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Exceeding the Limits Set By Our Minds to Harness Powers of Health and Fitness · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  We generally remain locked within the framework of our past
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  training and experience. We create walls around ourselves
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  that circumscribe what we believe we can accomplish, what
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  we can do, what is real, and what is possible.
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  As long as we remain primarily fixated on the past, we limit
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  our opportunity for growth and development in the future.
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  We deny possibilities based on never having experienced them
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  previously, or if we have tried and not succeeded, we conclude
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  that the attempt was doomed to failure, either due to it being
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  an illusory goal or due to our own lack of fitness and capacity
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  to achieve the goal. This limiting mechanism is
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  something that the mind, with its limited framework and
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  vision, imposes on our vital nature and our physical body.
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  Something is either not feasible, too difficult, or we
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  are simply not adaptable enough to succeed at it.
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  At least that is what our inner voice tells us.
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  If we reflect for a moment, we can see that such limiting
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  concepts in our minds have not guided us well in the past.
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  We believed for ages that the moon was unapproachable, but
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  during the 1960s humanity was able to harness rudimentary
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  techniques of Space Flight and actually land people on the
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  moon. We believed that certain
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  diseases were incurable. The history of the bubonic
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  plague known as the Black Plague in Europe is such an example.
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  Fear ran rampant and people died.
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  Over time, with research and consideration of potential
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  vectors, the disease was indeed brought under control.
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  Leprosy was a feared disease which was eventually brought
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  under control. Smallpox was a worldwide mass
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  killing disease which was eventually eradicated.
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  These successes were brought about by people who refuse to
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  listen to the voices of denial, the claims of impossibility, and
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  who overcame the fear of trying. It is clear that just because
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  something has not been done in the past, it cannot be worked
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  out and developed in the future. These examples, however, relate
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  to humanity as a whole, not any specific individual.
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  Someone might then believe that the sum of humanity is greater
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  than the parts of humanity, and that what humanity can
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  accomplish collectively is not applicable to any individual's
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  own situation. This, however, would be easily
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  found to be inaccurate. While humanity has had
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  successes, as noted above, they were built on the contributions
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  of a series of individuals either working on their own or
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  collaborating. We're building upon the work of
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  others before them. Forerunners in various fields
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  have seen, intuited, or worked out solutions to concerns that
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  others simply disbelieved. When we turn to the individual
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  case, however, it is also clear that many things can be
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  accomplished through patient, persevering, and consistent
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  efforts. Focus and receptivity.
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  In this way, even the physical body has been pushed far beyond
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  limits that were considered impossible to attain even just a
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  few short years or decades ago. We hear of individuals who have
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  systematically trained themselves to withstand extreme
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  cold temperatures or to generate inner psychic heat through the
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  practice of TOMO. We hear of people who were
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  partially paralyzed in an accident, who do not accept the
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  limitations, and who eventually regain full use of their limbs.
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  There are others who struggle with various academic subjects
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  until one day, through their persistent efforts, the
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  proverbial light goes on and they now understand what was
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  incomprehensible to them previously.
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  We find people who develop powers of intuition,
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  clairvoyance, clairaudience, various powers of will and
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  expression through focus and commitment, and a sense of
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  receptivity to those powers simply by not believing that
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  such things are impossible. If we were limited by what has
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  occurred in the past, or even in our own past, we would not be
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  able to grow, to learn, to progress, to develop new
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  capacities at all. Yet we see that all of these
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  things are not only possible, but are the normal condition
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  that pertains to much of humanity when people are not
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  simply under pure survival mode at all times.
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  Even then, we hear of situations where people have lifted cars to
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  free a trapped child, even though the car was far beyond
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  any weight limit they could have conceived.
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  They simply did not think about it.
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  They just did it under the force of necessity.
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  Shrioro Bindo notes, quote Above all, do not harbor that idea of
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  an unfit body. All suggestions of that kind are
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  a subtle attack on the will to city, and especially dangerous
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  in physical matters. The first business is to expel
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  it. Bag and baggage, appearances and
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  facts may be all in its favor, but the first condition of
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  success for the Yogin, and indeed for anybody who wants to
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  do anything great or unusual, is to be superior to facts and
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  disbelieve in appearances. Will to be free from disease,
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  however formidable many faced, or constant its attacks, and
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  repel all contrary suggestions. End Quote.
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  Reference Srioro Bindu and the Mother, Looking from Within,
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  Chapter 4, Ordeals and Difficulties, page 108.