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ONE of Yoga’s answers to the problems with which this chapter is concerned reads a little like black magic. Still it adds a touch of the bizarre and the exotic to this exacting science of discipline and, as with all Yoga practices, there is sound good sense behind its methods. The Indians claim that people who are afflicted with arthritis or allied complaints should keep a raw, unpeeled, winter-crop potato—yes, I did say a potato!—close to their skin day and night until the condition is relieved. It sounds a little like an old gipsy legend and as a matter of fact I did meet a gipsy some time ago who was afflicted with arthritis in the shoulders. I told him this Yoga story about keeping a potato near one’s skin and he looked at me in sheer amazement. He was completely puzzled as to how I had got hold of this old ‘gipsy’ secret, so it seems that way back in time, gipsy or Yogi, they had respect for the humble potato as a powerful cure for arthritis.

It need not be a very large potato as apparently the smaller ones work just as efficiently and I must say more conveniently. An over-large potato carried upon the person could lead to all kinds of questions and complications. The potato should be discarded when it either grows very hard like a stone or else becomes soft and wrinkled, and should be replaced by a fresh one, but make quite sure it is a winter-crop one.

You could keep it in your pocket during the day and at night slip it into the toe of an old stocking and draw the other end over your hand so that the potato does not roll away from you while you sleep. If you are married this practice could produce some hilarity from your partner but the laugh would be yours if you cured your arthritis by this unorthodox method. So bear with the jeers of your mate and try the experiment. You may be agreeably surprised.

For good measure, while you are on the potato cure, you should drink potato water, which is one of the very best alkalizing drinks and helps the system to eliminate the impurities which are to blame for your complaint. To prepare this drink, and it need not be unpalatable if you flavour it well, wash four or five fairly large potatoes but do not peel them. Put them in a saucepan with two pints of water and bring to the boil. Simmer them slowly for about an hour and then strain through a fine sieve or cloth. Drink the water first thing in the morning, at least once or twice during the day, and just before you slip your hand into that stocking with the potato in it before you hop into bed at night. If you visit your local health shop you will find all kinds of vegetable extracts and salts with which to make your potato water more drinkable.

It is also highly beneficial to arthritis sufferers to eat one or two finely grated raw potatoes, including the skin, every day. I know it sounds revolting but, added to soups, stews, salads or vegetables just before serving you would hardly know it was there! However, your system will know it is there and react “n a very favourable way. It is worth trying is it not? and I would be most interested to hear from my readers who notice an improvement in their condition through the ‘potato cure’.

But let us now turn this from a cookery book back into a book on HathaYoga! Here is an exercise known as HALAS ANA or the PLOUGH POSTURE. One of the basic Yoga asanas, it stretches the vertebrae to the maximum, and subjects the abdomen and its organs and muscles to a powerful massage. The nerve centre and cells along the spine are stimulated as they receive a richer supply of blood. By practicing this exercise your spine will gradually become more elastic and as it effects the kidneys it is a powerful way of eliminating the toxic waste that is the primary cause of arthritis and allied complaints. Waste is the foundation of all disease. It cannot flourish if the body is purified. And now for the PLOUGH POSTURE.

1. Lie down on your back, feet together and hands along your sides. Raise your legs and buttocks off the ground and as you put your hands on your hips to steady yourself push your legs over your head while keeping your knees straight. The first stage of the Plough Posture is pictured in figure 44, page 137. 2. Bend your legs backwards until your toes touch the ground. Press your chin firmly against your chest in a chin lock and place your hands, palms down, facing the opposite way to your legs. Your body now roughly resembles an old-fashioned plough. Try to increase the stretch of your spine by pushing your toes away from your head as far as you can. I have demonstrated the correct position in figure 45. Your hands may be placed in two other ways if you wish. One way is to lace them together and place them behind your head just above the neck and the other is to keep them on the hips as in stage one. Indeed this way may help you to push your body over a little more and increase the stretch of the spine.

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