Humanity has always nurtured the dream of eternal youth and immortality.
It was recently found in a tomb of the Western Han dynasty in Luoyang, a pot of “elixir of immortality” with more than three liters containing potassium nitrate and pupil among the ingredients.
The legends of immortality are old and common to many peoples, see Gilgamesh. However, even with the most expensive and sophisticated methods of the time, powerful emperors, priests, senior military personnel, celebrities and wealthy people did not always have a longer or healthier life than the rest of the population, on the contrary. And despite their Herculean efforts, they failed to circumvent death and were all caught by the curve of time ...
Epitome of pharmaceutical knowledge before the sec. I BC, in the book Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing (Shennong's Classic of Herbalism), popular for half a millennium, there are notes on medicinal substances saying that "long-term administration will make the person immortal".
The Emperor himself who created the Center Empire, Qin Shihuang longed for immortality and even issued a decree in which he ordered the search for the "elixir" to prolong his life indefinitely. His quest for eternity became famous.
However, "ambrosia" and other elixirs had disastrous consequences, many died early trying to maintain their shape, including several Emperors in the Tang Dynasty.
In sec. IV, Ai de Jin, of the western Jin Dynasty, died at the age of twenty-five.
Survival Mechanisms or Manipulating “Immortal Spirals”
Nowadays, the current knowledge system (part of it) embraced the dream of getting the immortality pill.
In the view of scientist Aubrey de Gray, from the University of Cambridge, the same as the alchemist John Dee, humanity's most expensive dreams were about to become reality. Like Thanatos of science, he hopes to achieve results in a short time. Hope is the last to die ...
De Gray believes that the average age in the near future will be a few thousand years and revealed that the first person to live a millennium could be 60 at the beginning of the century.
In terms of longevity, the world record belongs to the French Jeanne Calment, the one who only stopped smoking at 115 and lived 122 years; Ms. Benicia Souffrant, from Haiti, who is 126 years old, may be the longest living today.
Very rare are those who managed to enter the select list of long-lived people, such as the Polish Alexander Imich (111), the Italian Arturo Licata (111), the American Gertrude Weaver (116), the Japanese Misao Okawa (117), the Lebanese Suliman Al- Mul (125), the Brazilian José de Souza (131) and the Indonesian Mbah Gotho (146), among other rarities made with “special clay”.
José Roiz, author of numerous articles in the International Journal of Medicine, reported that Mohamed Wardame, who died in the city of Azaz in 1964, would have been the longevity champion at the height of his 163 years, an age also claimed by the Ethiopian Dhaqabo Ebba (163) . Further on is Nigerian James Olofintuyi, who would have lived 171 years.
Evidently, there is great difficulty in proving these cases, but some peoples have stood out for producing centenarians such as the inhabitants of Okinawa, Sardinian herdsmen, Adventists from Loma Linda, California, Masai hunters, Irish, Costa Ricans and Swiss farmers.
On the other hand, as if we had finally obtained the philosopher's stone, nowadays the increase in life expectancy is effusively boasted and celebrated.
Taking into account that, mathematically, the drop in infant mortality increases longevity, the sharp drop in Brazilian infant mortality (69.1 to 16.7 per thousand live births) between 1980 and 2010 was one of the factors responsible for the increase in life expectancy at birth, pointing out that Brazilian men and women live 15 years less than the inhabitants of Monaco.
Few also realized that, in some cases, the so-called life expectancy in good health is being reduced, that is, the years free of disability may be falling, which means that one lives longer, but in a worse way, prolonging suffering with generally chronic diseases.
In Spain, years of healthy life at birth have decreased compared to those estimated in the decade 2006-2016; in the case of Castilla-La Mancha, there were 7 years of less healthy life; Madrid, 5.2 years less and Murcia, 4.4 years less.
In that country, in that period, in general terms, there was a drop of 1.3 years in life expectancy free of limitations at 65 years of age and life expectancy at birth in good health increased only 0.3 years, still in the 2006-2016 comparison. .
According to WHO (2011), more than one billion people in the world live with some type of disability and the number is increasing due to the aging of populations and greater risk of disability in the elderly, as well as the global increase in NCDs.
In the United States, according to the National Health Council, about half of adults have a chronic condition, almost a third of the population lives with multiple chronic conditions and 54% of millennials say they have been diagnosed with a chronic illness.
According to the Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) Health Index (2017) this generation of Americans is less healthy than previous generations and this will result in substantial effects on the economy in the coming decades by affecting productivity and health costs.
One step from eternity or Modern Alchemy
In science, luckily for us, De Gray, the lead geneticist for the SENS project, said that the top seven molecular / cellular damage could be repairable with techniques that already existed in 2004 or were in active development. And the “cure” of aging would keep people in their youth.
For now the world is still waiting for the cure of a simple cold!
In the academic world it is speculated whether alchemy would be a philosophy, a theurgy, a mantra, a wisdom, a theory or a technique, if there is any relationship between the I Ching and Chinese alchemy and why the inclusion of the I Ching among the classics Confucius.
And in the media, among all the articles already published on longevity, the ones that call the most attention are those about the elder Li Qing Yun, who lived 256 years and in full form.
One of the reports spoke of his Master over 500 years old.
Master Liu Pai Lin said that of the 3 greatest mysteries of humanity, one would be the longevity of the Taoists.
Mestre Pai Lin was also a disciple of the elder Li, known as Mestre Nan Chu, and came to tell some stories; he once revealed that his 80 cm nails on his right hand could expand and pick up “stuff”.
Many Taoists have achieved a long life. Huang Ti's Master, Kwang Chang Tzu, was 1200 years old at the time and, according to other traditions, the number of zeros would be higher, and Peng Tzu was the one who lived the longest among men, 800 years.
However, the Taoists' goal is not to compete to see who lives the longest; the goal is to live well and long enough to have time to do the invisible training, spiritual development.
According to the Taoist system of knowledge, quality of life and longevity depend not only on breathing and eating, but on the fullness and concentration of energy; anyone who studied Chinese medicine knows that in Nei Jing it is written that Heaven nourishes man with the five energies the Earth, with the five flavors.
As the entire aging process has a direct relationship with the depletion of vital energy, to “keep in shape” it is necessary to preserve the energy and practice the union of the physical part with the energetic part, since one depends on the other for there to be balance.
Knowing that there is Jing, Chi and Shen, essence, energy and spirit, to think about having a long life expectancy it is necessary to know and train these three treasures.
This deserves all the attention of those who aim to live their natural life well.
David Hruodbeorht
