“Ordinary guys” can be capable of quite extraordinary things. That is what yoga is about. That’s why we are doing it. We are all ordinary guys (and girls), and at the same time (as Yogani says) we have infinate potential.
By the way, I don’t think there is anything wrong with asking someone a strait question. If they want to answer they will, if they choose not to they won’t. If you don’t ask, you’ll never know. 
Christi
David,
I think Christi sums it up best when he says:
I wouldn’t want to see Yogani pressured into answering, which could very well happen if more people got involved and harsh accusations were being made. Hopefully this sort of thing would never happen here, where Yogani offers us tons of free advice and support…where people should be grateful that someone would actually share their experience in such depth as Yogani does. (I’m not implying you aren’t grateful…not at all!)
I don’t think you were being rude by asking, but it is somewhat dangerous territory. Especially when the person in question hasn’t been very clear on it as of yet…it makes me think there is a reason why he’s being unclear, and perhaps it’s best if we let it be.
But you asked, and if it goes unanswered, I suppose that is the answer.
Hi Christi, Scott, David,
I really enjoyed reading this thread. Just this morning I was thinking " Would it make a big perception difference to my life if I could see atoms (even through an electron microscope)? Do I or others disbelieve in atoms just because I can’t see them? Yet, if I could actually see them, would not my world be transformed?" And the discussion carried forward here.
I find it difficult to carry on with long discussions here because a) I find it time and effort consuming to read through long threads (and they are pretty long overnight or over a day… by the time I get here), find the points to quote and respond to, and b) by the time it gets anywhere I find myself in a lot of agreement or ‘appreciate where you come from’… like I can do with all three of you here at different points.
Scott’s answer on the ‘physical neurological purification process’ was as relevant to me at least, as Christi’s subtle-body ‘samskara’ one. Yet the discussion between all three refined both in my mind.
One point I would like to make is that though all this is only as real as one’s experience (can you see atoms, are they there?) terminology tht may seem ‘alien’ is retained to preserve the original sharpness of the perception or definition. Imagine if everyone started translating ‘atom’ (to be very pedestrian in giving a ‘scientific’ example) as they understood it and several years down the line the original definition were lost, what would it finally be distorted into, in the absence of the written first hand observation and experience of the scientist? If I went and tried explaining ‘atom’ to a bunch of kids or even adults in a remote Indian village, and gave it a lot of definitions and names to the exclusion of the word ‘atom’, several years afterward it would have metamorphosised into a strange deity or phenomenon with little resemblence to the original.
It is entirely possible that the ancient yogis knew more about ‘modern science’ than do modern scientists.
Here have a read: http://kaalpurush.tripod.com/id14.html
Most of humanity does not know its true history from 5 and 50 years ago. Nevermind 5000 years ago. This is because those who control the past control the present… Same goes for spiritual knowledge. It is much easier to control an ignorant mass of people as opposed to an enlightened one.
Anyway. This turned out to be a beautiful thread. Thank you Christi, Scott and David for the discussion! Personally I don’t really care if Yogani can levitate, because I know he can smile while walking on a very sharp razor! Hahaha.
PS. Nothing is impossible for those at Unity with God.
@ Chiron. I agree Chiron. It doesn’t matter whether Yogani or any other yogi can levitate or not. I can look at a mathematical genius open mouthed. But just because this one is a genius doesn’t follow that I can definitely become one too. But if the genius has shown some formulae and methods to make it easier for me to use math in daily life, I am more interested in that than establishing his ability or lack of it to do some complicated theorum which I’m not likely to comrehend just now anyway.
Well in my dictionary a scientific method is the examination of data not the re-spouting of a fixed philosophical belief based on taking the kind of science in ones school/college textbooks as a kind of bible.
If you are not prepared to examine data the Radin and PEAR work (just to quote two examples) then it seems to me your position is one of “(textbook) science as a religion” and not “science as a method”.
However you are not alone in that - many (most??) people who talk about “science” are actually (mis-)using the concept in the same way 
I have also noted in many internet fora that they are also the most aggressive in defending views (again a type of ‘(scientific) religious fundamentalism’).
But as I started I am not addressing you so much as the meme argument which keeps going round and round with people more interested in magicians than the (large) body of scientific work that has been done on these subjects.
Also at the end of the day its not just more internet tittle-tattle ultimately such a position becomes a self-limiting belief holding back one’s personal growth 
Mike
Sadhak,
That’s a very good point!
Hi David:
I am not, but believe that I can. Therefore, I will not say that I cannot, and neither should anyone else.
This line of relationship within ourselves is important for everyone, as it is an essential constituent of bhakti. As we all know, bhakti is the primary engine of yoga. It is the part of us that believes, and belief is essential for us to take that next step on our path, however small or large it may be.
At the same time, as we engage in the practices of deep meditation, spinal breathing, samyama, etc., this line of internal relationship (bhakti) arises naturally, and we will no longer doubt our potential, regardless of the externals. Anything becomes possible, and the externals become all but irrelevant in the face of the steadily increasing divine outpouring. Our good intentions will manifest one way or another. How is not for us to judge…
To favor the external over the internal is a kind of mytholization that will hold us back. Isn’t it obvious? Thank goodness practices will take care of it in time, so we don’t have to be endlessly wrestling with our beliefs and thought patterns. Of course, we will anyway, for a while anyway. Eventually it all goes to stillness, and then we know…
Believe!
Miracles do happen (constantly) for those who believe. With respect to what we can accomplish, the word “cannot” is completely irrelevant.
The only problem with mythologizing in my opinion is that it is most often pointed in the wrong direction, externally toward others, which saps our ability to fully express our innate potential. We should be pointing it inward, and using it as inspiration for our practice.
This is the essential point in the great myths – not to mythologize the hero as an external phenomenon, but to inspire the hero within us all. So often this point is missed. It is also a failing in the guru system. No one is to blame. It is our inner obstructions. Now we are catching on as inner silence and the light of knowledge are rising.
We ordinary folks are full with extraordinary possibilities. Let’s never forget that. 
The guru is in you.
Thanks Yogani. Yes, my question was about whether you were currently able to, not whether you believe you or others people are able to potentially.
Mike, scientists have this much in common with fundamentalists — they do have conviction. And certainly, many of them have have their human foibles of narrow-mindedness and so on. But the similarities end there. The conviction of scientists is based on many millions of person-hours of study and verification. No matter what anyone says, there is no case that it is subjective, or that its findings are culturally-based. (Although, it is true that what they look for is culturally based, and even market-based in practice. There is a lot of confusion out there where the detractors of science conflate culturally-based questions with culturally-based answers. The answers of science are not cultarally-based at all). These facts are what make it pretty much impossible that scientists, in contrast with fundamentists, will fight wars with each other over what is scientific fact. Wars occur over beliefs only when people do not have the power to establish their beliefs by better, more civilized means.
The one law of science is actually: do not self-deceive.
Which has lots of corollaries: make sure it is not your desires which are making you believe that something false is true. Make sure it is not your culture which is making you believe that something false is true. Make sure it is not a mistake in your methodology which is making you believe something false is true.
Good scientists do follow this; fundamentalists do not even achieve its basics.
I haven’t said that I wouldn’t examine the work of Radin and PEAR, but I’m not going to spend my particular time looking at it. Because the truth is that if they are following scientific methods and can reproduce their results, they will succeed in the scientific establishment. For every Bienveniste who did go in front of Randi (and BTW, I have to commend him for being prepared to do that) to be ultimately exposed as either a fraud or a self-deceiver, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of people who fashion themselves as ‘scientists’ with work that the establishment will not listen to. Go through the logs of the people who thought they had proofs but who have failed on front of Randi; should I spend my time investigating each one? Am I narrow-minded or fundamentalist for not doing so? Or am I just a person who does not have several tens of thousands of hours a week to spare?
There are loads of books out there, and pseudo-scientific conspiracy-theoretical-ish pseudo-documentaries about the guy with the great, easily-provable discovery that no-one will listen to. They are baloney. People don’t understand that they are paying for a form of entertainment, nothing more. Sort of like buying the National Enquirer. It’s always been true, and always will be that when you can prove your results, you’ll make it in the scientific world.
A person who tries to bring their claims into the realm of science and give them scientific status will be asked to prove them, and if they do, they will be accepted.
Now if people have results that they admit they can’t (currently) prove to science yet, fair enough. These are not pseudo-scientists or scientific frauds and should not be labelled as such, but rather, just people who believe things that cannot be proven yet. And perhaps all of us fall into this category some way or another. I certainly do; for example, I believe what kechari can do but I probably can’t prove it — yet. It is true that many scientists dismiss a lot of stuff out of hand. Randi, for example, speaks dismissively of yoga. And he might not make the fine distinction between people who believe what they cannot yet prove and scientific frauds. That’s his loss, there’s something there that he is missing. But all told I admire him and what he does a lot, and I am glad he is here.
Hi Yogani,
Thanks for replying, I didn’t think you would.
Talk about riding the razors edge! You do a very good balancing act indeed, much better than your levitation act 
. I might get my pedestal out after all 
(only kidding).
I did not intend for you to get dragged into this discussion, and I should apologise for that, but I am glad now that you were as you always seem to be able to add an angle on things that the rest of us were missing.
Christi
Hi Mike,
Thanks for the references on the scientific study of the paranormal… I will study them when I have some time.
Hi Chiron,
Thanks for the reference to the ancient Indian scientists! More was going on 5000 years ago than we know , and possibly even 10,000 years ago.
Cool Christi… always neat when someone is prepared to examine data rather than premising that were something to be true the “System” at large would have accurately fed us a clear and impartial representation of the world It makes whistling in the wind sometimes worthwhile 
Here is amazon.com review page http://www.amazon.com/Conscious-Universe-scientific-Psychic-Phenomena/dp/0062515020/sr=8-2/qid=1164147372/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/002-6887274-0416019?ie=UTF8&s=books It currently gets 4.5* from 66 reviews - the general drift being “Blimey! So the evidence is in favour of psi - well I never would have believed that!”
I wrote about it here: http://www.ttem.org/forum/index.php?topic=239.0 (apologies for linking into my own forum - will remove if not kosher) and there is a nice snip from the book included there:
“A more elaborate answer is, psi has been shown to exist in thousands of experiments. There are disagreements over to how to interpret the evidence, but the fact is that virtually all scientists who have studied the evidence, including the hard-nosed skeptics, now agree that there is something interesting going on that merits serious scientific attention. Later we’ll discuss the reasons why very few scientists and science journalists are aware of this dramatic shift in informed opinion”
peace&love to all
Mike
From the book: but the fact is that virtually all scientists who have studied the evidence, including the hard-nosed skeptics, now agree that there is something interesting going on that merits serious scientific attention
Note the phraseology, which can be quite misleading: “now agree that there is something interesting going on”. It’s so vague that it could mean that hard-nosed skeptics find it interesting, among other things, that people are self-deceptive. I, for one, as a hard-nosed skeptic, find the whole Bienveniste affair interesting, and I am particularly curious about how honest he and his team were. (BTW, Bienveniste is particularly interesting because his claims made major headlines, including if I remember rightly in magazines like Time and Newsweek.) The statement is completely devoid of any commitment, but it looks like a strong commitment at first glance to the untrained eye… almost as if it is a statement that the hard-nosed skeptical scientific establishment now agrees that psychic powers are real, which would be totally false…
Yes, Yogani, thanks for the balanced perspective.
Yogani said:
To favor the external over the internal is a kind of mytholization that will hold us back. Isn’t it obvious?
Yes. It’s a problem with many facets and spins though. Part of it is that the internal and external are not properly differentiated in our traditions. Yoga is a system which grew in an earlier era and did not differentiate the internal and external too well.
And as time goes on, we will, as a people, with the help of both yoga and science, figure out what the right differentiation is.
Yoga is a system which grew in an earlier era and did not differentiate the internal and external too well.
How do you mean this David? Would you explain?
Really 
What do you base these conclusions on I believe that the various methods of study and practice encompassed by the Eight Limbs of Yoga (Ashtanga) very obviously demonstrate a profound awareness of both the internal and external aspects of the training.
Classical Yoga practices clearly outline a systematically detailed, scientifically duplicatable method of consolidating and uniting the External Physical Aspects of Yoga Sadhana, such as Hatha Asanas, Dietary Recommendations, Yogic Bathing and Cleansing Techniques, Methods of Sensory Refinement and Control, and so forth, with the Internal Mental and Spiritual Aspects of Yoga Sadhana such as Devotional Practices (Bhakti), Mental Concentration Training (Dharana), Meditation Training (Dhyana), and Absorption in Divine Consciousness (Samadhi).
And furthermore, this clear differentiation of how to transform the apparent initial separation of internal and external into a Union of At-One-Ment in the Ultimate Reality of Immortal Existence, Divine Consciousness, and Eternally Blissful Peace (Sat-Chi-Anandam Brahman) has been actively taught and practiced as a Scientific Method of Self-Cultivation and Self-Realization for several thousand years to date!
http://www.sadhanaashram.org/art/shri_chakra.gif
http://ar.geocities.com/mahatmaprabhu/kundalini.jpg
Hari Om!
Doc
Well this is my last post on the subject as clearly you are simply interested in repeating your fixed philosophical beliefs and not genuine discussion.
You quote one sentence from the book… and from the overview at that. Cheap rhetoric I have to say! Actually were you to read it you would find its full of statistics, confidence intervals etc etc (its actually such a dry read so he brought out a more popular treatment recently).
The other thing that perhaps you dont appreciate from your position David is that your argument is that (say) “pink elephants don’t exist”… many of us here will have direct, indisputable, experiential evidence experience and knowledge time and time again of pink elephants.
Thus if you don’t mind me being blunt here the argument you use:
(i) from an objective “logic” perspective is neither logical nor scientific;
(ii) from an experiential perspective many people know pink elephants very well;
(iii) as I had said before its odd that people taking this fixed “materialist” philosophy seem the most agressive and least gentle in forum threads. I guess one can only conclude that deep down the emotion of fear (as well as “attachment to views” (another main source of dukkha) is at work
peace
Mike
Hi Richard,
You are right Richard, Yogani has never said that he can levitate, and neither has anyone else on this forum.
Check out this question and answer lesson from the main lessons:
http://www.aypsite.org/155.html
Here is a section from it:
If you don’t think there is anything strange about this, try it. Try sitting at one end of your bed, in siddhasana, or padmasana, and then- try and make it to the other end of your bed (good luck!). And then imagine that this could happen to you during meditation, and afterwards you could say “I don’t know how I got there”. I am not a genius, but I think I would know how I got there .
And notice that Yogani says that this is trying to be the beginnings of levitation. He doesn’t say that it is trying to be the beginnings of a series of horribly violent muscle spasms that somewhat resemble an epileptic fit, which is what you might expect someone to say. Notice also that he says not to worry about falling off the end of the bed, as your body “intuitively” knows where the end of the bed is. Since when does a human body in super spasm mode know where the end of a bed is?
Also notice that Yogani doesn’t recommend cutting down on practices here. If someone came to me saying that they were experiencing such violent fits during meditation that it was causing them to move physically around the room, I would probably recommend trimming a couple of minutes off deep meditation time, and possibly even spinal breathing, no? I am not suggesting that Yogani gave the wrong advice here. I am sure the advice was perfect. He gives the same advice here:
http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1034
I am simply saying that I am not ready to accept the muscle spasm theory, it doesn’t quite work for me, especially after some of the things that have happened to me during meditation, especially in other dimensions (sorry ).
This is a quote from the yoga sutras of Patanjali:
The udana, I believe, is an energy line going from the top of the spine, up to the crown of the head. Maybe Patanjali was actually talking about chronic muscle spasms here, but then what does “mastery over” mean?
Just my take…
Christi