Levitation
Paramahamsa Nithyananda’s Experience of Levitation with Yogananda Puri
Yogananda Puri was one of Paramahamsa Nithyananda’s biggest spiritual influences as a child. He was trained in the Natha sampradaya in Burma for many years until he migrated back to Thiruvannamalai where he was born and brought up. Yogananda Puri gave Paramahamsa Nithyananda initiation after initiation into new powers. He used to make the young incarnation do Surya Namaskar from sunrise to sunset without a break. Because of this, Paramahamsa Nithyananda laughingly describes his relationship with Yogananda Puri as a love-hate relationship.
“For few days, I would refuse to see him. Then suddenly, I would feel love for him and just go and sit on his lap” he said.
No matter what, Paramahamsa Nithyananda always recognizes how much Yogananda Puri gave him. That is why he was given the title by Paramahamsa Nithyananda, “The Yogi that made me a Yogi”
Paramahamsa Nithyananda once told Yogananda Puri, as a thirteen year old, “When you attain samadhi, I’ll build a big temple for you!”
“No, no, no” he refused in response. “I will see to it you aren’t there when I leave the body. I don’t want anything from you. If anything, just promise me you will go on making yogis like I made you”
Paramahamsa Nithyananda promised. Today, he declared that he was keeping his word through his gurukal students. As the rst to receive and express these shaktis, they are the fulfillment of his promise to Yogananda Puri.
He has said, “They are the embodiment of Yogananada Puri”
This technique took the most time to perfect in Paramahamsa Nithyananda’s body when he was a child. He didn’t stand for any less than the authentic levitation where the body lifts at least 2 feet off the ground, remains there for sometime and then gracefully drifts down. This was the standard to which he had to keep himself so that he could initiate people fteen years later, in a hall lled with devotees. And if not himself, he had Yogananda Puri to always keep that standard up for him.
One time, Yogananda Puri had drawn a mandala on the ground and told Paramahamsa Nithyananda to sit immediately. He began sounding out the Shodasi syllables to awaken the kundalini. Immediately, like disciples often do, eight year old Paramahamsa Nithyananda began moving around uidly, jumping in the air messily, rotating his torso in circles and so forth.
Suddenly, Yogananda Puri just snapped and told him to stop. Without wavering his voice, he told the future guru, “Ay, you can’t move your body like this. In the future, millions will be jumping around you. You have to stay strong,”
Without a second thought, Paramahamsa Nithyananda sat completely] straight, as if something was pulling his spine up. Just as he sits during Shivoham processes and every disciple tumbles and turns around him in the Shivabodha of Oneness. Paramahamsa Nithyananda recounts what his experience and training with levitation was like. He shares how it took him six years of training with his yoga guru to levitate, and the subtle processes he went through for perfecting the science of levitation.
Six Years to Levitate
For Yogananda Puri it took six years for him to make me levitate. He would make me inhale and hold. Inhale and holding is called Kumbhaka. Then he would remove the beds. I had to remain in that space for sixty seconds, and the oor beneath was hard cement oor. Then my landing would be slow because I know, if not, my back would break. Your balanced samana will make you land on the ground slowly.
He was sitting on a wooden plank. I was sitting on some four, ve pillows because he was trying to make me levitate. That’s the way he would do it. He would put some four, ve pillows and a bed. I had to sit on that and continuously do the pranayam. Once I had intensely done the pranayam and stabilized, he would remove the pillows one by one. I had to remain in the air. That is the way he taught levitation.
If I was going down when he removed the pillow, he would stop and ask me to do more pranayama and kumbhaka. Then after he removed all the pillows, if I was stable in the air, he would get his pet dog to sit under me. That fellow will be sitting under me so I would have to be holding on to that air. I cannot release. I will have to completely lock the kumbhaka because if I released I would fall on the ground and I will fall on that fellow and that fellow would bite me.
So I will have to be just holding on or even if I land, I have to land in a very slow way. Very slowly in a very subtle way I had to release the air not even through the nose. I had to release the air through the kurma nadi. This means such sensitive prana; through the middle ngers I had to release the air, only then I could land very smoothly. If you release the air through the nostril itself you will just fall because nostril is too big a hole. So that has to be locked. The releasing has to happen through the kurma nadi. I had to balance and land on the dog so that he wouldn’t bite me.
Power of Psychological, Physiological & Physical Levitation
When breathing and thinking happen together, the process is called ‘Prana.’ When the person is breathing but not thinking, for example, during midnight deep sleep – when there are no dreams - that process is called ‘Samana.’ This makes the whole psychology so light that the person feels like it is owing. It is oating on the air. When psychological levitation happens, automatically physiological levitation starts happening. levitation rises and keeps it in the air for quite a few minutes. The body starts jumping, moving up and down on the ground. Then the physical
Understand, this is in three steps - psychological levitation; feeling so much of lightness. You will feel as though your whole being is floating. Second, physiological levitation: means your intra-organs will become light and will start jumping. Equivalent to your weight the Samana will get filled in you, so it will jump and in a few seconds will fall back. It will jump and fall back. That is physiological levitation.
Then comes physical levitation, means more than your physical weight the Samana energy will stay in you. So for that many seconds or minutes you will be in the air. You will literally have the Shiva Bodha, the joy of patternless-ness, the joy of auspiciousness.”
Levitation is the most visible indication that the grip of karmas is reducing; the willingness to let go of pain, fear and guilt has started to happen.
For the spiritual seeker, levitation can be experienced at a beginner’s level with the grace and initiation of Paramahamsa Nithyananda. When the Kundalini energy is activated, innumerable practical bene ts will manifest in various dimensions of life; health, wealth, relationships, education, career and more are experienced. Levitation of the participant’s body is often a tangible, side e ect of the spiritual awakening.
Levitation is a result of balancing of the Samana. Samana is a process that is responsible for moving the air all over the body from the tips of ten ngers and toes to the Sahasrara (Crown) Chakra. The prana or life-force energy is stored in tiny air sacs beneath each hair of the skin. The air sacs get the life energy from the Cosmos. If these air sacs are lled and balanced throughout the body, levitation can be experienced.
Awakening Levitation
Burning all pain patterns by doing Samskara Dahana Kriya is important before this initiation. Psychological levitation and physiological levitation are two powers related to the Sahasrara chakra. When the air energy is equal to the body weight of the participant, the lifting of the body happens.
“When you breathe with thinking; means with the breathing, thinking is also happening. at is called prana. In the night deep sleep, your breathing will happen but thinking is not happening. at is called Samana. Now even when you are awake, I am going to infuse Samana in you.”
References
http://books.nithyanandatimes.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2016/12/ManifestingShaktisBook_WebRes_20Dec16_Preview.pdf http://articles.nithyananda.org/2012/09/levitation/ https://innerawakening.org/welcome-brochure-feb-2017-2/. http://articles.nithyananda.org/2012/09/levitation/