This morning I watched two different trailers for the next movie in the popular, exorbitantly hyped Twilight saga. Putting the on/off love affair between Bella and Edward aside, I find it interesting that there is a vitriolic battle between a blood-lusting legion of vampires and a clique of hairy shapeshifters in the movie. I find it interesting because both the vampires and the werewolves possess powers we would find phenomenally flabbergasting in the real world of gravity and mortality. These powers I find alluring.
Despite these displays of paranormal power, I must concede that vampires and werewolves exist only in the marvelous world of mythology. The manifestation of the vampire’s or werewolf’s power in a movie, play, book or comic is emblematic of an element in the psyche that lies dormant. Through various artistic mediums (ie: the “Twilight Saga”), these elements are given new life in us and are activated for better or for worse.
Now I would like to turn to the world of the mystic, or the shaman, or the yogin. I would like to cite various cases where these “archetypes of power” have been able to surmount the stringent laws of physics. However, unlike the vampires or werewolves in “New Moon,” the mystic, shaman, and the yogin are real people. They have a historical presence and precedent, albeit one that has been marginalized by the authority figures in religious fundamentalism and scientific fundamentalism.
Example #1:
Sonam Namgyal purportedly attained the “rainbow body” at the time of his death in 1952. The “rainbow body” is one of the highest spiritual achievements of Dzogchen. The body is divine purity itself. Sogyal Rinpoche says this about Sonam’s death:
“Just before his death at seventy-nine, he said ‘All I ask is that when I die, don't move my body for a week.’ When he died his family wrapped his body and invited Lamas and monks to come and practice for him. They placed the body in a small room in the house, and they could not help noticing that although he had been a tall person, they had no trouble getting it in, as if he were becoming smaller. At the same time, an extraordinary display of rainbow-coloured light was seen all around the house. When they looked into the room on the sixth day, they saw that the body was getting smaller and smaller. On the eight day after his death, the morning in which the funeral had been arranged, the undertakers arrived to collect the body. When they undid its coverings, they found nothing inside but his nails and hair.”
Example #2:
When the mystic Ramakrishna was worshipping the monkey Hanuman, strange things started to happen. He started subsisting on fruits and roots. He started frantically jumping around as opposed to walking around. Ramakrishna, in Christopher Isherwood’s biography, had this to say:
“I didn’t do this of my own accord; it happened of itself. And the most marvelous thing was—the lower end of my spine lengthened, nearly an inch. Later, when I stopped practicing this kind of devotion, it gradually went back to its normal size.”
(Thanks to Michael Murphy’s “The Future of the Body” for this snippet)
Example #3:
In Sri Lanka, adherents of the god Kataragama walk across a molten fire-bed that can melt aluminum on contact (wads of paper are also incinerated in the air before they can reach the pit). For months and months before the ceremonial walk, the religious adherents ardently chanted Kataragama’s name. When it came time to walk across the fire-bed of doom, the adherents were seized by the power of their god, and they walked away from the dangerous experience unscathed and burn-free.
(Thanks to Joseph Chilton Pearce for this snippet)
All these examples tell me that true spiritual evolution is possible in this lifetime. The mind and the spirit can overcome the physical constraints of the body, and transmogrify the body into a higher vessel of sorts.
Happy New Moon to all!
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