Friday, June 20, 2014

Description of yogic trance

St. Augustine or St. Francis said "I die daily". Below is a description of what he meant.
*****
I post the following from a book I revere. I pray to the book to give me conviction to spend six months in Himalayas to search for these kind of people!  Excerpt:
One day, while in Dev Prayag, I was invited to a nearby ashram for a meal among sadhus. While there, a yogi emerged from the jungle. Nobody knew him. He advertised for the doctors of the town to assemble that evening. After several doctors arrived, the yogi made his appearance and then, with a thunderous voice, chalenged, "Materially infected, you have more faith in modern science than your own heritage. God has brought me out of the forest to crush your foolish pride. By yogic power I will shutdown all my life systems and die. You test me with your medical instruments. In exactly thirty minutes, I will rise from dead."
With his back erect, sitting in a lotus position, he exhaled and inhaled with great force about twenty times. Then, fully inhaling, he stopped breathing and sat motionless. Each doctor went to work with stetheoscopes and other devices, but no one could detct a heartbeat, breath or pulse. There were astonished. "He is clinically dead", one doctor announced. Skeptical, I also stepped forward and borrowed a stethoscope to check his pulse and heart beat, but there was none.
In New Delhi, Swami Rama had given me a spellbinding preview of the powers of yoga. During my time in the Himalayas, I had practiced Pranayam, or breathing excercies and asanas, physical postures and silent meditation to bettr attune my mind and body with the divine force of God. I had seen he incredible effects of these practices, the great benefits to health, and the ability of practioners to modulate their physical realities. But his scene was truly amazing.
Exactly thirty minutes later, to the second, the Yogi exhaled, opened his eyes, stood up, and marched back into the jungles. He didn't ask anything from anyone. He simply wanted to show these sceptics the power of yoga. Both the doctors and myself gazed in amazement at his departing form returning to the wilds.

No comments:

Post a Comment