Course XIX - Teaching 1: Value of the Postures

The ancient masters have highly developed the science of postures. Unfortunately, just a fragmented knowledge about this wisdom reaches our times through the Hindu people, but its true meaning is not grasped because currently people makes the mistake of analyzing everything separately and do nor look for relations with the Unity.
A posture is of very little value as a physical attitude exclusively. So, those who have practiced it for getting powers, or for simple curiosity, were unable to observe greater results, and disappointed, have abandoned them before they could understand them truly and intimately. But when a posture intends to support the mind in its approach to the Highest Ideal, its result is invaluable because after one acquires certain habits with them, its use puts the soul, even in adverse circumstances, in the soul disposition desired. A posture is a true physical representation of a spiritual state; therefore, can be used to be prepared for the achievement of this very state.
Also rituals and ceremonies practiced in different religions work in the same sense and their use is generally collective. They dispel worldly mental desires and passions and grant to the mind higher serenity that is necessary for the spiritual absorption.
On the other hand, postures are particularly used individually and that is why they should be valued again, such as nowadays other elements of individual asceticism emerge anew.
In this course you can find a detailed explanation about ordinary postures for the practice of spiritual exercises, and also about those postures that you can use in the ordinary course of your ordinary living, so that the Son may take advantage of a continuous absorption, which shall permit him to move forward quickly on the Path leading to the Divine Mother. Many delays in the spiritual development come from a mental instability that today, more than ever before, is caused by environment, education and ancestral effects.
If the Son refuses to succumb under this powerful influence, he must make efforts –like those efforts made by hopeless castaways in search for a raft– to take hold of every ascetic means and, among these means, that of recognizing how postures give, to the fact of being standing, seated or lying down, a particular sublimating touch that enriches substantially even the most non-transcendent moments of his life.
In the last teachings, you shall find a description of many postures so that the student willing to investigate may personally discover their wonderful effects, which shall enable him to recognize with deep admiration the sublime wisdom of these ancient Masters.