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We are all fascinated by magic. The conjurer has enjoyed attention since the
beginning of time, till today we have the flashiest artists man could hope to
see. It fairly puts to shame some of the stories of the Yogis who perform their
bag of tricks for the unsuspecting neophyte. When Patanjali speaks about the
siddhi powers, are we to believe it? We shall see.
MAGIC, HALLUCINATIONS, VISIONS AND THE REAL THING
This chapter will no doubt be quite unsettling to some readers, since most
people have become so conditioned to yogic lore that they lose sight of Absolute
Reality, falling prey to the tempting charms and enchantments of the world of
illusion.
Mired in the labyrinth of folklore, one quickly loses orientation and cannot
discern between the Real and the Unreal. What is Magic? What is a Vision? Can a
vision ever be real, as some religions so devoutly believe?
In the throes of his hallucinations, the alcoholic has no doubt that he actually
sees rats and other creepy-crawlies scrambling all over him, devouring him
alive. Terrified, he screams and thrashes around violently trying to throw them
off, to no avail. Similarly, hallucinogenic drugs, such as LSD, are known to
induce visions of reality, covering the entire gamut of experience, from the
sublime to the sinister and downright dangerous. Throughout the ages, people
have reported sighting extraterrestrial beings and their fantastic spaceships.
Excavations have revealed prehistoric cave drawings featuring men in what appear
to be modern day spacesuits.
More down to earth, the notebooks of colonial travellers in India contain
fascinating accounts of the Great Indian Rope trick performed by mystic fakirs
who "charm" a rope, generally to the sound of a flute, so that it
uncoils, quite like a snake from a basket, until it is vertically hovering above
the ground without any discernable support. The fakir would then get a young lad
to climb to the top of the now rigid rope and down again, before causing the
rope to resettle neatly back in its basket, once more, to the wailing sound of
his magic flute.
When it comes to visions, we know that an African Christian will most probably
see a black Jesus in his "apparition" while a Westerner will see a
brown-haired blue-eyed Jesus and in the case of the Coptic Christian, Jesus
would be dark-skinned and brown-eyed. Visions are not a purely Christian
phenomenon however, since Hinduism abounds with reports of different people
seeing the same god or guru in different places at the same time. Then there is
Magic or the materialization of objects in seemingly empty hands or the
production of ashes (vibhuti) from thin air.
All these hallucinations, visions, feats of magic and supernatural sightings
keep people literally spellbound and inextricably chained to the mystic side of
illusion. The Real can only be known and experienced, when, as Patanjali teaches
us, "one totally annihilates ALL mental fluctuation (chitta vritti nirhoda)".
We shall now look into the reasons underlying this truth.
All of us know that while asleep our dreams appear very real to us (as a result
of the concomitant laws of the dream state), but upon awaking, we fully
understand that the dream was merely an illusion.
Similarly, when we awaken into the fourth state of pure consciousness known as
truriya, we realise that the world we call "objective reality" in our
normal state of living, is as much an illusion as our dreams were when we
awakened. Objective reality appears real to us as a result of the concomitant
laws that govern our normal waking state, but in fact while seemingly
"awake" we are only dreaming in an awakened state, instead of in a
sleep state.
In addition to our normal waking state and our dream state while asleep, every
night we also experience a deep sleep state devoid of dreams. It is in this
state of deep sleep that we become fully ourselves
and swim in the consciousness of self, but
we are not aware of this happening since we have no awareness of the deep sleep
state. When we step beyond this state of deep sleep to awaken in the world of
truriya, we experience what is known as Sat-chit-ananda, a state of pure
consciousness without external attributes. This is a state of inexpressible
Supreme Eternal Existence, Eternal Pure Consciousness, Eternal Bliss, a state of
true and perfect union with the self. The
difference between the deep sleep state and the truriya state is that while
experiencing sat-chit-ananda in the truriya state, we are fully aware and
conscious, not deadened into the coma-like unconsciousness of deep sleep. Just
what are we conscious of, if it is without attributes? We are conscious of an
experience. A true experience can never be known in the sense that we can
explain it. What we can do and want to do is repeat it though.
Coming back to the issue of visions, magic and the supernatural, theologians,
psychologists and scientists of all kinds have tried to understand how these
mental images are produced. Why do all severe alcoholics have the same
theme-based hallucinations featuring rats, snakes and other creepy-crawlies? Why
do the deeply religious who see visions, tend to see the apparition of God that
is closest to their cultural background? If Jesus were real, would he not appear
the same to them all? Or is it that he appears to people as they envision him in
their culture, so as to be more accessible and understandable to them?
The explanation one chooses for this phenomenon is of little importance (and
will probably be the result of one's own particular theological or scientific
mindset). It has however been established that when certain tiny brain
nodules are activated by stimuli (hormonal secretions or chemical compounds),
they induce the same apparent vision in all subjects. The particular effect,
vision or feeling, that a stimulated nodule produces, depends on the concomitant
laws that govern that specific nodule.
LSD changes the chemical balance of the
brain, causing the stimulation of certain nodules that generate similar types of
experiences in all LSD users. These types of experiences are specific to the
particular nodules stimulated by the drug and cannot be compared to what is
experienced in any other realm or by stimulating other nodules. The nodules
sensitive to LSD provide access to the Astral Plane and when these nodules are
stimulated, using the drug or through other means, the result could cover the
full range from a super transformational experience to euphoria that could
result in death (if one, believing one can fly, jumps out of the window, for
instance) to terror or horror.
As the mind approaches a transcendental state, it is quite common for a nodule
to be inadvertently triggered, resulting in visions of aliens or of being
abducted and detained aboard an extraterrestrial spaceship. For the person
undergoing the experience, it is as real as "objective reality". Upon
returning to "objective reality" the person may even find scars on the
body, further fuelling his deep-seated conviction that the aliens performed some
inexplicable surgical procedure on him. All this however only appears real
because of the concomitant laws governing that particular space-time nodule in
the brain.
Transferring wounds from one realm of consciousness to another is quite common
and is medically explained as a somatic manifestation of a mental state. All of
us have, at some time or the other, experienced the immense power of the mind in
producing somatic projections of "objectively" inexistent stimuli. How
many times have we not awakened bathed in a cold sweat, trembling and even
screaming from a terrifying nightmare? This type of sweat, that is almost always
a reaction of tremendous fear in the "objective" world, was induced by
purely mental stimuli, while we were, in fact, sound asleep in the security of
our own homes, not even remotely exposed to any cause for fear.
A strong case has been recently made in medical circles, for considering
psycho-somatic mechanisms as the probable cause for the appearance of the
stigmata. While this theory is strongly supported by what we now know of the
power of the mind, the immense religious fervour, sincere compassion and obvious
spiritual development of some of those bearing the stigmata, would make any
rational explanation for the phenomenon seem like heresy.
It is important to understand that anyone who opens certain nodules of
consciousness will go through the same types of experiences as anyone else who
as done the same. These experiences are, therefore, purely induced by the mind
and only appear to be real because of the concomitant laws of those particular
nodules. In other words, all these experiences are nothing but mind constructs,
all created by the magic of Maya, illusion. This cunning, infinitely seductive
enchantress traps us at each and every turn by making good use of her ability to
create concomitant laws that make our experiences seem real to us, as they
unfold. It is only when we awaken from one state to another that we realize,
"It was only a dream."
Maya's most successful ploy was in tricking us into becoming so attached to the
objective reality we call waking life, that its concomitant laws have become
ingrained in us to such an extent, that they seem almost impossible to shake
off. Gravity holds us all firmly in place. Time, while it may change pace
depending on our moods, nevertheless has us fully convinced that life is
sequential in nature and together with space, easily fools us into believing in
birth and death, beginnings and endings. None of these laws apply in the dream
state, where we can talk to long-dead relatives and consider them as naturally
alive and as fully present in the dream as we, ourselves, are.
The magic feats and materializations so prodigiously performed by some yogi
masters and religious gurus, are in fact nothing more than so many illusions
within the context of the greater illusion of "objective reality". A
skilful cabaret performer can actually do more with sleight of hand, but even as
we gleefully succumb to the wiles of both because of their tricks, the spiritual
magician gets away with a great deal more. Having surrendered totally to that
particular guru or teacher and given him their total allegiance and cooperation,
his disciples fully and sincerely believe in his divine powers, because to do
otherwise would be most disconcerting to them and would indeed leave them empty
and totally disillusioned. People will subscribe to the most absurd and fanciful
notions rather than leave the comfort of the warm embrace of Maya, to set out to
seek the unknown shores of the Absolute Truth that may, perhaps, prove less snug
and cozy.
Just ask yourself, have you ever seen levitation? Have you ever seen a
performing magician at work? Do you not ever question your own self as to why
you are seeing that man floating, or how come you are seeing some Alien, or for
that matter seeing the rats crawl over your body? We know when the drunk sobers
up, he says, "Oh God that was awful, I will never drink again." Of
course the illness seduces him time and time again. Spiritual blindness is even
stronger than alcohol and constantly seduces us, through the master illusionist,
Maya, who keeps us from discovering the real Truth, the Absolute Reality, The
one without a second.
Maya prevents us from becoming self realized. One can only approach the real
Truth when one finally gives up all the ceremony of robe wearing, getting
engrossed in one mantra or the other. Mantras, furthermore, only serve to bind
us even more strongly to Maya, since they can become a groove in the mind or
Chit, which can be damnably hard to get rid of. They are designed to be self
starting, and we finally have to pull ourselves together and take the stick of
ego to stir the fire of longing for the Absolute alone, so determinedly and
willfully, that the ego stick itself becomes consumed in our fire of truth
seeking passion.
Patanjali claims that siddhi powers are automatically acquired as one advances
in yoga, but because a true yogi is only
interested in union with the self, he will
relinquish these siddhi powers one by one as he acquires them. Visions of
lights, ascended masters, other illusory worlds like the Astral and some Causal
planets, are all anathema to a serious yogi. Students who are allowed to be
captivated by the powers that they may acquire, are being led astray.
Maya, the world, the heavens and all the nether worlds are nothing more than a
shadow picture generated by the mind when the first personal pronoun, the
"I" awakens from the deepest of sleeps. Having accepted this pseudo
reality so totally, it is very difficult for anyone to dive deep enough to
attain the fourth state of Turiya Satchitananda, that brings with it the
realization of the experience of eternal Bliss and that all
else is illusion.
All that is, except the Turiya itself, that cannot be illusion because it is
totally devoid of attributes. No shadows are cast by the light of truriya, since
one becomes the light itself, which is the illuminator of consciousness.. Ego,
the attribute that may be seen as a part of God or Self, is also dissolved
within the Self, just as a spider's thread is drawn back up into the belly of
the spider. Ego itself being dissolved, all that remains is the true self,
but unlike the state of deep sleep, in truriya, one remains awake even as one
sleeps. This is the state of the true Sahaj, he who resides in the Bliss
of Being Ever Consciously Existent, without attributes. In this state
of bliss, the only attributes that one can have are those conferred on them by
the others, who still live in the world of the illusory web, spun by the wily
enchantress, Maya.
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