The TM corporation under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi -- the Beatles', Beach Boys', and other celebrities' own guru -- used to sell "levitation" during meditation, which turned out to be a kind of flipper hopping by flapping the knees, a ridiculous compromise in the way we can bend reality and language to match. Even this wouldn't be "levitation" as we understand it even with the great hang time.
(Heshers) Levitation through meditation [using same trick TV's Batman used to climb buildings]
(AS) This "yogic flying" TM style "levitation" is more embarrassing than Heshers' sill trick above.
It only took us two views to see how he's doing it, and we guarantee anyone with the right camera set up can do this tonight, with less stress on his plastic drawers from the pushing.
Buddhism's Path of Purification on levitation
95. Uplifting happiness can be powerful enough to levitate the body and
make it spring up into the air. For this was what happened to the Elder
Mahá Tissa, residing at Punnavallika.
He went to the shrine terrace on the
evening of the full-moon day. Seeing the moonlight, he turned in the direction
of the Great Shrine [at Anurádhapura], thinking:
“At this very hour the four assemblies [Note 29] are worshipping at the Great Shrine!” By means of objects
formerly seen [there] he aroused uplifting happiness with the Enlightened
One [the Buddha] as object, and he rose into the air like a painted ball bounced off a
plastered floor and alighted on the terrace of the Great Shrine.
- [Note 29: Four assemblies (parisá) Buddhist monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen.]
96. And this was what happened to the daughter of a clan in the village of
Vattakálaka near the Girikandaka Monastery when she sprang up into the air
owing to strong uplifting happiness with the Enlightened One as object.
As her
parents were about to go to the monastery in the evening, it seems, in order to
hear the Dhamma [144], they told her:
“My dear, you are expecting a child; you
cannot go out at an unsuitable time. We shall hear the Dhamma [the Buddha's Teachings] and gain merit
for you.” So they went out. And though she wanted to go, too, she could not very well
object to what they said. She stepped out of the house onto a balcony and stood
looking at the Ákásacetiya Shrine at Girikandaka lit by the moon.
She saw the
offering of lamps at the shrine and the four communities [assemblies] as they circumambulated
it to the right after making their offerings of flowers and perfumes. And she
heard the sound of the massed recital by the Community of Monastics. Then she
thought:
“How lucky they are to be able to go to the monastery and wander round
such a shrine terrace and listen to such sweet preaching of Dhamma!”
Seeing the
shrine as a mound of pearls and arousing uplifting happiness, she sprang up into
the air, and before her parents arrived she came down from the air into the shrine
terrace, where she paid homage and stood listening to the Dhamma.
97. When her parents arrived, they asked her: “What road did you come by, my dear?”
She answered, “I came through the air, not by the road.”
And when they told her, “My
dear, those whose cankers are destroyed [the enlightened] come through the air, but how did you
come?”
She replied, “As I was standing looking at the shrine in the moonlight a
strong sense of happiness arose in me with the Enlightened One as its object.
Then I knew no more whether I was standing or sitting, but only that I was
springing up into the air with the [mental] sign that I had grasped [apprehended], and I came to rest on
this shrine terrace.”
So uplifting happiness can be powerful enough to levitate the body and make it
spring up into the air.
98. But when pervading (rapturous) happiness arises, the whole body is
completely pervaded [like soap powder suffused with water], like a filled bladder, like a rock cavern invaded by a huge
inundation.
99. Now this fivefold happiness, when conceived and matured, perfects the twofold
tranquility, that is, bodily and mental tranquility. When tranquility is conceived
and matured, it perfects the twofold bliss, that is, bodily and mental bliss. When bliss
is conceived and matured, it perfects the threefold concentration, that is,
- momentary concentration [khanika samādhi],
- access [neighborhood] concentration, and
- absorption concentration [full jhana].
CHAPTER IV
The Earth Kasina
100. But as to the other word: pleasing (sukhana) is bliss (sukha). Or alternatively:
it thoroughly... More: Path of Purification (Visuddhimagga)
- Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Pat Macpherson (eds.), The Path of Purification edit
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