Live Youthfully Now
by
Russell A. Kemp
Download Live Youthfully Now by Russell A. Kemp in PDF format
A Practical Guide to the Regeneration of the Body
Hi Friends,
Nothing distinguishes metaphysical Christianity from evangelical and catholic Christianity more than the importance given to the human body. I encourage those in the mainstream church to reconsider how they interpret the credal statement “We believe in the resurrection of the dead.” Really? Does the church really believe that?
I can say that metaphysical Christians not only believe that, it just may be the core of their theology. Take a second look at Charles Fillmore’s 32 Statements of Faith, published in 1921. Note how many of them include the body in the atonement.
Regardless of what you might think of Charles Fillmore’s quixotic quest of regeneration of his body, his quest was in fact a much closer approximation of the original Christian pathway to God than the cruel and distorted teaching of the soul being separated at death from both body and Spirit, destined to eternal torment in an unknown place in the afterlife.
What I have to offer here is a 1969 book by Unity minister Russell Kemp entitled “Live Youthfully Now.” The book is practical, not philosophical. It is a guide on practical ways we may tend to the needs of both body and soul. The full text of each chapter is given and each chapter has a link to download a printable PDF for study.
Joyce Kramer said in her opening talk on The Cycle of Life: "If you have not read the book, Live Youthfully Now by Russell Kemp, I would highly advise it. It’s one of the finest books I have ever found, relative to these concepts of life and of youthful living. Because there is no reason for mankind to have to go through life half alive. We should be involved in the process for we are told that he has set eternity in their hearts. This is a long time to be bored and tired, isn’t it?"
So I went online and bought a copy. As sometimes happens when we buy used books, there was a handwritten letter, tucked inside. This one was signed by “Sis” and it was sent to her "Baby Brother". Here is what she tells him:
It’s not my intention to overwhelm you with my materials, but I have received some valuable insight and felt that I’d be selfish if I did not share them with you.
Take your time but please read this little book. Start with Chapter X and go to the end, then begin with chapter I and read through the entire book. I know you’ll gain something worthwhile ...
Click on the letter to see a higher resolution image. But more important, do as Sis says, skip to Chapter 10 and read on from there.
Sunday, June 19, 2022
Live Youthfully Now
by
Russell A. Kemp
Unity books
UNITY VILLAGE, MISSOURI
Copyright 1969 by Russell A. Kemp
Standard Book Number 87159-232-0
Library of Congress Card Number 79-93890
COVER ILLUSTRATION BY MARGO BLY
Unity is a link in the great educational movement inaugurated by Jesus Christ; our objective is to discern the truth in Christianity and prove it. The truth that we teach is not new, neither do we claim special revelations or discovery of new religious principles. Our purpose is to help and teach mankind to use and prove the eternal Truth taught by the Master. — Charles Fillmore, founder of Unity
Contents
Foreword Why This Book Was Written.......... 9
- God Gives Us Life, Not Age........... 17
- Scientific Use of Mind Forces........ 30
- How to Make Time Serve You........... 48
- Instantaneous Renewal................ 63
- Habit Can Be a Prison, or a Powerhouse.... 75
- Memory’s Golden Door................. 94
- Renew Your Life Motivation.......... 107
- The Building Blocks of Life......... 123
- Permanent Youth, the Gift of God... 143
- How to Keep Your Body in Good Running Order.... 164
- Meditation and Eternal Values....... 183
- Our Values Produce Our Life Goals.. 201
Addenda................................... 217
Foreword
Why This Book Was Written
Have you ever heard the saying: “We get too soon old, and too late smart”? It voices a feeling that is common to most of us. Does it not seem that about the time we have begun to learn howto live, we also begin to lose the very things that enable us most to enjoy living? How ironical to find that by the time we have at last puzzled out some of the answers to the riddle of existence, we have lost the capacity to benefit from them! Time’s greatest taunt is that by the time we acquire the “knowhow” we lose the “go go.” Why should we run out of gas by the time we get past all the dusty detours and onto the right road? Does life make sense?
Thomas Kettle once wrote that life was like a meal in a bad restaurant, with time playing the part of an uncivil waiter, who snatches away the dishes before you have had enough of anything. Consider the main dish that life offers, this physical body of ours. According to common belief, our body is built to give us only a fleeting forty or fifty years of satisfactory service.1 After that we are headed over the hill. The end is religiously expected at sixty or seventy. To reach eighty is a minor miracle ... and if we do, we’d better be careful!
For it is popularly held that at such an advanced age as eighty, the length of time we have lived has inevitably weakened our physical body, and any unusual exertion might be dangerous. We are told to play safe, just putter around, conserve our strength, rest as much as possible. The name of the game now is “be careful.”
This book was written to challenge and contradict such notions as these. I do not accept them as being true or binding, on myself or anyone else.
For many years I have felt intuitively that such commonly accepted beliefs as these were all wrong. I have been deeply interested in the idea of living longer, while also retaining the capacity to live effectively and enjoy life. I do not mean just living to an advanced age. I mean retaining vigor of mind and body regardless of the passing years. I believe we should be capable of enjoying life as long as we live. We should also be able to support ourself and look after ourself in every way as long as we live. We should not ever become a burden to ourself or to others, or to society, regardless of how long we live.
I owe a great deal of my interest in living longer and more effectively to my enthusiasm for metaphysical teachings, particularly to those of Unity School of Christianity, with which I have been associated as a minister for about thirty years. They stress the idea that the true man of God’s creating is immortal in mind, and should also have a body that is free from sickness, weakness, old age, or decay. So I have thought deeply, read widely, and studied everything I could find on this absorbing, fascinating subject of living long and living well while being immune to age.
Over the years I have collected news items about people who have defied (sometimes in startling ways) the generally accepted beliefs about age. They have demonstrated that man can be free from sickness and physical weakness far past the proverbial “threescore years and ten.” These news items forced me to question even more the popular belief that age necessarily brings decrepitude, for they told of men and women who were ice-skating, roller-skating, dancing, horseback riding, swimming, playing baseball, even running at ages when such things are considered physically impossible.
Then a few years ago my own convictions on the subject received unexpected confirmation from certain authoritative medical circles. Quite simply and definitely, some prominent doctors announced that time of itself had no power to cause the phenomena associated with age in human beings. The changes and deterioration generally ascribed to age, these medical specialists said, are not caused by the accumulation of years; they are a result of the power of the human mind. Our own mind, with its great creative power, has been conditioned to believe that the passing of years inevitably causes us to become feeble and lose our mental and physical powers. As a result, our mind imposes this belief on our body. And this, the doctors declared, not the years themselves, is the real cause of what we have come to know as old age. It is our own deeply-rooted belief that time automatically causes old age, plus changes in our living habits due to this belief, that causes aging.
For instance, we have all been told that at a certain time of life we must reduce our physical activities, curtail our expenditure of energy, and watch out for any physical exertion that might result in harm. We believe these warnings and obey them. We (consciously or unconsciously) slow down, or settle down into less active living.
Also, there is enforced retirement, which usually makes drastic changes in our living habits and suddenly curtails physical activity. The resulting idleness, boredom, and lack of exercise give us more time to worry about our health, time to watch for the bad effects of age which we have been led to expect. It is these things, says the doctors’ report, that are mostly to blame for such deterioration. We must stop blaming aging on our years alone.
The reader may at first find this hard to accept. All our life we have been conditioned to believe in what are called the “diseases of the aged.” However, in its booklet called “A New Concept of Aging,” the American Medical Association says it has been established that there are no “diseases of the aged.” To put it another way, there are no diseases specifically resulting from the passage of a certain number of years. “We have no right to assume,” the report continues, “that the ‘shaky hand, the wobbly step and the narrowing of horizons’ are inevitable at any age.”
And here we have been believing all along that the accumulation of a certain number of years automatically makes us old! To be sure, we reserved the right to feel old, or to call ourself old, at any period or life. The specter of age begins to haunt us in our youth. Some people consider themselves old at thirty, others at forty. Some may call themselves old wrecks at forty-five, “over the hill” at fifty.
A man may be in good health and secure in his job at forty, but he can’t be sure. A sale of the firm, reorganization resulting in a phasing out of his department or his job, might occur at any time. He thinks to himself: “If I were let out here, could I get another job, or would I be considered too old, because I’m forty? Could I fit in with another firm’s retirement or pension plans?” Thoughts like these nag many a man, and add to the stress and strain of business life today.
And yet such thoughts are all based, according to these new concepts of the effects of time, on a mistaken assumption (which some go so far as to call a superstition): namely, that the years we live inevitably work changes in our mind and body, and these finally result in old age.
If we want to remain young as long as we live, we will have to reject and uproot these deeply entrenched beliefs about time and age. We will need to do much more than just read the medical pronouncements that time has no power to age us, and exclaim, “Well, what do you know about that?” There are many sensational ideas competing for our attention in today’s ever-accelerating world. Some really serious, determined effort will be required to accomplish what we want. We are going to have to unlearn many things we have learned. We will need to decondition our minds of the belief that time causes aging. This new idea that time has no power of itself to make us old must be accepted in depth before it becomes effective in our physical organism.
And we can help our mind to accept this new idea in the way that produces real results. We can “deage” ourself. It is the purpose of this book to show you how. It gives you positive, spiritually-oriented information and teaching on this all-important matter. This book will not only teach you, it will help you to think for yourself on the subject.
It will also give you techniques for using your own mind’s creative energy, for cooperating with certain subtle but far-reaching forces of nature to renew your vital forces in a way you never thought possible. The gray specter of age that skulks beneath the threshold of most people’s waking thoughts can be banished forever. Wnat a relief.
Read the news reports of people who never saw this book but proved just the same that no certain number of years automatically made them old. Read of them playing tennis at seventy-five, swimming in the cold Pacific ocean off California when past eighty, running twenty-five miles just for fun when nearing sixty-five, dancing, roller-skating, even skiing at ages that have been thought of as meaning wheelchairs or rest homes. How can you help being challenged and inspired by their example?
I have to the best of my ability set forth ideas that I myself have used and found helpful in eliminating and escaping from these human race beliefs of age. I have also included some spiritually inspired ideas and disciplines that are helping me at present. I am morally certain they will affect for the better any person who will give them a fair trial.
So, while the devoted scientists and researchers seek to study and isolate the aging process (and more power to them!), you and I, finding aid and inspiration from the higher Power indwelling us, will seek to study and use the “de-aging” process.
We want to find and use for ourself an antidote to the whole tiresomely familiar sequence of life stages, which goes something like this:
First, being very young, feeling unsure and confused, and trying to be older. Then, being a little older, still not knowing what life is all about, and wishing you were grown up. Being grown up at last, but feeling that your precious youth is vanishing. You are still young, even though a certain degree of youth has departed. However, you are enjoying the period between becoming grown up and middle age, which is what we might call youthful maturity. You are still young enough to have pep, but you are mature enough to prize it. This is often the happiest period of life.
After a time you begin to fear the stealthy approach of middle age. Then, having accepted middle age, you begin to fear the coming of old age, all the time feeling just as young inside. Next, old age, with all its boredom, trials, and failing powers ... while you are still feeling young inside, but unable to express your feeling in your physical body.
There is a way out of all this! It consists in knowing the real truth about yourself as a spiritual-mental-physical being, all in one, and in reality all one. Thus you relate your body to the life force that animates it, not to your birth certificate.
This book gives you definite, provable methods of doing just this. It suggests ways to renovate your senses, renew your body by renewing your mind, restore your enthusiasm for living.
You will be inspired to have a vital interest in life and all that is going on, to live in the present. You will have meaningful things to live for. You will have friends, and you will be needed. You will be strongly motivated to study and learn new, worthwhile things. You will pioneer this new way of living eagerly, not just for yourself, but for all of us! “It is a long journey” says Curtis W. Reese, “from primitive mystery to modern knowledge, but the journey has been made by man.
“Other and yet greater journeys remain to be made. We are only beginning to catch glimpses of what may yet be achieved.”
This book points the way to one of these greater journeys, which has now been revealed to us by modern knowledge confirming ancient insights. There is something greater and finer to be obtained from life than our past experience of precious but fleeting youth imprisoned behind the iron bars of passing years.
This book tells you how you may obtain for yourself youthful and lasting maturity, the new goal and the true goal of life.
- From the viewpoint of an immortal being, forty or fifty years is equivalent to the time it takes us to draw a breath!
