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Sivananda

THE PATH BEYOND SORROW

Chapter 2: Occult Phenomena—Their Place In Yoga

7.Occult Powers and the Spiritual Seeker

 

 

Energy Enhancement          Enlightened Texts         Sri Swami Sivananda          The Path Beyond Sorrow

 

 

What is the place of these various inner powers in Yoga? What are their uses and abuses? What is the attitude of the true seeker to these powers? What are the attitudes of Masters towards these powers? What is the place of these powers and the various experiences in the life of the Yogi?

In the first place, one of the most important things you have to know about them is that they are by-products. They are not the quest of the Yogi. They are not the thing for which the seeker has taken to the path. For him, they are just something to pass by on the way. Just as, when you are on a journey to the city, you arrive at and pass, for instance, the Eldorado Motel, and Simpsons-Sears, and then a bridge—all of which have to be passed by since none of them is your destination, the destination for which you started. You may ask, “Why do these things come?” Well, because you are progressing, because you are moving onward, you must pass by these things that are on the way—by the side of the highway—and they are a sure sign that you are progressing, that you are moving along.

Secondly, they serve as encouragement. After all, a human being likes to know whether he is accomplishing something or whether all his efforts are just turning futile—whether they are proper and right or misdirected and useless.

These powers come as temptations to test your moral worth and they are the greatest barrier to Self-knowledge. These powers gain entry into you so subtly, so insidiously, that unless you are extraordinarily introspective, extraordinarily watchful and extremely careful, even without your knowledge you may succumb to them and become vain. Then one begins to have a superior type of pride which is much worse than any gross pride, such as pride of position, pride of wealth, of youth, prestige and power; it is the pride of being high and above the rest of mankind.

“All the rest of mankind does not possess that which I have. I possess something which no one else has,”—this type of subtle vanity and egoism is the greatest obstacle. It is the greatest danger to the seeker, for it goes to nourish the ego which is his deadliest enemy. It is this “I” which has to die in order to get God, and anything which fattens this “I” is the very antithesis of God. You may conclude that the Devil or Satan enters you and gives you these powers, that Satan takes possession of you when you get these powers. To use a spiritual metaphor, the throne which you have prepared for God is then occupied by Satan. So these powers divert you from God, taking you away from the straight path and inflating your false ego.

The seeker has to be very careful that he does not encourage these powers at all, that he does not have any thoughts about them, and that he brushes them aside.

What is the attitude of Masters to these powers? All Yogic Masters—The greatest Master, my Master, Swami Sivananda, one of the greatest saints that India has produced in recent times, and Sri Ramakrishna, the great Master of Sri Swami Vivekananda who came and gave Yoga and Vedanta to the West in 1893, and many other saints—have been absolutely at one in their opinion regarding this matter. “Right from the beginning of the spiritual path,” they say, “beware of psychic powers. Beware of occult powers.” If you get caught in their fascination, you are lost. Your spiritual life is destroyed and all of your Yoga will simply go away. And once you lose Yoga, it becomes very, very difficult to regain it. It is almost impossible to regain it. Once you fall from Yoga, then you have indeed to work very hard to regain the lost status. The Masters are very strong in their terms of condemnation. They say, “Shun occult powers as you shun poison”, and they are indeed poison to spiritual unfoldment. Kick them aside.

Sri Ramakrishna had this actual experience: he said that once these powers were brought to him in a basket. This was an inner mystical experience in which he was offered them, in which he was pressed to take them. At first glance they appeared as truths and he was about to look at them, when suddenly the whole thing became real to him, and in this reality he found them to be occult powers, mystic powers, lordship of the whole earth, and he immediately spat upon them. Spitting is the worst form of insult in India and he spat upon them and began to shout, “Take them away! Take them away at once!” People who were near came running and asked, “What is it? What has happened?” and then he kept quiet and controlled himself. Later on he told his disciples that the power of the whole universe was offered to him and for a moment or a split second, the mind almost looked at it, “but my Mother came to my rescue and I was able to shove it aside completely”. So, the teaching of the Masters, from the very beginning, is: “If you want God, shun ruthlessly all powers, all occult phenomena, as poison”. Do not be fascinated by occult phenomena and do not be diverted by them. Or, before you know it, you will be caught in their coils. If you want God, do not want anything else but God, for if you have God, you have everything. Take it from me: if you have God, you have everything. There is nothing in this universe that you lack, and all things but God will appear to you like ashes, as they are not essentially anything.

If you want God, you go on to the greatest, the highest, the sweetest and the ultimate. Do not have the least desire for anything else, and if these occult powers come in the way, then just ignore them. One should not be diverted, for the Yogic ascent is something which has to be done with your whole being, with your entire personality. The whole heart, mind and personality has to go into it one hundred per cent and any distraction in which you become lost causes your whole progress to be delayed.

Now I come to the last portion: what are the uses and abuses of occult phenomena? Its abuses have been made very clear. To use them, to get caught in them—this in itself is an abuse, because they are not meant to be used at all. A great danger is that what has been built up as moral structure, as humility, as goodness, as truth, as kindness, as love, as mercy, may be directly affected by these powers if one does not become absolutely based in moral perfection, and does not surrender totally to the Lord and look to Him for guidance at every step, and does not sustain the spiritual life with constant prayer and constant recollection of Him. If one is still weak and in the making and these powers come, they corrupt the mind and one may begin to make use of them for obtaining those very things which had been renounced at the start of the spiritual life. One may become a slave to money, to sensual indulgence, to passion and to all that is base and animalistic in the human being if these powers are used. It is said that a person may remain virtuous in the absence of temptation, but when temptation comes, then virtue flies. So, in the beginning, one has to be very careful, for these occult phenomena have the power to corrupt.

 

Next: Chapter 2: Occult Phenomena—Their Place In Yoga, 8.Uses of Occult Phenomena

 

Energy Enhancement          Enlightened Texts         Sri Swami Sivananda          The Path Beyond Sorrow

 

 

Chapter 2

 

  • Sri Swami Sivananda, The Path Beyond Sorrow Chapter 2: Occult PhenomenaTheir Place In Yoga
    Sri Swami Sivananda, The Path Beyond Sorrow Chapter 2: Occult PhenomenaTheir Place In Yoga, The term Yoga, unfortunately, has been connected with notions of strange and extraordinary experiences, mysterious occurrences and mystical powers. The term Yogi is popularly understood to mean not an adept in Yoga, but one capable of doing certain things which ordinary people are not able to do. In a way this is true, as a Yogi is capable of doing certain things which are not possible for many persons, but a Yogi should not be conceived of merely as one who is capable of flying through the air, going without food for months and being buried alive underground for several weeks, or of such other feats as are considered spectacular, extraordinary and unbelievable unless seen at energyenhancement.org

  • Sri Swami Sivananda, The Path Beyond Sorrow Chapter 2: Occult PhenomenaTheir Place In Yoga, 1.Yoga Is Conscious Hastening of the Process of Evolution
    Sri Swami Sivananda, The Path Beyond Sorrow Chapter 2: Occult PhenomenaTheir Place In Yoga, 1.Yoga Is Conscious Hastening of the Process of Evolution, First of all, it is necessary for us to have a clear conception of what the Yogic way of life is. The destiny of the human being is evolution and we are all progressing towards ultimate perfection, since we are all meant to realize once again our innate divinity. However, the normal course of human evolution is very, very slowperhaps spread over countless years and requiring many lives, taking only a few progressive steps in each life at energyenhancement.org

  • Sri Swami Sivananda, The Path Beyond Sorrow Chapter 2: Occult PhenomenaTheir Place In Yoga, 2.Changes Upon Five Levels of the Yogis Being
    Sri Swami Sivananda, The Path Beyond Sorrow Chapter 2: Occult PhenomenaTheir Place In Yoga, 2.Changes Upon Five Levels of the Yogis Being, During the process of this evolution, this unfoldment, various transformations arise in the individual upon five different levels of his being. On the physical level, various changes and experiences are seen. Upon the psycho-mental level (the mind and the Prana), certain changes take place, certain abilities come in the natural course, and certain phenomena are witnessed, subjectively by some, and objectively by others at energyenhancement.org

  • Sri Swami Sivananda, The Path Beyond Sorrow Chapter 2: Occult PhenomenaTheir Place In Yoga, 3.Some Psychic Powers
    Sri Swami Sivananda, The Path Beyond Sorrow Chapter 2: Occult PhenomenaTheir Place In Yoga, 3.Some Psychic Powers, On the psycho-mental level it is the very common experience of those who have done a little sincere seeking (whether they have known it by the name of Yoga or just been seeking and practising certain physical exercises) to find that they have developed certain abilities. The most common of these abilities or inner occult experiences is thought-reading. You may be talking to someone, and before the other person speaks, you know what that person will say at energyenhancement.org

  • Sri Swami Sivananda, The Path Beyond Sorrow Chapter 2: Occult PhenomenaTheir Place In Yoga, 4.Pure Occultism Which Is Not Yoga
    Sri Swami Sivananda, The Path Beyond Sorrow Chapter 2: Occult PhenomenaTheir Place In Yoga, 4.Pure Occultism Which Is Not Yoga, Here I have to tell you a fact of which you had better take serious note. The first three powers upon the mental level, the psycho-mental level, and the astral levelall these powers one can have by sheer effort. If the necessary effort, with determination, is made, one can develop them. In Yoga they come through purification, and in the second case, which I have just mentioned, they come through will-power, practice and unceasing efforts at energyenhancement.org

  • Sri Swami Sivananda, The Path Beyond Sorrow Chapter 2: Occult PhenomenaTheir Place In Yoga, 5.Playing With Kundalini Is Playing With Fire
    Sri Swami Sivananda, The Path Beyond Sorrow Chapter 2: Occult PhenomenaTheir Place In Yoga, 5.Playing With Kundalini Is Playing With Fire, When your spiritual practice takes the form of Kundalini Yoga and you begin the inner occult process of Hatha Yoga, then, with the rise of the power of the Kundalini from the lower mystical centres (Chakras) into the higher mystical centres, which are in the occult body of each being, there arise various extraordinary powers and experiences at energyenhancement.org

  • Sri Swami Sivananda, The Path Beyond Sorrow Chapter 2: Occult PhenomenaTheir Place In Yoga, 6.Persons Blessed with Mystic Powers
    Sri Swami Sivananda, The Path Beyond Sorrow Chapter 2: Occult PhenomenaTheir Place In Yoga, 6.Persons Blessed with Mystic Powers, There is a totally different type of mystic phenomena and powers that come through the Grace of God and a person who has not practised any of the Yogic techniques may just obtain all of these powers spontaneously. This happens only when God wants to make use of a person for some Divine purpose and He has found a person who, through absolute life-long moral perfection, is found fit as a perfect channel, as an instrument which is fit and worthy at energyenhancement.org

  • Sri Swami Sivananda, The Path Beyond Sorrow Chapter 2: Occult PhenomenaTheir Place In Yoga, 7.Occult Powers and the Spiritual Seeker
    Sri Swami Sivananda, The Path Beyond Sorrow Chapter 2: Occult PhenomenaTheir Place In Yoga, 7.Occult Powers and the Spiritual Seeker, What is the place of these various inner powers in Yoga? What are their uses and abuses? What is the attitude of the true seeker to these powers? What are the attitudes of Masters towards these powers? What is the place of these powers and the various experiences in the life of the Yogi? at energyenhancement.org

  • Sri Swami Sivananda, The Path Beyond Sorrow Chapter 2: Occult PhenomenaTheir Place In Yoga, 8.Uses of Occult Phenomena
    Sri Swami Sivananda, The Path Beyond Sorrow Chapter 2: Occult PhenomenaTheir Place In Yoga, 8.Uses of Occult Phenomena, To seekers, to aspirants, to those who want God and are trying to make use of their life to attain God, there is no question of the uses of these powers, for the true seeker just ignores them, and for him they have no content or value, but are things which he passes by on the way. However, if I may speak of these powers independently of the seeker, then there are uses to which these powers can be put, in a limited way. Supposing a person is not in any way a seeker of God, and especially if these powers are in the nature of healing, or magnetism or of prophetic vision (where one is able to know of certain things before they happen, due to clairaudience or clairvoyance), then use may be made of them, but it has been observed that in such situations when these powers are made use of, after some time, they leave the individual at energyenhancement.org

  • Sri Swami Sivananda, The Path Beyond Sorrow Chapter 2: Occult PhenomenaTheir Place In Yoga, 9.Avoid All Occult Phenomena
    Sri Swami Sivananda, The Path Beyond Sorrow Chapter 2: Occult PhenomenaTheir Place In Yoga, 9.Avoid All Occult Phenomena, On the lower level, these occult powers can become the greatest of corrupters, the greatest of obstacles for all true seekers. Ultimately, seekers have to realise God and once one has realised through his own discrimination that everything except God is just transitory, evanescent, just a shadow-play, a momentary thing with which one has no lasting connection, once one knows this, then everything except He, from the little speck of dust to the highest power, all occult phenomena, mystical experiences, become devoid of substance. They all partake of the same nature of this passing, transitory, evanescent world. They are not real. They are not true and they have no ultimate value, no inherent worth at energyenhancement.org

 

 

 
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