ANCIENT MYSTICS
This text was machine-transcribed from the printed book and may contain errors. Select the words and choose “Report a mistake”.
The all knowing civilization
Patanjali, the Father of Yoga says, 'When you can look outside, when you can look at the body from outside, why can't you look from within, from inside?' He says, we have the ability to look. We have the capacity to look inside, and another thing - in those days, the ancient Masters had the power to look. How can we understand this?
When there were no surgeries, when there were no diagnostic machines, when there were no other possible means of knowing what was inside the body five thousand years ago, when there were no X-rays, no other diagnostic methods like endoscopy, MRI's, Ultra Sounds or other investigative procedures, all our great Masters, our ancient Indian doctors have described very clearly, not only the bone structure but even the nervous system and the energy centers! Everything was clearly described and recorded by them in the Yoga Sutra, by Ayurveda and Sushruta!
How? How could they have done it? How were they able to achieve this? They were able to do this because they were able to see the body from within.
In Tamil Nadu, a state in Southern India, there was a great tradition of enlightened doctors. We called them Siddha Parampara. Not only were they enlightened, they were alchemists as well, who created medicines for diseases and for prolonging one's life span. They spoke extensively about the various parts of the body, giving detailed descriptions exactly the way modern medicine would. One important difference is, modern medicine describes cases only after the person dies. The research done by most of the modern medical doctors is either after the person is dead or when a part is diseased or when a part is separated from the body. They do not conduct studies on healthy, energetic people.
In the Siddha tradition, not only did they study healthy energetic people but they also studied the effects of medicines they created, on themselves. There was a great Siddha who would first take the medicine himself. He would see the effect it had on his body, and record it. He would take the medicine and study the effects: which part of the body was responding to the medicine, which part of the body was directly connecting with the medicine, whether there were any side effects, and then record it! It means he must have been tremendously aware of his body. Unless the Siddhas were able to look inside, they would not have been able to do all this research.
Yoga says we have the tremendous power to see inside.
At least till the age of five, every one of us had the power to see things within, till our visualization was attracted towards the outer world. We had the power to use our visualization towards the outer world and the inner world. Once our visualization was attracted more towards the outer world, we lost the power to see the inner world, the inside of the body. Also over time, because of the fear of what one could see, we avoided looking in, thereby suppressing that power.
Paramahamsa Actualize Your Potential - Shiva Sutras 23 Mar 2006, Houston, USA
A wandering sannyasi at the Ardh Kumbh Mela that happened in Allahabad in 2007. Paramahamsa visited with a group of disciples.
