Why Yogis Don’t Actually Have Supernatural Powers

Why Yogis Don’t Actually Have Supernatural Powers Many yoga practitioners are fascinated by stories of yogis that could spend days while being buried underground without air among other stories of supernatural yogic feats. This creates a sense of wonder and a tiny glimpse of hope - that maybe if I practice Yoga - one day I will be able to perform a miracle too. At times it makes the yoga practice seem that much more wonderful. But is it really true that yogis have supernatural powers? And maybe there is a deeper reason why we want to believe they do? Let’s start by taking a bit of a look at the history of yogic burials. As author J.William Broad details in his book “The Science of Yoga”, - back in the day investigators who were in search of the miraculous had to pay close attention to the possibility of cheaters.

00:38 - India teemed with street magicians who did feats of illusion for a living—everything from charming snakes and dismembering one another to climbing ropes that disappeared into thin air. The ragtag clans had operated for centuries and had so refined their acts that Western conjurers often puzzled over the tricks and came to India to learn the secrets. The magicians of India typically worked hard to cultivate religious associations, invoking the names of Hindu gods and saints. So, too, many poor religious figures in India—including yogis and swamis—gave in to the temptation of doing street magic as a way to make a living and often sought to pass off simple conjuring “as miraculous evidence of divine powers,” according to Lee Siegel, an analyst of Indian magic. An Indian sociologist once disguised himself as a penniless monk.

His survey of hundreds 01:21 - of Hindu holy men found that more than 6 percent directly admitted to the performance of magic tricks and pseudo-yogic feats, including live burials. Interred performers would secretly get food or leave the cell through a secret hole. In one case, townspeople were surprised to find an ostensibly buried holy man strolling beside a river. In 1896, Hungary held a Millennial Exposition in Budapest to celebrate its first thousand years. The festivities were to include two holy men from India. The yogis were said to have the ability to go into deep trances, seeming to die, and then return from the dead. Professor Aurel von Török who was famous for his precision and cautiousness had a difficult time making arrangements to see the holy men and taking measurements. The yogis took turns displaying themselves in a glass coffin, going into trances and switching places every week or two, always with great fanfare and prayer and incantation. The awestruck crowds and all the comings and goings conflicted with the calm required for serious investigation. With some irritation, von Török noted in a preliminary report that true science was difficult under the circumstances.

Unexpected results had clearly aroused his suspicions: 02:22 - the professor studied the men carefully but could find no plunge in their vital signs. The wisdom of von Török’s caution soon became apparent. A few skeptics hid themselves in the apartment with the glass coffin. Late one night, they watched in astonishment as the lid of the coffin opened and the yogi stepped out. He proceeded to enjoy a cake and a bottle of milk. They seized the startled man, yet he and the other impostor managed to escape and saved their show for another city and another day. Later on in October 1924 an ashram devoted to the scientific study of yoga was established. While many of the studies done there benefited the yoga practice by discovering many of its benefits, the founder of the ashram Jagannath G. Gune decided to test the reality of live burials. He put his team into creating a so-called samadhi pit meant to mimic the earthen dens of the miracle workers.

Yet this one was designed to minimize the chance of extraneous variables 03:07 - — not to mention cheating. It was dug not in a field or in sand, as yogic supermen often did, but in the foundations of a laboratory, where gas flows would be easier to monitor and eliminate. The team installed a seal around the door to make it airtight. The precautions produced a samadhi pit that was completely sealed off from the outside world—the first of its kind. No air could enter or exhalations leave. The ashram took volunteers from its own ranks and beyond.

The most gifted turned out to 03:32 - be a traveling showman of athletic build who wore bangles on his wrists and trunks of tiger skin. His name was Ramandana Yogi and he performed yogic feats at country fairs. He boasted of having endured live burials for up to a month. Twice in 1962 he entered the pit. The first time he managed to withstand the chamber not for anything approaching forty days and forty nights — not even for a month or a week. He went eleven hours. His second try was better. He went eighteen hours before demanding to be let out, gasping for breath.

03:57 - In all, the scientists locked volunteers into the samadhi pit eleven times. Nothing like it had ever been done before. The results tore a hole in yoga’s legacy of miraculous claims. Today the ashram is visibly aged, but the pit is frozen in time, bright and spotless and ready for any new volunteer who might appear. It is part museum, part open challenge. Makrand Gore, a senior researcher at the ashram says that they are still ready to do this.

04:23 - A bundle of wires are hanging down from the ceiling of the samadhi pit room, awaiting a miracle worker. Gore’s boss, T. K. Bera, says the ashram had looked hard for siddhis (AKA. yogic spiritual powers) over the decades but had found no miracles as much as they tried. Bera remarked, I quote: “People say yoga is black magic. But what we’ve found is that it gives the power to live on a reduced metabolism. That’s all. It’s not magic.

” 04:45 - Of course, some people could claim that the “real yogis” are living deep in a jungle cave and they don’t come out to prove their super powers. It’s in our nature to want to believe in the grandiose, in the supernatural. It makes us feel special, like something incredible is possible that maybe one day we may tap into and many people will go far in order to find justifications why a yogic burial or other superpower was not documented in a scientific way. Yet as the famous Christopher Hitchens phrase goes: “What can be asserted without evidence, can also be dismissed without evidence.” It makes much more sense to leave our imaginations about yogic superpowers unbelieved in, unless proven otherwise by science.

Instead, it is better to focus on what really works, on the 05:33 - benefits that Are Proven By Science, since the belief in the supernatural - will not get you far. If you want more videos taking a critical look at yoga click on the playlist here. In one of the videos I share how I was a professional yoga instructor myself and how I became disillusioned by it. Also, share this video with your yogic fellows who you would want to be more rational :) And let’s keep creating a culture of critical thinking together. .