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Flying in the Air and Levitation
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| Some are born to fly. |
Contents
Supporting "well medleys" are presupposed
throughout:
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| "Daedalus and Icarus" by Charles Landon. Oil on canvas. 1799. |
Is levitation worth working for?
To dive inside and seek find out first-hand may take a life-time and be in vain. Think of that
YOGA SUTRAS, given on another page, may be regarded as a tutorial for beginners and experts alike. The style of the original Sanskrit is terse, almost incomprehensible. A tradition of interpretations have come to light due to this. What is more, many of its phrases and expressions need examples added. Then you could understandind them. Still, there is quite often a need to elaborate through such as paraphrase, as a literal translation may get much misunderstood. There is much agreement on this.Elsewhere on Internet many more translations of the text are presented.
Feel free to put different translations side by side to become more aware that just one or two Patanjali translations may be insufficient. AS hinted at, this stems in part from the terse, aphoristic (gnomic) style in the original. Terseness tends to get obscure. Thus, there is room for different interpretations. The Indian tradition has found it useful or needed to supply commentaries. The one handed over by Trevor Leggett is good.
There is a still living tradition that gives specific yoga techniques to train oneself towards the finer levels of existence. Dr. Daniel Goleman of Harvard University has written a good book on them - mainly based on how Buddhism has mapped inner victories. [Yy]
Patanjali's ancient sutra-collection is presented as a methodical manual. However, the text isn't very useful unless you get back-up from one insider tradition that hands over very specific or useful ways of gliding inside in the first place. To glide or dive inside (contemplate well) is the sine que non ("without which, naught", i.e. indispensable stuff) in this context. The rest takes off from it as added matters to try out if you care, dare or bother.
Some hindrances
The items below may show up as shortcomings, barriers or big flaws for those who seek to experiment (dive inside and study effects) in first-class manners and/or find out first-hand what could be the possible value of Yoga Sutras.- The marked compartementalisation of the build-up.
- Avoidance of specific and concrete ways to get into the states that this text presupposes for the attainments that are purported.
- Much stress on effort or more or less curbing the mind's natural functions - to do so may not pay, as the deep mind is hardly a horse to be tamed. It happens to know a lot better than the conscious, straing part of ourselves, at least according to Jungian understanding. The tip for Dr. Jung is that even the subconsciousness within is ten times wiser than the apprearance-troubled conscious and restless mind. The purported unconscious or deep mind should be wiser still - and trying to tame or bridle it may not pay off very well for a lifetime. Few yogis have seen that. [See Olk; Jug]
- The peculiar delving effort - like the one in Transcendental Meditation or TM - is seldom very successful through strained efforts all the time.
Remain calm, contemplative
Skilled and calm contemplative efforts may pay one way or other; such things are not denounced here. Quite a lot depends on how you do them. Straight awareness training could be good for you. Training requires regular efforts. Some Zen methods may work well, even though slower to give great results than some other methods. [See Zaze] Question: can deep meditation lead to upliftment and levitation (rising into the air)? Some teach so. (See sutra 3:38)"In this first stage of Yogic Flying the body lifts off the ground through a subtle intention and then comes back down. As more and more coordination is established between mind and body the time spent in the air becomes longer and longer until the second state is attained - hovering, and then the third - flying. [Ref.]
Not many fly unaided in the air today, except for birds and bats
Not many fly in the air unaided today, it seems fair to tell, but a good thing has to start somewhere. "A journey of 500 kilometres begins with the first step," is a saying. Don't let cold words deter you from doing a valuable thing. Many free and savoury experiments may go well, and may be called good things even if the outcomes are not perfectly as expected.Transcendental Meditation assertions:
- Maybe only one out of five keeps up that sort of meditation.
- Most of those that keep up the practice do not get free from troubles. troubles. (German Study).
- The chances of finding successful levitating yogis do exist in the TM (Transcendental Meditation) movement. Many learn how to soar into the air. For what we know some may get good at it. [Ref.]
"You may have seen ... groups of TMers hopping around in the lotus position, claiming to be flying . . . now TMers do not claim to be able to fly or hover, though some advocates have maintained they can achieve a range of supernatural or paranormal powers through TM, including invisibility. [Ref.]A saying from the Bhagavad Gita comes to mind:
Out of many thousands among men, one may strive for perfection, and of those who have won perfection, hardly one knows me in truth. (7:3)
What Goes Well, Goes Well. Can Saints Fly?
Can bats fly? Yes, they can. They are made to fly. Men have feet and sit far too much in the industrial societies, but still may dream of flying. There are many sides to it.Bhagavad Gita verses aside, bats and particular squirrels can fly and hover through the air one way or other. Also, the phenomenon called levitation (per se) is well known in Church annals and from other sources, even secular sources - in India and Europe, and also America. [See Udr]
Below are highlights from the deeds of an all-time favourite of the Catholic Church, patron saint of pilots and air passengers: the holy Joseph of Copertino (1603-63):
A phenomenon: This son of a poor carpenter was made a friar that became famed for prolonged suspensions in the air and high flights, often reaching the ceilings of cathedrals and the tops of trees. Seventy of his flights or levitations are officially recorded in the acts of his beatification. One of his biographers adds that this number does not count those which occurred daily at Holy Mass and generally lasted two hours. [Ref. A] [Ref. B]
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| St. Joseph levitating. He is the patron of test-taking and of students, and of pilots and air passengers. |
Knowing this, or bearing such topics well in mind, a good selection of the Yoga Sutras happens to take us to some points which Jesus appeared to advocate. Still, the work, ideals and effects of more than one yogi technique could differ from what is in the Bible, and besides, not every detail may fit in where an over-all similarity seems to be present. We would not be so sure. There are many reasons, and they don't appear to be trifling either.
In general it helps to inspect competently and well. In not a few cases it involves inspecting first-hand. What is done with eagerness in the first place, may fall by the wayside later. One of the reasons is that a certain neutrality (objectiveness) may be too hard to maintain against emotional pressures. If so, effects might be detrimental to you some way or other. "Forewarned is forearmed (British)."
Sagacious Fare
A. Risks that are headed over by Hindu swamis
Tick tack toe programs advance what is called mastery learning
THE DEAR MIND should be kept intact, and one's own life-breath, so to speak. In yoga
training mind transferrence may occur in strange-looking ways. [Ha 190-3] The Yoga
Sutras goes into parts of this theoretical possibility. (3:37)To be headed by Hindu swamis and loveable Indian gurus to look at, is that the best you can attain to to in order to "do your best to enter heaven each day" as Jesus asked of each of his true follower?
Further, it is good to know that to be headed and guided or piloted by swamis is in part to be influenced by what Hinduism imagines on behalf of so many. It happens in the best of circles.
A case of well asserted and not much attested mind-transference
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| Some need to live - |
"Death has caught up with me," he thought. With a final sigh he was about to sink into unconsciousness when he found himself sitting cross-legged in his private room in Calcutta.
Full of joy at being alive, he stroked and pinched his native body. It had no bullet holes in the chest. In the middle of such self-gratulations, he once again found his consciousness transferred to the captain's dead body.
"Utter confusion of mind came upon me," he writes. [Ha 272-3]
Another case story from the same source
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| Victim of great and churning pains in a thrice. |
"See your uncle if you want to. But I hardly think you'll enjoy the visit".
Mukunda went to his uncle's and asked him to spare him a servant. The request "had the effect of an earthquake". His otherwise amiable uncle's long hubble-bubble fell to the floor with a great clatter.
"You selfish young man," he shouted.
Mukunda returned to the friends he had made arrangements to travel with. His guru was there.
"Mukunda, wouldn't you like to stay a while longer with me?" the guru asked right away. A little later Mukunda suddenly staggered with nausea and a churning, stabbing stomach pain. All at once he had been hurled into some violent hell, he found. He collapsed with symptoms of Asiatic cholera.
Mukunda understood at that moment that great masters seldom show off secret powers and mind-interventions "too subtle to be detected." [Retold. See Ha 190-3]
The smart guy appears
The very smart guy is headed by good guys inside a
straight-looking tradition. And it also describes or maps out the very customary route -
perhaps with alternatives; what tends to get involved in time as one goes on or forges
ahead, living a Good Guy life all year long.1
To be headed by swamis
and Indian gurus, is that the best for the least among Christians?
As a Christian guy
- commiteed through certain vows or baptism - you can hardly afford to be liberal in
matters that might involve crucial idolatry or regular submission to gurus that might
strive for an upper hand by giving help - there is that risk, eventually. And there is a
chance the ancient Hindu apprenticeship model hardly suits the lax and Christian guy
anyway.Some sort of laboratory experimentation as to standard or typical effects should be possible, as we are confronted with extensive and quite detailed practice, and its vitality some times astounds us. However, we should discourage to get governed over - through training - by detailed programs headed by swamis - they may be power-hungry, without shame, or not as universal-liberal as many imagine, these Hindu monks.
The stimulating primer that suggests: "Make the little extra effort" may in the end undermine us, or unnerve us. We have to question the efficacy of it, and the efficacy of regular gliding practice under some swami as well. ¤
2 There is a risk of induced
consciousness (mind) involved. The Yoga Sutras describe much of that
There can be
alarming and unforeseen hazards involved in a training program that fits in where there is
idolatry. The frame - what you may get or get induced to "swallow" along with the skeletal
training program - may not be fit for quite personal, independent mastery, or may not be
tailored that way. We have the responsibility to consider alignments that matter, and
consider them well.To be stern or fair often amounts to the same. it can be done in a becoming way, but may be a hard attainment - even too hard. It took Catholic church many centuries to open up to Zen practices in careful, well measured way. Bearing that group effort over decades in mind, let's concede the way of individually meted out great alignment may be impossible for the regular guy.
This does not rule out possible gains from a very successful endeavour to inspect or check the claims of Patanjali very well. And after all, levitation is a very documented phenomenon in the Catholic Church.
Few people are aware of it, more than 200 saints in our Western European tradition are said to have been able to hover or fly with virtually conclusive historical evidence in a number of cases. [Ref.]The mentor work at our disposal (Patanjali's Yoga Sutras) alludes to that proficiency in technical skills higher up that could be unconsciously or subconsciously involved in the much known case of the levitating mystic, Theresa of Avila.
More than mere techniques evidently go into it in Theresa's known, well-documented, striking, and historically evidenced feats - and lots of others, and they are hardly reckoned with in the scientific community at large, most of them. Boldness can have a hard time in those circles as well, much as Werner Heisenberg hints at somewhere. [See Thd, ca. 211].
Bearing in mind we seem to deal with figured states of mind (consciousness) throughout, these states may be well figured, tinged with this and that, such as personal shortcomings to identify and map significant states inside, the effects of experiences that perhaps are conditioned by personal build-up inside, and cultural, handed-over ways of looking at things where other presentations might fit equally well, if not far better. ¤
This ancient tradition stands surrounded by "typical and intensive" experiences that may not come easy, and may not be worth it. Those things have to be ascertained. One man's verdict is hardly enough, and lots of training has to go into the ascertaining project at large. This suggested, we're also confronted with the theoretical possibilities of immense, really productive growth inside, thanks to Hindus.
3 Living in loveable ado,
what is the need for Hindu doctrines and training programs?
WE HAVE to question the value and worth of Patanjali as educator. Patanjali speaks
for growth and takes to old, pivotal concepts lined to a standardised set or flow of
experiences. Many problems deal with adaptation to ancient and foreign matters. Other
problems tie in with the regular training per se and what goes along with it in the art of
submission and straining life-style.Living in largely Christian communities, we should have the nerve to ask: "What is good growth, what is good for growth, and what is Patanjali training good for for the devoted good guy, for example? Do you get more loveable through methods, really? Is the sort of magic here the sort that the Self might endorse in all sorts of weather?" The Self matters.
Our responses to the tricky matter - and tricky it is - had better be to the subject matter involved at first - the theoretical possibilities and perspectives involved.
Summary
Some things have pragmatic
value, and it pays to avoid perverts. What more is there to say? Perhaps this: it may pay
to be pragmatic in some settings, but not in all the others. it is hard to know the
difference at times.- EMULATE THE GOOD GUYS. Try to emulate the regular guys. To be headed by swamis and Indian gurus, is that the best for the well aspiring good guys?
- DISPENSE WITH GRAVE DANGERS AND RISKS IF YOU CAN. There are risks and hasards involved in regular yogi training that the beginner hears nothing of or next to nothing of. One risk is that of induced consciousness and enigmatic (yogi-angelic) thought transferrence that could function to your harm and even ruin. (mind) involved. The Yoga Sutras describe much of that sort of somewhat complementary business. [See Tm]
- ALLOW THE ART OF LIVING TO RISE HIGHER IF YOU CAN. You may have to clarify a lot, maybe for the rest of your life, instead of living that life full well. Say: "Living in loveable ado, what is the need for a Hinduised program?"
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Adjoined
Coco: Leggett, Trevor: The Complete Commentary by Sankara on the Yoga-Sutras. Kegan Paul. New York, 1990.Via: Nikhilananda, sw.: Vivekananda. The Yogas and Other Works. Rev. ed. Ramakrishna-Vivekananda. New York, 1953.
Yof: Isherwood, Christopher and Pranabhananda, sw: How To Know God: the Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali. Mentor. New York, 1969.
Yolt: Johnston, Clive tr: The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Stuart and Watkins. London, 1968.
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