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The Making of a Mystic

an anyone become a mystic?

Bhakta Vishita says: "Seership is such a science
that few will fail at it. It is safe to say that in our
present stage of evolution, seventy five percent can
become partly lucid, seventy five can become sensitives,
forty five can reach the second degree of seership, thirty
two the third, fourteen the fourth, five the fifth and
two the highest degree of seership. O u t of one hundred
men, fifty c a n become seers; out of two hundred
women, one hundred seventy can become so."
Yet one finds more males than females among the
current sages, though recently with the woman's lib
movement, some attention is being paid to women
mystics as well. But the sages who jet abroad to spread
our brand of mysticism far and wide, are still very much
men; so are the local sadhus to whom the devoted rush
for all physical, mental and emotional ills.
Nor is the number of current seers indicative of these
generous statistics. In fact, the estimate of Robert
Graves seems closer to reality. He said to ColirLWilson:
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"Occult powers are riot so rare: one person in every

twenty possesses them in some form."
A magician I met endorsed this view. His name was
V.G. Kalkundrikar and he had made a deep study of
astrology. "Do you know," he said to me, "mystics are
made by planetary configurations? I don't mean the run
of the mill magician of whom there are so many. There
is nothing in magic really-no supreme power, no
dabbling in the astral. The variety of stage magic you see
is just sleight-of-hand and trickery with specially
manufactured gadgets. Even a phenomenon like levitation has a perfectly reasonable explanation, but if I tell
you the secret there will be no trick in it. It is the same
with apparently hypnotising t h e audience or even
materialising bunnies from hats, or sawing a lady in
half. What I was referring to, was true "mysticism", the
striving for super powers through spiritual bliss. I have
found that only people born at certain times will be
right for mysticism."
"How do you know?"
"Not by magic, I can assure you," he laughed. "I have
completed a study of astrology. The mystic realm has
always been a passion with me. I am busy collecting the
horoscopes of all the sages and saints I can encounter
and studying the planets at the time of their birth. I
have made some astounding discoveries."
"Won't you tfell me about them?"
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He hesitated for a fraction of a second and then said,

"I am writing a book about my discoveries in Marathi.
But I will give you a rough idea of the part t h a t
concerns your work."
I waited with bated breath.
"Sages and saints," he said, "can only be found in
four broad categories out of the twelve signs of the
zodiac. There again, not everyone who is born in one of
those four signs, can become a mystic. It happens only
if that particular sign is ascendent at the time of birth'.
The ascendent is a very sensitive point in any horoscope. By 'ascendent' we mean of course, rising in the
east at the time of birth."
I learnt that this ascendent retains that position for
only two hours, a terribly short time in which to
produce an appreciable number of mystics, though
population statistics mentions that a child is born every
minute at some place in the world.
"The first sign responsible for the acquisition of
siddhis," said Kalkundrikar, "is Meena (Pisces). Sant
Tukaram and Ramakrishna Paramahansa, were influenced by Meena. People with Meena in the ascendent and
who take to the mystic path, will be able to realise the
fruits of their penance and meditation very quickly and
without undue effort. Miracles will also come easily to
them, almost like second nature.
The second sign is Dhanu (Saggitarius). But since
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Saggitarius is made up of intellect and faith it will be

more balanced. Vivekananda belonged to this sign.
There was a fiery element in him which was always
reaching out to the others. There was authority in his
speech which often glimmered with great wisdom. But
again it must be mentioned that people with Dhanu in
the ascendent will n o t perform miracles. It will be
against their grain to do showy things to attract
attention. They will draw people to them nonetheless,
by their intellectual power and 'bhakti'.
T h e third sign, Scorpio, is peculiar. This ascendent is
made up of complex components. In this category you
will find saints, engineers, doctors and even robbers.
All these people are Raj Yogis. If they drift into
sainthood, austerity will be an alien word to them
because they are great lovers of life and comfort. They
will tend to make a great display of their super powers,
win love and admiration from their audience and of
course ensure an inexhaustible supply of money to
enable them to live a leisured life. But there is something talismanic about them which will make material
comfort come their way without their specifically having
to seek it out."
This probably explains why we have so m u c h
evidence of the luxury-loving sage or prophet, who
literally lives off his devotees in five star-hotels, iets all
over the world at somebody else's expense and puts his
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children in expensive boarding schools, besides loving

his food and drink and basking in the public limelight.
This love of the luxurious life is to be blamed on the
sage's horoscope and does not in any way make him less
of a mystic. It only makes him more of a man! Not to
speak of the shadow it casts on the entire tribe of
mystics, even the austere ones, who have to suffer the
taunts of observers. In a world where success, even of
the spiritual sort, is measured in terms of material gain,
the Scorpio "ascendent" mystic often makes the biggest
splash, which may dazzle us enough to disregard the
true sages who sit in the shadow.
T h e last of the signs responsible for sainthood is
Cancer. W h e n this is in the ascendent, Hatha-Yogis are
born who believe in the Yoga of body control. They
perform fantastic feats like stopping the heart-beat and
pulse, having themselves buried alive to defy the
elements and display the sturdiness of their bodies.
Some of them even stop their blood from flowing and
often go into long trances where the body seems dead
but is actually in a state of hibernation. It is sought by
this process to lengthen the life span.
As one mystic, Avinash Chandra, put it: "I often go
into trances of meditation where I see nothing, though
my eyes are open. My breathing slows down and I am
dead to the world, yet fully alive mentally. A man who
does this can defy death."
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This is mentioned in our ancient texts where a man's

life span was measured by the number of breaths he
took in his lifetime. According to this m e t h o d of
calculation, nature has given every m a n a total of
21,600 breath rhythms, which he must use up daily
during the course of his sleeping and waking life. So, a
person whose breathing is slow ir) rhythm will apparently live longer t h a n one who' takes quick, short
breaths. The whole purpose of going into hibernation is
to increase one's life span. It is rather like putting
money into a bank instead of using it up. Only in this
case, you put your unused breaths into a gigantic
breath bank instead of using them up. You get thereby
at the tail end of your life, a new lease of survival. It
actually makes no difference whether you take those
breaths now or use them ,up later. In fact it might be
more prudent to take thSt span of life when you are
younger and can enjoy it,' rather than spend your youth
in meditation and get aT>onus of extra breaths at a
doddering old age!
T h e breaths have b e e n measured out to you by
destiny, just as money is measured out and you will get
just that much and no more. So what is called "defying
death" is really nothing more than a postponement of
the evil hour. N o one can really fight death, though
there are sages in the Himalayas who are reputed to be
200 or 300 years old. Even Meher Baba, who made the
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wild claim that he would not die, died, though that is

not the correct word. A mystic does not die but attains
"samadhi" a word which was coined, I think, as a facesaving device to make the mystic seem superior to
other men and set him distinctly apart.
Under the sign of Cancer, fall sages like Aurobindo
Ghosh, Dyaneshwar Maharaj and Gulvani Maharaj,
There may be others today, who have elevated HathaYoga to a fine art.
Mustafa, the mystic and magician, for instance, does
dare-devil feats like having a man jump on his stomach
from a great height, putting a nail in one eye and
taking it out through the other. But when I asked him if
he was born with . Cancer in the ascendent, he said, "I
happen to be born on 6th January 1936 at 8.41 pm."
This assertion apparently topples Kalkundrikar's carefully formulated theories about mystics. But Mustafa
comes to the rescue saying, "I feel I must be an
exception to the rule - for you must agree I am a
revolutionary character."
Perhaps even the flesh mortifiers whom you see
standing on the steps of Varanasi with pierced lips and
withered limbs, were all born with C a n c e r in the
ascendent. Only no one has asked them.

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