Psychic Powers
Shortly after learning meditation as a university student, I moved into a yoga house. It was a former fraternity house rented very cheaply by a loosely connected group of young people who shared an interest in yoga and meditation.
One evening as we were conversing in the common room, there was a knock at the door. A large bearded man in a long robe entered the room accompanied by two women covered in shawls. He explained that they were travelling northward up the California coast seeking refuge from the “destructive psychic fog” of Los Angeles.
He said that on the astral plane our house was a temple and that our psychic light had attracted them. We all sat together on the floor, ten or twelve people in all. The two women said nothing, remaining wrapped in their shawls and occasionally twitching as if they had touched an electric wire or some other noxious stimulus.
The man explained that the two women were in a hyper-psychic state of extreme sensitivity and that we should carefully control our energy. He requested that we psychically extend him energy from a certain point on our bodies as he spoke. I felt uncomfortable with this unusual request and did not trust this man, and so did not comply.
I had no prior experience with such circumstances or people and so decided to conduct an experiment. Without changing my expression or demeanor I visualized unleashing a torrent of energy from the point he described. In my mind, the energy lashed the room and its occupants, bouncing off the walls and ceiling.
To my astonishment, the two women began to contort and twitch convulsively as if in agony. The robed man looked about the room, fixed me with a stare, and commanded, “You! Take back your energy!” I was surprised that, of all the people in the room, he could tell so easily that I was the culprit behind this disturbance. I consciously withdrew my energy projection and the women slumped in their shawls, resuming their previous level of twitching.
This man and two women were students of the occult, undertaking practices with the goal of obtaining extraordinary psychic and spiritual powers. It is a foolish and dangerous path that does not benefit the practitioner, society, or the world at large. That is why I have never again attempted any experiment involving such powers.
For success in the practice of yoga, one must focus on the spiritual goal. The physical beauty and health attained through the practice of yoga postures are not the true goal; such attainments do not give lasting happiness and eventually pass away. And those who indulge in beguiling psychic and spiritual powers rarely move beyond them; more commonly such practitioners become ensnared in a labyrinthine trap leading to spiritual degeneration.
If any extraordinary powers come uninvited to the yogic spiritual aspirant, they must not be indulged. This is one reason why the practice of moral principles from the beginning stages of meditation is necessary.