Patanjali Yoga Sutras

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goodness, bring their fruits in this life. The Yogis even hold
that men who are able to acquire a tremendous power of good
Samskaras do not have to die, but, even in this life, can
change their bodies into god-bodies. There are several cases
mentioned by the Yogis in their books. These men change the
very material of their bodies; they re-arrange the molecules in
such fashion that they have no more sickness, and what we
call death does not come to them. Why should not this be?
The physiological meaning of foot is assimilation of energy
from the sun. This energy has reached the plant, the plant is
eaten by an animal, and the animal by us. The science of it is
that we take so much energy from the sun, and make it part of
ourselves. That being the case, why should there be only one
way of assimilating energy? The plant’s way is not the same
as ours; the earth’s process of assimilating energy differs from
our own. But all assimilate energy in some form or other. The
Yogis say that they are able to assimilate energy by the power
of the mind alone, that they can draw in as much as they desire
without recourse to the orindary methods. As a spider makes
his net out of his own substance, and becomes bound in his
net, and cannot go anywhere except along the lines of that net,
so we have projected out of our own substance this net-work
called the nerves, and we cannot work except through the
channels of those nerves. The Yogi says we need not be bound
by that. Similary, we can send electricity to any part of the
world, but we have to send it by means of wires. Nature can
send a vast mass of electricity without any wires at all. Why
cannot we do the same? We can send mental electricity. What
we call mind is very much the same as electricity. It is clear
that this nerve fluid has some amount of electricity, because it
is polarised, and it answers all electrical directions. We can
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