Stephen Hawking and the Yogis

Yoga Discussion General Yoga
#1

so i’ve been reading stephen hawking’s “brief history of time” and watching his into the universe program, and its very enjoyable, and he does a pretty good job making stuff clear. however, some of the stuff he talks about like time travel, seems to be known to some degree by great yogis.

for example, there is a chapter in autobiography of a yogi where sri yukteswar leads a man into their ashram to steal a cauliflower from under yogananda’s bed. he kind of planted the idea in the mans head, and told yogananda about it before it happened. another example is a story about neem karoli baba holding someone back from taking a trip on a train, a day later they found out the train they would have been on crashed. now, are these not some degree of time travel? is time travel just some sort of divine/ultimate knowledge, something a yogi would possess? i forget the exact word, but the samadhi that a great yogi is continually in, seems like thats what these physicists wish they knew.

i’m coming from the perspective where i truly believe in the amazing and far out stories about yogis (check out stories on tatwale baba). the more i read stephen hawking and watch his programs the more i can’t help but feel him and others like him are just many lifetimes behind the great yogis.

any thoughts on this?

#2

Autobiography of a yogi, put it next to your Harry Potter novels.

Notice that in Hindu literature, time travel is never mentioned, even though many siddhis are spoken of.

#3

Bluegreen,

You would like the book, “The Yoga of time travel” by Fred Alan Wolf.

In the Yoga yore, I cannot think of specific examples where time travel is mentioned, but there is an example of time dilation mentioned in a myth in the puranas. When a Rishi goes to visit Brahma in Brahmaloka to consult him to find a man for his daughter. He is asked to wait for a day to see him. When he eventually gets to talk to Brahma, Brahma laughs “While you have been waiting here, eons have passed already on Earth” He explains that time is flowing at different rates in different lokas.

There are of course many stories in Yoga lore of prophecy and precognition when a future event is foretold or known before it happens.

Ultimately in Yoga time or space do not really exist, or exist only at the level of the mind. In Samkhya philosophy, which is the philosophy underpinning Yoga, it is explained that all events are already pre-existent, only certain conditions allow events to manifest. The example they give is of flood-gate which is stopping the flow of water into the garden, but when the flood gate is lifted the water flows into the garden. Time is just like this. When certain conditions are created it allows for certain pre-existent possibilities to manifest.

#4

i just mentioned time travel because that was the last episode i watched. but stuff like the 8 psychic powers blows through all the “advances” physicists are making. when i studied at my ashram in india we had a samadhi lecture from the scientific point of view, which was really interesting, but at the end our teacher told us ultimately yoga is beyond that idea of science.

now i didn’t believe much when i first read autobiography of a yogi, but over the years the more i’ve studied yoga, studied in india, it just seems logical that if you truly meditate, and meditate often, and are able to reach samadhi, many “secrets” people are looking for become known. not that this is the goal, its just something that happens.

i’ve never been a math person or physicist but since i’ve really started studying yoga i see physics in a whole new light, and find the connection between yoga and physics fascinating. and whats more fascinating is it seems like everything these physicists are working towards is really already within us, as is evident in the great yogis and sages.