Yoga Practice with Yogi-Friends Hereafter
During meditation on February 2, 2016, there was a visitor who also wanted to sit to meditate. This person, Sir Paul Castagna, uses only a subtle body, his physical body being deceased. Sometimes he comes to do breath-infusion practice and then meditation, but on this occasion, it was just for the meditation session.
It could be though that he did the breath infusion session in an invisible astral dimension. There are many such places, more than one can count.
Just moments after he sat down, another visitor sat next to him. This was Arthur Beverford, my first yoga teacher who is now deceased as well. Sir Paul said this:
Being in your presence has quickly resumed a healthy profile for my subtle body. The breath infusion too helps considerably. It caused my fragmented subtle form to be all together again in a way I recognize. It seems that my physical form’s illness cause the subtle body to break up into shadow-like energy fragments which were all there but fractured. Now it is all together again.
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After Sir Paul said that, Arthur Beverford suggested this:
We should, the three of us, stick together. I feel that I and Sir Paul should wait in the astral existence until you leave your body. Then we can do meditation together and finish out the practice as we should have. That is the best plan, I feel. What do you think?
For this Sir Paul said nothing because he had already internalized and his subtle sense of hearing was shut down. I replied with this:
It is a good idea. If a yogi can, he should complete the practice in the astral existence and avoid taking another physical body. There is no telling how the history of human society will be altered. Taking a physical body is more risky. If we stick together that would guarantee that we all keep advancing. Otherwise extraneous influences will creep in and we will find ourselves as somebody’s child somewhere somehow.
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One day after Srila Yogeshwarananda complained about Arthur Beverford’s smoking habit. He said this:
How can someone expect to be a yogi if he smokes tobacco, even astral tobacco? Any such habit which a yogi carries with him hereafter is counterproductive to the practice.
He does not smoke when he is with us but every so often he gets up and goes off to smoke somewhere. He has to stop this or he will disband himself from us by this habit.
There are so many habits which are a problem if these persist hereafter, like sexual intercourse, overeating, smelling scents, narcotic taking, herb smelling, desire for political power and control over others. Any one of the senses even the evasive feeling sense, even emotional addictions, may cause a yogi to desist and return to the material existence. Everyone should take note.
He is your friend. You should speak to him about it.
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There was no need to mention it to Beverford because he heard what the guru said. He would have to decide what to do. Somehow or the other he has to discipline his life force which calls for the tobacco every so often.
One has to allow these negative habits to gradually die out. As one exerts and gradually climbs up a steep mountain, so sometimes one must exert even to safely go down the mountain side. It may seem that climbing a mountain is more difficult then descending from it. However, if the face of the mountain is very steep, the descent will require more exertion than the ascent. It will also require more tactful maneuvers otherwise one is likely to break one’s vertebrate in the descent.
