Varna Shiksha: The Qualities, Colors, Genders and Devatas of the Letters of the Sanskrit Alphabet
Varuna Purana: Illustrating Higher States of Consciousness with Stories of Lord Shiva
Paniniya Shiksha in the Rig Veda Recension
The Hamburg Atreya Shiksha Codex: Thirty-Six Texts on Vedic Phonology:
Vivek Vaidyanathan, Editor, Peter F. Freund, Contributing Editor

Yogic Flying According to Yoga Vasishtha

Published by Golden Meteor Press on the CreateSpace and KDP platforms.

Vasishtha teaches the young boy Rama, the future king of Ayodhya, through stories. Here is the story where Vasishtha explains Yogic Flying. In this true story from the ancient past, King Shikhidhvaja and Queen Chudala are a perfect couple, deeply in love, enjoying the comforts and diversions of royal life together. As they get older and realize that life is fleeting, they turn to meditation. Queen Chudala has great success and gains enlightenment, a state of complete inner and outer fulfillment. But she is unable to convince her husband of the worth of her accomplishment. So she learns Yogic Flying in order to be able to demonstrate her mastery of natural law to her husband. At this point, Rama wants to know what this Yogic Flying is. Vasishtha launches into a 220 verse exposition of the mechanics of Yogic Flying, its stages of development, and its purpose: This is the most comprehensive description of Yogic Flying available in the Vedic Literature. Vasishtha devotes one chapter to explaining the theory and practice of Yogic Flying, and then three chapters on the three stages of Yogic Flying. The first stage is lifting off the ground in short hops; the second stage is marked when the flyer remains in the air, floating; and the third stage is demonstrated by the ability to fly anywhere at will. Special attention is given to the liftoff. The moment of liftoff demonstrates supreme mind-body coordination and gives a glimpse into the world of mastery of total natural law. Even the rank beginners in the practice of Yogic Flying, lifting off the ground in short hops, can have a dramatic influence on the collective consciousness of the whole society, Vasishtha says. In the context of explaining Yogic Flying, Vasishtha teaches Rama the whole story of health and disease. The cause of all disease, Vasishtha explains, is restricted awareness, the inability to grasp the total picture of reality. The cure for this mistake of the intellect, the cure for this ignorant perception of reality according to Vasishtha, is the experience of the total potential of natural law at the moment of liftoff in Yogic Flying. Thus Yogic Flying according to the Yoga Vasishtha is the supreme technology for creating perfect health. These chapters, called Yogasara in the literature, contain the essence of the knowledge of Yoga. This is the core teaching of Yoga in the Yoga Vasishtha.

This is a new translation and commmentary by Dr. Peter Freund of seven chapters, 77-83, in volume 6, (the Nirvana-Prakarana) of the Yoga Vasishtha. This story is found on pages 422-434 in the Venkateshananda edition of Vasishtha's Yoga, published by SUNY Press, 1993, and in Volume III Part Two of the Yoga-Vasishtha-Maharamayana translated by Vihari-lala Mitra, published by Bhartiya Publishing House, 1978, pp. 409-462.

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