Raja Yoga on the spiritiual mystery of Mediums and the secret behind great Leaders

 Through time immemorial..many mysteries of the human soul have left mankind mystified and wonderstruck...These have lead many into the study and  search of the unknown.

Some of these mystic occurences have occured in almost every religion and race known to man and even till today the are documented and researched.
One of these mysteries is whether a Human being can become a " Medium" for some unseen spiritual or other being..The Yoga Aphorisms of Patnajali explain this phenomena which has been reported till this day and through the ages in various countries and in people of all religions..In these aphorisims the view point is presented from the point of view of the Spiritual Masters themselves..

On Wednesday February 12th 2014 a group of students sit around The Most revered Swami Kripamayananda maharaj head of the Vedanta society of Toronto Canada. The Swami reads and explains to these students the ancient mysteries of Spiritual powers which the Yogis ( spiritual masters ) of yore have mastered. Here is the lesson from the Spiritual powers of the Mind . Chapter taken from the book Raja Yoga by Swami Vivekananda and published in 1920.  This is based on Patanjali's Yoga which is thousands of years old and Vedanta derived from the Vedas which are the oldest known spiritual documents of Mankind.

The Revered Spiritual teacher Swami Kripamayananda maharaj also cites the story of Sri Sancaracarya the great sage whose soul entered the body of the dead King Digvijaya in order to teach mankind the lessons of Kingliness : Reference :Shankara Digvijaya - Part 3 | Sringeri Sharada Peetham www.sringeri.net › ... › Madhaviya Shankara Digvijayam.

The story is simple. It is told in the Vedic scriptures. The great Spritual Master Sri Sancaracraya was a spiritual teacher and a Celibate Monk. His body was pure. He was asked by a devotee  to teach the world the art of  Kingship. In order to that he had to be a King. He then in a secret cave in the Himalayas withdrew his sences from his ' Monk" body and asked a few of his trusted " Monk" students to guard the Body untill he returned.
He in his spirit form then entered into the ' Just dead' body of a King Digvijaya. When the King opened his eyes and returned to ' his wife' and family...from that time onwards something in the land changed..for the better..an auspiciousness entered the place....the land became more prosperous..the fields yielded crop..the rivers flowed and the King Digvijaya seemed to be possessed by a more Nobler and Selfless spirit than before. His wisdom and intelligence blessed all...the Kingdom became all powerful. Some courtiers realised that this was not the " old' King but a great soul who had taken over his body and they conducted  a search for the truth. They did not want their King to Flee.. 
Far away near the mountains they found the Body of a great Saint who seemed to be in great slumber and decided to destroy his body before he returned..as they set him ablaze on a Cremation Pyre..then " King Digvijaya' Through his spiritual insight realised the the danger and quickly `flew' to his hermitage..Just as his body was about to be destroyed he re- entered it and woke up and thus saved it. Sri Sancaracarya is considered to be one of the Ten Great Incarnations of God in the Vedantic ages.
The aphorism follows:

बन्धकारणशैथिल्यात् प्रचारसंवेदनाच्च चित्तस्य परशरीरावेशः ॥३९ ॥

Aphorism 39. When the cause of bondage of the Chitta has become loosened, the Yogi, by his knowledge of its channels of activity (the nerves), enters another's body.The Yogi can enter a dead body and make it get up and move, even while he himself is working in another body. Or he can enter a living body and hold that man's mind and organs in check, and for the time being act through the body of that man. That is done by the Yogi coming to this discrimination of Purusha and nature. If he wants to enter another's body, he makes a Samyama on that body and enters it, because, not only is his soul omnipresent, but his mind also, as the Yogi teaches. It is one bit of the universal mind. Now, however, it can only work through the nerve currents in this body, but when the Yogi has loosened himself from these nerve currents, he can work through other things. 

Here are some modern examples  expereinced by a devotee of Christ.

In South America there is  the story of the Brazilian `medium' Joan Teixeira de Faria

Joan (born June 24, 1942), known also as João de Deus ("John of God"),  He is a self-described medium and "psychic surgeon" from Brazil. He is based in Abadiânia, a small town in the state of Goiás, southwest of Brasília.The Readers Digest carried his story which is now available online and in Wikepedia. João de Deus (medium) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Another extract from http://www.healingjourneys.net/content_articles

 

 Joao de Deus was a young teenager when he began to heal people.  Born into a poor family that rarely had enough to eat, he had exhibited some psychic and clairvoyant talents as a young boy.  One day in his early teens, more than forty years ago, the young Joao went to a river to bathe, and the spirit of a radiant woman – who later turned into a ball of light – told him to go to a nearby Spiritist center (associated with the teachings of Allan Kardec).  Following her instructions, Joao found the center, walked up the stairs, and knocked on the door – and that was the last thing he remembered until he came to, three hours later, with a circle of people standing over him.  He immediately apologized and tried to reassure them that he must have fainted from hunger and that he would be fine.  They told him, "No, you don’t understand.   You have been healing people for the last few hours."

Having no recall of what had happened, Joao thought they might be teasing him, but they invited him to stay, have a good meal and stay there the night.  The next day, several hundred people gathered at the center, and the director told them that, once again, the spirit of King Solomon was going to heal people as he had done the day before – through the medium Joao.  The young man still had no idea what the director was talking about, but as they began to pray, he slipped once more into a faint, this time aware as he was doing so, left his body, and entered a warm light.  Upon returning to his body several hours later, he was informed that miraculous healings had happened through him once again.

The young Joao spent an extended stay at the Spiritist center, where the members explained to him about mediumship – including trance mediumship of incorporation of spirits - various kinds of non-corporal spirits, and other aspects of Kardec’s teachings, helping him to understand and integrate his spontaneous "initiation" as a trance medium healer.  .

Reference http://www.healingjourneys.net/content_articles and Wikepedia.http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Do-You-Believe-in-Miracles_1

Here is a story dating back to the 17th century in India where many of the saints had supernatural powers. This extract is taken from the Wikipedia article on St Dyaneshwar of Alandi. The child saint had mastery over not only living beings but even inanimate lifeless objects..this aroused the jealousy of an ancient sage named Changa dev, the temples and  final resting places of all these saints stands till today in Maharashtra India.  

Changdev Maharaj is most commonly known today due to his popular first encounter with Dnyaneshwar. As the story goes, when the four siblings of Nivritti − Dnyanadev, Sopandev, and Muktai − attained enlightenment , Changdev Maharaj wanted to test them, and hence sent them a blank note. When the siblings received this note, they laughed at the gesture and, on Nivritti’s asking, Dnyaneshwar wrote 65 verses which were the quintessence of Vedanta on it. When the paper reached Changdev Maharaj, he had difficulty understanding what was written, and decided to meet the siblings to show them his yogic powers in person. For this visit he chose to ride on back of a tiger, wielding a poisonous cobra as a whip. When the siblings, then sitting on a masonry wall, saw the procession of Changdev Maharaj and thousands of his devotees walking toward their house, they decided to break his pride. They patted on the wall and it rose up to move forward as a respect to Changdev maharaj. This use of wall amazed everyone present. Changdev realized the greatness of these children. He became one of their disciples and overcame his pride and ego.^[6]These verses sent by Dnyaneshwar later became known as Changdev Pasashti (Pasast means 65 in Marathi) and are one of the holy scriptures amongst followers of Dnyaneshwar.

Here the child saints had control over even the inanimate objects while the old saint could only control all forms of nature..he recognised their greatness. He also accepted that upernatural powers are not the marks of a saint but his love for God and for human kind is what makes one a man of God The ancient temples of both saints stand till today in Alandi and Narayanpur in India ,Maharashtra

Our teacher also refers to the detailed treatise on the complete works of Swami Vivekananda by the late revered Swami Sarvagathananda maharaj who was the late president of the Vedanta Society of Boston USA.He was known for his deep knowledege and respect for the secriptures of all religions and was held in very high respect by many respected Christian evangelists and teachers in N America.He lived his faith as a true Vedantists which was respect and reverence for all people and all paths leading to God

For further reading: The Death of a Swami, and His Bliss | America Magazineamericamagazine.org/content/all-things/death-swami-and-his-bliss‎

 

 

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