THE SECRET OF SUPERNATURAL POWERS?

 

THERE IS ONLY ONE MIND; AT A SUBTLE LEVEL, ALL MINDS ARE INTER-CONNECTED

The mind of man is universal. The extent of the mind is as vast as the entire universe. That means that if bubbles are in the pond, each bubble is connected to the other bubble. The same water connects it. The water that forms one bubble at this end is the same water that forms a bubble at the other end, and therefore there is a connection. If we disturb the water on this seashore of the sea, the same vibrational effect will have some impact on the seashore on the other side. So, there is an unbroken oneness between all minds, but the unbroken oneness between all minds is subtle. So, when we are centred when we have come to the centre of ourselves, we have reached a certain subtle level of the mind, where we are automatically, perhaps consciously, and in a sense of knowingness, know that my mind is not separate from the minds of others. It has happened many times in the Satsangs we have had. Many people have come to me afterwards and said, “I had a question for you, Gururaj, but before I asked you, you answered it.”

So, all minds are interconnected, and when the mind is brought to a refined, subtle level, one can have these flashes of telepathy, where a person existing or living hundreds of miles away can feel those thought forms, can feel those vibrations, here and now. We have heard of instances where a son has an accident, and at that moment, the mother feels just something, feels a specific concern without rhyme and reason. Some worry sets in her mind about her son. At that moment when the son has an accident, in that shock or in that situation, he has become so centred that in that centredness, that very thought of his mother is in his mind, and his mother picks up that thought because the connection between the son’s mind and the mother’s mind is one, it is a continuum, it is never separated.

There are four thousand million people worldwide, and everyone’s mind is connected. Not only in this world but also in the universe are our minds connected to the totality of all minds, for there is only one mind.

At the subtler level, like in the pond, there is only one mass of water, represented by millions of bubbles that seem separate to us. So, when we have experiences of telepathy, our mind has consciously been opened to receive a powerful thought sent by another, in ordinary thinking very powerfully, or in a crisis when thought becomes even more powerful, and that thought is picked up.

TELEPATHY IS VERY TRUE AND VERY POSSIBLE

In the same manner, thoughts can be transmitted to other people’s minds, and this all falls in the same category of how mind reading is done, where one’s mind is tuned to another person’s mind, but that tuning can take place only at a much subtler level. So those glimpses you have of telepathy, where you, from the subtle level, can bring a thought that another person is thinking to a cognisable conscious level, is very accurate and possible. One can be trained to use this power consciously. One can be taught through meditational practices, to reach a certain subtle level of the mind, where in that subtle level of the mind, the thoughts of others can be picked up, and only picked up but through the subtle level of the mind, an idea is sent to the subtle level of another’s mind.

There is a widespread experiment, which we have read so much about in books. You are on a train, and they say that if you stare with a thought, “Turn around,” at the neck of a person in front of you, then that person, without knowing, will just turn around. We have read a lot of books about this. It is possible; many of you must have tried it. What has happened here is that the power of thought has been sent forth powerfully. If one thought can be sent powerfully, then all thoughts can be sent powerfully. We know that in Buddha’s life, he was often asked a question and answered it with absolute silence. He would not reply verbally, yet the questioner would leave with his question answered.

All of us might have experienced this; I have experienced this plenty of times, where the person comes to ask a question and leaves without even asking. And then I say, “Where are you going? You have come for something.” And he says, “No, it is all solved already.” So, these things keep on happening, and it is nothing supernatural; it is nothing extraordinary. It is something very, very natural. That seems supernatural because we do not understand the laws that operate. Like I always say, if someone, a hundred years ago, told you that a two-thousand-ton machine could fly through the air, you would think that the person is mad. But today, we find planes flying; we do not notice them.

All these things operate within the relative, and we know that we are only using a small percentage of the mind, and such a large percentage, over ninety per cent of the mind, is lying dormant, untapped, unused. Yet there are existences beyond this little Earth of ours. We are not even a grain of sand on the seashore of the universe. There are existences where telepathy is spoken language and verbalisation is unnecessary. It would be nice if it could happen on Earth. So, there are levels of far, far finer existences where this is natural. Here on Earth, communicating verbally is natural; in other planes of existence, communicating non-verbally is natural.

DO NOT LOSE SIGHT OF THE GOAL

Through further practice, these glimpses can be brought about to become a permanent reality, but there are dangers to developing these abilities. In Sanskrit, we call it Siddhis. A Siddhi is an ability above what we know to be natural, although that too is natural. A person can achieve the powers of telepathy or any of these things if he goes out of his way and for six months, or a year, or two years, or whatever the case might be, and practises and develops a particular part of himself, develops a specific section of his brain.

Many books will tell you of experiments that have been done worldwide. The book I am thinking of at this particular moment is “Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain,” where this woman developed the power of moving objects by thought force.

Although composed of fantastic matter, thought is a very tangible thing that science will hopefully discover one day. Using that acceptable force, fine energy, and delicate matter, this lady could move objects by looking at them. Looking at it, she directs her thoughts to that vase to move that object without touching it. But on the other hand, when they studied her life, they found that every time she did that, she almost had a nervous breakdown. She was emotionally insecure, and she had all kinds of emotional problems and suffered. So, developing these powers has to be counter-balanced by particular spiritual growth. Anyone practising certain principles can achieve the powers of telepathy or any of these things, which is not difficult to do. However, one must not lose sight of the goal of knowing oneself. The Bible says, “Man knows thyself,” and one knows what Divinity is by knowing oneself.

We must not try to concentrate on developing these little powers because they could prove very great blocks in our progress towards Divinity or progress towards bliss. We must not get hung up or stuck there when these powers are created in us; if they come, we must not get stuck there. If we leave our front door and go to the garden gate, we go through the garden path with flowers, beautiful green lawns and a rockery. As we go through the garden path, we enjoy the flowers; we do not ignore them; we want them. We look at the beautiful lawn; if it is not so attractive, we worry about mowing it. Nevertheless, we enjoy what is on the path but do not get stuck there; the aim is to reach the gate we had initially aimed for.

There has been no Sage in the history of humankind who has advocated that you must deliberately try to develop these powers because it has been proven repeatedly that they could become the most significant stumbling blocks to one’s spiritual evolution. After all, inevitably, you get stuck there. You get stuck there, and once you are stuck there, many lives of suffering would have to be lived to cross that hill and that stumbling block. But if these powers come naturally, we enjoy them. We appreciate the flowers on the garden path, and we proceed further. These are just natural laws that one can activate, and if they are not substantiated by the desire and the required spiritual growth to reach the goal of life, then developing these extra-sensory powers is worthless.

THE GOAL OF LIFE IS TO FIND DIVINITY

Many of you may know this story. Two chelas studied under one guru. They left the Ashram and went to teach their Master’s word. The Bible also says, “Learn and go and teach my word,” so they went to teach it. This one Chela developed the ability to walk across water. He was walking across the water and passed a boat carrying his friend, the other Chela. So, he reached the other side, and the other Chela reached the other side by boat but did not say anything about it. So, this fellow who walked across the water said, “Did you notice anything?”. So, the chap that crossed in the boat says, “Oh yes, I seemed to have noticed that you walked across the water.” Fine, he said, “What took you forty years to achieve? I did it for one shilling and sixpence.” So where is the sense of it?

The most crucial point is that this person who developed the ability to walk across the water also developed an ego. The purpose of self-realisation, reaching the goal, is to lose the individual ego in the Universal Self. But this man, developing the ability to walk across the water, also created an ego. He wanted recognition from his brother, Chela, to say, “Ah, I achieved this.” So where is the progress? It is not evolution; it is devolution.

There are Scriptures, especially by Patanjali, and many of you might have read the Yoga sutras of Patanjali, where steps are well defined and how all these various powers can be gained, including telepathy. Easy steps are set out; practices have to be done. They are very strenuous and arduous, but it is not impossible. Where will it lead you? There is one practice that you can do that will make you invisible. You can, very systematically, take the gross level of your body and reduce it to subatomic matter through mind force. You can do that, and you will become invisible. But by becoming invisible, what will you do with that power? Go to rob a bank? Go to spy on your wife? What are you going to do? To what use are you going to put it? If you used that same mental force, determination, and effort towards Divinity, you would have found Divinity, and that is the goal of life. That produces the bliss and joy we seek instead of wasting our time on nonsense.

TRUE HEALERS DO NOT ADVERTISE THEMSELVES AS HEALERS

It includes healing in that if you use healing for a selfless purpose, what will you heal? Are you going to heal a person’s body, mind, or soul, and what are the motivations behind it?

Many people who call themselves healers are not healers; they assume they are healers. A genuine healer is a highly evolved person who can transmit those spiritual energies to another person so that the imbalances in the person’s body or mind can be corrected. That is proper healing, and those people who are natural healers, true spiritual men, and true spiritual healers do not go about advertising themselves as healers. Christ could have put up a board at his door, “I am a healer.” Did he do that? No, he would not. All our Counsellors have some healing ability, some excellent healing ability, and they very quickly could open up an office in London, or San Francisco or New York, or Rhodesia, Salisbury, or Cape Town, and put up a giant board “I am a healer,” but they are forbidden. Only in sporadic cases where it is required must they utilise this power to help other people without any gain, without any advertisement, without any acknowledgement. When we have to do some healing, we are specially instructed to tell the person that we have felt better and that a specific imbalance has been brought about, which is corrected, and not to say to others. That is always to be told. That is selflessness.

A SIDDHI IS A MENTAL POWER, NOT A SPIRITUAL POWER

You could include it in those powers, but it is a different power. The power to develop these Siddhis is not spiritual; it is mental power. We have always heard it being said, mind over matter. Matter and mind are non-different. The reason is at a far subtler level than the grosser outer physical matter. The more nuanced level of matter, being infinitely more powerful, can exert influence over that which is less powerful. So, in developing these Siddhis of walking across the water, becoming telepathic, or levitating, we are not using spiritual power. We are just activating certain levels of the mind, which can be activated by anyone who is sufficiently prepared to go through various forms of asceticism and multiple practices that are very strenuous. One can do that, but it is not worth it. If you have a smooth path to reach London, we see no reason why you must climb over ten different hills to reach London. The path is smooth.

There are always all kinds of justifications for anything we wish to do. The mind can justify any action. The purpose of knowing that which is beyond does not require the mind; the purpose of transcending is to go beyond the mind, and yet, on the other hand, we are advocating developing specific layers of the mind. Yet the people who practise Siddhis have lost sight of the goal. They have lost sight of the original idea of reaching Divinity, and now they only operate on the level of the mind. So, is that not a contradiction? No one is stopping those who want to go in for those things; you have free will, and you can exercise your free will in whichever path you like. It might be to your benefit; it might be detrimental to your spiritual evolution. You must judge yourself.

DO NOT LOSE SIGHT OF THE GOAL

A person can use his mental energies to become a mathematician, and he can become the world’s greatest mathematician. A person can use his energies to become the world’s most fantastic engineer. A person can use all his energies to become the world’s most incredible surgeon, or he can use all his energies to activate certain powers of the mind to perform magic tricks. But how near is he to evolutionary progress, and how much has he evolved by doing those practices?

It is OK to activate deeper layers of the mind. When a person is intensely focused on working out a mathematical problem, he, too, can go beyond the levels of the conscious mind. A poet does that every time he writes a poem. There is nothing new under the sun; all those thoughts have been thought of before. He has just turned himself into a deeper level of the mind, captured an idea floating around in the universe for ages and ages, and interpreted it through his conscious mind; he has given it some form. We call it inspiration.

The poet is doing precisely the same thing those people practising Siddhis are trying to do. One is doing it, and the other is trying to do it. The poet is performing a duty by tapping the subtler layers of the mind, which is a more outstanding receiver from the transmitter, and he is making his world beautiful by adding those beautiful thoughts to us. How often do we feel enraptured when we read those beautiful poems or see a beautiful painting?

The poet adds joy to the world, but what does the person developing these kinds of little powers add to the world? How is he serving humanity? How is he serving himself, or how is he serving God? We lose sight of our goal when we get enveloped in the specifics of these practices.

WE DO NOT NEED MIRACULOUS POWERS

Most people’s mental energies are scattered. One moment, you think of a monkey and the next, you think of a donkey; it goes on. In our system, we have one practice where we, in a systematic way, learn to focus all our mental energies on a one-pointedness, and concentrating mental energies on a one-pointedness helps us in the waking state of life, where our concentrating powers are improved. The difference between success and failure is just because of concentration or lack of concentration. Our other forms of meditation also improve by achieving a one-pointedness and attaining the power to have one’s mind functioning concentratedly. The purpose of this practice is not to attain miraculous powers. We do not need them, although that could be a primary step leading one to it, but that is not our aim. Instead of living a scattered mind, our objective is to find a togetherness of mind, where our energies can be brought forth, and it can be brought forth in love. A man’s energies could fly in a million different directions, but if he gathers those energies towards his wife, one-pointedness develops. Life becomes more prosperous, better and more enjoyable. That is what it is.

So, we have nothing against anyone trying to develop these various kinds of miraculous powers, but they must not become a stumbling block to one’s spiritual progress. They are unnecessary, and if you sometimes have flashes of telepathy, good, enjoy them. Just do not try to develop them, that is all. If they come naturally, it is good. The main aim is to find personal self-integration. By finding self-integration, one finds self-realisation.

… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang UK 1977 – 20