The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1880-09-24
YOGA.
IHindeOs Living For Days and Months
without Food, Water or Air.
Northern Christian Advocate.

Northern Christian Advocate.
For ages the ascetics in India have
been accustomed to practice what they
call Yoga or Joga, and the school OF
Hindoo philosophers known as Yoga has
many volumes of instruction in the vari-
Gus degrees of this art There are two
special and many subordinate forms of
Yoga, and we may say it is mental
abstraction, or silent prayer, or the
union of mind to soul; but materially it
is, in fact, the art of voluntarily suspend
ing the circulation and respiration. The
Hindoo motive is to secure absorption
into the deity by this process.
The physical and material processes
are open to the interests of science if any
body can make any thing of them in
that direction, and we suppose they
really can. The treatise before me as
serts that in this state the persons are
not poisoned by snake-bites, which
might prove that the circulation was
really suspended, and that snake poison
only operates by entering the circulation
of the blood. The person remains I'M
affected by the cutting of weapons, and
gives no symptoms of pain when brought
III contact with fire. He can not be
drowned wnen submerged in water, nor
does he dry up when exposed to air.
An English surgeon, by the name of
McGregor, gives the following: GA
Faqueer who arrived at Lahore engaged
to bury himself for any length OF time,
shut up III box and without either food
or drink. Ranjeet naturally disbelieved
the mans assertions, and was determined
70 hAv 10
the Faqueer was shut up in a wooden
box, which was placed in small apart
ment under ground; there was folding
door to his box, which was secured by a
lock and key. Surrounding this apart
ment there was garden-house, the door
OF which was likewise locked, and out
side the whole was high wall, having
its doorway built up with bricks and
mud. In order to prevent any one from
approaching the place, line OF sentries
was placed, and relieved at regular in
tervals. The strictest watch was kept
up for forty days and nights, at the ex-
piration of which period the Maharaiah,
attended by his grandson and several of
his Sirdars, as well Us General Ventura,
Captain Wade and myself, proceeded to
disinter the Faqueer. The brick and
mud were removed from the outer door
way; the door of the garden-house was
next unlocked, and lastly that of the
wooden box containing the Faqueer.
The latter was found covered with a
white sheet, on removing which the
figure of the man presented itself in a
sitting posture. His hands and arms
were pressed to his sides, and his legs
and thighs crossed.
Another case is certified to by Lieuten-
ant Boileau of young man who allowed
himself to be buried for weeks or months
by any person who would pay him hand
somely for it. He was buried at Jaislllner
in n small building about twelve feet by
eight, built of stone. In the floor was q
hole three feet long, two and half feet
wide and yard deep, in which he was
placed sewed up in a shroud Two heavy
slabs of stone, six feet long, several
inches thick and broad enough to cover
the mouth of the grave, were placed over
him, and little earth plastered over the
whole, making the surface smooth and
compact. The door of the house was
then built up, and guards stationed out
side. At the expiration of a month the
man was dug out, perfectly senseless.
His hair had not grown, his hands were
cramped and teeth so jammed together
that they had to be forced open with an
iron instrument. Then came the pro-
cesses for restoration
These are cases of Hatha Yogis, and
the process is simply that of hybernatioh,
the ability for which is acquired by long
practice in holding the breath and stop
ping the circulation of the blood.