MAGIC AND MIRACLES
Paramahansa Yogananda, in his book, Autobiography of a Yogi, speaks of magic and the law of miracles.
He defines magic, or performing miracles, as the ability to manipulate light. Referring to Einstein's famous equation, E=mc2, he says that masters who are able "to materialize and dematerialize their bodies and other objects, and to move with the velocity of light, and to utilize the creative light rays in bringing into instant visibility any physical manifestation, have fulfilled the lawful condition, their mass is infinite." (Paramahansa Yoganada, Autobiography of a Yogi, p. 269.)
He goes on to say that "the law of miracles is operable by any man who has realized that the essence of creation is light. A master is able to employ his divine knowledge of light phenomena to project instantly into perceptible manifestation the ubiquitous light atoms. The actual form of the projection (whatever it be: a tree, a medicine, a human body) is determined by the yogi's wish and by his power of will and of visualization.
At night man enters the state of dream-consciousness and escapes from the false egoistic limitations that daily hem him round. In sleep he has an ever-recurrent demonstration of the omnipotence of his mind. Lo! In the dream appear his long-dead friends, the remotest continents, the resurrected scenes of his childhood.
That free and unconditional consciousness, which all men briefly experience in certain of their dreams, is the permanent state of mind of a God-tuned master. Innocent of all personal motives, and employing the creative will bestowed on him by the creator, a yogi rearranges the light atoms of the universe to satisfy any sincere prayer of a devotee." (Paramahansa Yoganada, Autobiography of a Yogi, p. 270-271.)
He also says that "One's values are profoundly changed when he is finally convinced that creation is only a vast motion picture, and that not in it, but beyond it, lies his own reality." (Paramahansa Yoganada, Autobiography of a Yogi, p. 273-4.)
All that is one way of looking at magic and miracles, but try these that follow too:
In the first, Laurens Van Der Post, the famous explorer and writer, has come back to Africa on a surveying mission for the British government. Just before setting out on his venture to the interior, he ventures into his own interior, beginning his inner journey with a high fever.
"I have had fevers of many kinds in all sorts of places and circumstances, and I believe I can now tell when their origin is purely physical, and when it is not....
For me, one of the most striking things about fevers is their mysterious connection with our sense of time and space. It is almost as if one incorporates within one's own individual being all the time that has been and can ever be, and that fever is either the vehicle itself, or evidence of the means by which one is forced from one time context into another. The moment one's temperature changes from normal, one's self ceases to be contemporary....
Heaven knows I do not want to confuse an experience which is already far enough beyond the reach of words, but I would be running away from what the journey meant to me did I not stress that in this place and time, or wherever it is that one goes with one's fever, it is almost as if the past, the present and the future move so close to one another that they become one....
All I would suggest is that the future had begun to register a new design in my blood, and that the fever marked the beginning of its struggle for awareness." (Laurens Van Der Post, Venture to the Interior, p. 105-6.)
Then there is Don Juan, trying to explain to Carlos Castaneda what he means by will.
First he tries a left-brained, rational approach, saying that a "sorcerer uses his will to perceive the world. That perceiving, however, is not like hearing. When we look at the world or when we hear it, we have the impression that it is out there and that it is real. When we perceive the world with our will we know that it is not as 'out there' or 'as real' as we think." (Carlos Castaneda, A Separate Reality, p. 181.)
This explanation just confuses Carlos further, so Don Juan tells a story, a right-brained teaching story. "One day I was in the mountains," he said, "and I stumbled upon a puma, a female one; she was big and hungry. I ran and she ran after me. I climbed a rock and she stood a few feet away ready to jump. I threw rocks at her. She growled and began to charge me. It was then that my will fully came out, and I stopped her with it before she jumped on me. I caressed her with my will. I actually rubbed her tits with it. She looked at me with sleepy eyes and lay down and I ran like a son of a bitch before she got over it." (Carlos Castaneda, A Separate Reality, p. 186.)
Spider Robinson writes about a Crosstime saloon called Callahan's. The regulars include aliens, time travelers, talking dogs, and telepaths. Spider ends the book with a discussion about the possibility of a mysterious conspiracy of folks out to save the world.
Doc asks, "that 'mysterious force' stuff you were taking about, Jake - did you mean that literally?"
I thought about it. "You mean like a gang of sixth column missionaries, Doc? A bunch of guys working undercover like Raksha and his friends (some bad guys from earlier in the book, editor), only in reverse? No, I don't think that's the way of it...wups!"
Reaching for my glass without looking, I knocked it skittering across the bar, and leaped to grab it before it could fall into Callahan's lap. I froze for a moment, leaning half-over the bar - but I've always rather prided myself in being quick on the uptake.
"...on the other hand," I continued calmly, "maybe that's exactly right. Who knows?"
And Callahan - who was still sitting as I had seen him, his legs folded under him in the full lotus, suspended a good three feet off the floor - winked, poured my glass brimfull of Bushmill's and grinned.
"Not me," he lied, and puffed on his cigar. (Spider Robinson, Callahan's Crosstime Saloon, p. 169-70.)