to a Christian influence since without it, other areas of the world remained locked in stasis. Whatever it was, it was present with Constantine but absent during the Dark Ages and began reappearing during the Reformation.  

John Wesley, the chief founder of Methodism, may have offered an insight into what was taking place among the Protestants when he made statements about an inner fervor or zeal for whatever one is doing. It is known that in his diary he kept a running record of how much fervor he was feeling and perhaps the name ‘Methodist’ came from the ‘method’ of using the inner energy of fervor to transform one’s life. (His method and awareness of finding fervor seems to have been lost over the centuries.) This same drive is also evidenced in children as they take on a new role in an imaginary game or in an inspired person who is actively seeking fulfillment of a deep longing in the heart. It is this drive that results in the rising of inner powers, joy and evolution, but because of this, it is also suppressed by both school and church.  

The problem we faced in writing this book was how to present something that is generally hidden to the public and is not the result of a cognitive process. We decided to follow methods that we had used in teaching hundreds of people about the Eastern self-development techniques. These classes relied upon the contributions of individual experiences to the whole class.  The most powerful expressions about the attainment of joy started with statements such as, “Wow, I was really blown away when I finally experienced a tingle in my belly.” There is probably no better introduction to the elements that constitute and support joy than hearing someone else describe them. Accordingly, an excellent way to introduce the whole power of joy and evolving into a better person is to present it as a personal story that proceeds step-by-step and day-by-day. Thus the contributions of hundreds of our students were summarized into a composite story of a particular middle aged, middle class couple who tell of their discoveries and ongoing evolution.

This book therefore starts with the story of Allison and George who awoke to a new world following a life-threatening emergency that required the usage of their deep inner powers. In seeking answers to questions about the source of their unusual strengths, insights, and feelings, they gradually managed to create their own heaven, much to the wonderment of their two friends, Craig and Mary, who want to share in it.   

The story is followed by technical chapters that describe the location and nature of the sacral heart, the complex muscles that stimulate the metaphysical powers of this heart, as well as the hidden but still recognized powers of love. Chapters are also given on the history of joy through the ages and its acceptance in different cultures. The last chapter attempts to summarize the entire teachings of the book in twenty-one short lines for those who already understand the contents.

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