--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jst...@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Hugo" <fintlewoodlewix@> wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jstein@> wrote: > > > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <no_reply@> wrote: > > > <snip> > > > > But here's where the "science" comes in. Several times > > > > on this forum I have suggested an experiment that, > > > > given my last-time-I-studied-it-back-in-high-school > > > > knowledge of physics, would prove one way or another > > > > whether the "flying" in Yogic Flying is due to anything > > > > other than muscle exertion. > > > > > > Except that it would be an attempt to disprove a straw > > > man, which isn't very scientific. > > > > > > Nobody denies muscular exertion is involved, at least > > > these days. > > > > Don't they? How are we supposed to progress from stage 1 > > (hopping) to stage 2 (floating) if some sort of extra > > gravity defying process isn't involved? > > They aren't claiming anybody's doing anything but > hopping yet.
But the hopping is supposed to be due to this controlling of natural laws. God knows why, it's not like we are going to jump in the air and stay there. Someone once asked Marshy whether this would be how levitation happened and he said that we would waft lightly into the air then float back down. > In his 'physics > > of yogic flying' lecture Hagelin claims that the normal > > run of events from the quantum level upwards that gives > > us what we call reality, with it's tendency for things to > > obey what appear to be immutable laws but are in fact > > statistical probabilites, can be changed to favour things > > that appear miraculous if you are operating from a level > > beyond which gravity has it's effects. > > > > I think we have to assume that he believes this, or is at > > least happy to be on record trying to convince others to > > believe it. So I think it should be put to the test. > > It isn't *happening* yet. How can you put something > that isn't happening to the test? As far as JH is concerned it is happening. Ask Nablus he'll tell you about staying in the air longer than is humanly possible (his interpretation of his experience not mine) > > I remember someone in > > the TMO saying that attempts to measure brainwaves while > > hopping are fatally flawed because the sudden movement has > > a much larger effect on measured activity than doing the > > sutra, so how than can claim that maximum coherence is > > achieved at lift off is beyond me. > > *AT* liftoff, at the instant before the body starts > moving. > > > The bottom line then is whether or not anything unexplainable > > is happening and they should be looking at it. Unless they > > don't have the confidence in the technique........ > > I'm not sure what else they could test at this stage. > > The *experience*, or at least my experience, is that > something else *is* going on, but I have no idea what. > The most I can say is that hopping feels involuntary, > like a sneeze, and that it feels as though it's > triggered by an impulse generated by the sutra (or in > a group setting, sometimes by an impulse generated by > somebody else doing the sutra). I used to think something else was going on too, but after a while I dropped that idea and couldn't fly anymore and stopped doing the siddhis altogether some years ago. I think that without a belief that it's somehow leading somewhere the body can't be bothered to help. And you need more of a belief than just that it's helping personal development. That stopped ages ago too and simply because it obviously wasn't (my eyesight got worse not better) I can only speak for myself here, others may get a lot out of it. > Whether that has anything to do with "coherence" of > brain waves, I couldn't say. I don't know whether it > has anything to do with levitation either. And I > don't have a clue how you could test it. > > There are other associated odd experiences, including > of "bubbling bliss." One of mine is that "I" am much > bigger than my body, as if I'm watching this little > body hop up and down in the middle of a sort of big > cloud of "me." Ah, consciousness has so many ways of being transformed into something that amazes us and tricks us into thinking that it's more than it is or that strange powers are involved. I've always thought the study of meditation could give us a better idea of how it works because all this bending it out of shape will be measurable in the brain and could give us an idea of how the illusion is created by seeing how the brain re-wires itself when we think we are experiencing some sort of unified being. The technology to do this is improving all the time. I know someone who designs software for MRI scanners at Imperial college in London but I could never impress upon him that meditation is something other than just thinking about things, so he wouldn't give up any time in the lab to let me stick my head in his machine. They do have a queue round the block of people studying serious health problems so I don't really blame him. They won't take it seriously until someone demonstrates that the sidhis are actually changing the known laws of nature. I'm afraid people just believing it isn't enough..... > Another is that sometimes at the apex of a hop, it > becomes absolutely crystal-clear for the barest > instant that levitation is occurring--just for that > instant--and that if I could maintain that > experience, I wouldn't come down. But I can't, so I > do. It isn't a *thought* but an experience; I don't > know how to explain it any better than that, but it's > very distinct. It's more than simply not feeling the > pull of gravity at that instant. It's more like being > "in the zone," when everything seems to be working > together without effort, part of that "everything" > being the impulse generated by the sutra. > > Anyway, when somebody insists nothing out of the > ordinary is happening, I can only say that's not my > experience; and that if they were to have the same > experience, they would have to acknowledge that at > least an out-of-the-ordinary *experience* is taking > place. Maybe that's all it is. But I doubt it's all > just "suggestion." I don't know how you *could* > "suggest" some of the experiences when they're > virtually impossible to describe. I've had millions of wild experiences meditating and hopping about, the thing is whether it's out of the ordinary in the sense of normal mental functioning being changed in a biophysical and thus subjective experiental way, or in a violation of physics kind of way, which is what JH claims. Will one lead to the other? If not, how long can they keep telling people that it will before they start asking questions?
