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OCCULT POWERS
It is inherently pure, but has never lived in a perfectly pure state; it has always lived in some body. The spiritual condition is the opposite condition, and therefore, compared with this the material condition is impure and fallen. This being the idea of the nature of the soul, nothing comes to the soul; it is inherently omniscient. It only expels and drives away some of the impure particles at certain times, and when it has dispelled all these is seen actually by European travellers in India. A Frenchman who travelled in India in the eighteenth century has written of seeing there Buddhist monks living in the forest, and sleeping oftentimes in the shade of trees without any protection, and that the wild beasts did not harm them at all. Other travellers also passed through the same part of the country, these would take special care to protect themselves from the attacks of the wild animals, but these same wild beasts liked the feet of the sleeping monks and made no attempt to injure them, and mixed with them without any fear or reserve. There was no magic in it, no hypnotism, except as there may be found a certain influence which you may call hypnotism every where; it was only the result of the practise of universal love. Where it is practised to its full extent, where the whole being is saturated with love and with nothing else, these vibrations are very powerful, and they will control the fierce nature of the wild beasts, and the wild beasts would feel the effect, the influence of these vibrations and dare not attack the person from whose body they are issuing. That is one reason why the
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