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it was in mediaeval times, there are also authentic instances where a definite alteration of
personality has occurred as a result of yoga or other form of spiritual effort, undertaken
deliberately and continued for some time, resulting ultimately in the sudden or slow
development of abnormal psychic faculties and extraordinary mental attributes not visible
before. What is the mystery behind this oft-repeated and generally accepted phenomenon?
What force, spiritual, psychical or physical, is set into motion automatically or by voluntary
striving, which, working mysteriously according to its own inscrutable laws, brings about a
radical change in the organism, moulding it into a distinct type with certain common
characteristics that have distinguished mystics and seers of all ages and climes?
Not only in India but in almost all the countries professing a revealed faith, the belief in the
efficacy of worship, prayer, and other religious practices to induce a mental condition
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favourable to the dispensation of divine grace has been current from time immemorial, and
the transformation occurring in consequence of such practices is, therefore, naturally
attributed to divine favour. It must be remembered however, that a hasty recourse to
supernatural agencies to account for any obscure phenomenon not explicable by the intellect
has been a marked feature of man's existence from the earliest stage of his development as a
rational being, and is almost as common now in the lower strata of any society as it was in
pre-historic times. The habit is still there in the majority of mankind, though its operation has
been somewhat restricted owing to the explanations furnished by science for many previously
obscure phenomena of nature.
To bring in divinity for the explanation of isolated phenomena, when its perpetual suzerainty
over the whole universe and its position as the primordial cause of all existence is recognized,
is an inconsistency of which seasoned intellects should not be guilty. When viewed in the
light of such recognition, neither a leaf can stir nor an atom move nor a raindrop descend nor
any creature breathe without divine providence; the inconsistency lies in furnishing rational
explanations for some of the problems and invoking a supermundane agency for the rest. To
the great sorrow of mankind this has always been done in respect of matters temporal on the
one hand and spiritual on the other. It has to be admitted that matter and spirit are radically
different, perhaps diametrically opposite propositions, and that, therefore, what is true of one
may not be true of the other; but that can only serve as a sound reason for employing different
methods of approach to the problems presented by each, and not for denying to one what we
concede to the other when the two owe their origin to the same eternal cause. The existence of
extraordinary intellectual talent in some and less in others or of spiritual and psychic gifts in a
few and none in the rest should not, therefore, be attributed to divine intervention; there can
be no pampered favourites in the just hierarchy of heaven. But as in the case of material
phenomena, the variations from the rule, repeatedly observed, should act as a spur to goad the
intellect to the investigation of the problems presented by the extraordinary achievements of
men of genius on the one hand and the amazing performances of men of vision on the other.
Working from this angle the first effort of any investigator should be directed towards
ascertaining the degree of relationship between the body and the mind to determine whether
the conditions and actions of the former invariably affect the latter and vice versa, or if each
functions completely or partially as an independent unit. Only a moment's thought is enough
to convince even the least intelligent that the body and mind are indissolubly bound to each
other from birth to death, each exerting a tremendous influence over the other at every
moment of their joint existence to such an extent that many keen observers are sharply
divided on the issue as to whether mind is the product of the biochemical reactions of the
body or the latter is the result of the ideative processes of the mind. One is astounded at the
depth of knowledge and the keenness of intellect displayed on either side but neither group
has been able to win the other completely to its view. For the purpose of our point it is enough
to say that body and mind are mutually dependent and responsive to such an amazing extent
that not an eyelid flickers nor does a muscle move nor an artery throb without the knowledge
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