In Search of the Miraculous

he said, "that immortality is not a property with which man is born. But man can acquire immortality. All existing and generally known ways to immortality can be

divided into three categories:

1. The way of the fakir.

2. The way of the monk.

3. The way of the yogi.

"The way of the fakir is the way of struggle with the physical body, the way of

work on the first room. This is a long, difficult, and uncertain way. The fakir strives to develop physical will, power over the body. This is attained by means of terrible

sufferings, by torturing the body. The whole way of the fakir consists of various

incredibly difficult physical

exercises. The fakir either stands motionless in the same position for hours, days,

months, or years; or sits with outstretched arms on a bare stone in sun, rain, and snow;

or tortures himself with fire, puts his legs into an ant-heap, and so on. If he does not

fall ill and die before what may be called physical will is developed in him, then he

attains the fourth room or the possibility of forming the fourth body. But his other

functions-emotional, intellectual, and so forth—remain undeveloped. He has acquired

will but he has nothing to which he can apply it, he cannot make use of it for gaining

knowledge or for self-perfection. As a rule he is too old to begin new work.

"But where there are schools of fakirs there are also schools of yogis. Yogis

generally keep an eye on fakirs. If a fakir attains what he has aspired to before he is

too old, they take him into a yogi school, where first they heal him and restore his

power of movement, and then begin to teach him. A fakir has to learn to walk and to

speak like a baby. But he now possesses a will which has overcome incredible

difficulties on his way and this will may help him to overcome the difficulties on the

second part of the way, the difficulties, namely, of developing the intellectual and

emotional functions.

"You cannot imagine what hardships fakirs undergo. I do not know whether you

have seen real fakirs or not. I have seen many; for instance, I saw one in the inner

court of a temple in India and I even slept near him. Day and night for twenty years he

had been standing on the tips of his fingers and toes. He was no longer able to

straighten himself. His pupils carried him from one place to another, took him to the

river and washed him like some inanimate object. But this was not attained all at

once. Think what he had to overcome, what tortures he must have suffered in order to

get to that stage.

"And a man becomes a fakir not because he understands the possibilities and the

results of this way, and not because of religious feeling. In all Eastern countries where fakirs exist there is a custom among the common people of promising to give to fakirs

a child born after some happy event. Besides this, fakirs often adopt orphans, or

simply buy little children from poor parents. These children become their pupils and

imitate them, or are made to imitate them, some only outwardly, but some afterwards

become fakirs themselves.

"In addition to these, other people become fakirs simply from being struck by some

fakir they have seen. Near every fakir in the temples people can be seen who imitate

him, who sit or stand in the same posture. Not for long of course, but still occasionally for several hours. And sometimes it happens that a man who went into the temple

accidentally on a feast day, and began to imitate some fakir who particularly struck

him, does not return home any more but joins the crowd of that fakir's disciples and

later, in the course of time, becomes a fakir himself. You must under-

stand that I take the word 'fakir' in quotation marks. In Persia fakir simply means a beggar; and in India a great many jugglers call themselves fakirs. And Europeans, particularly learned Europeans, very often give the name of fakir to yogis, as well as to monks of various wandering orders.

"But in reality the way of the fakir, the way of the monk, and the way of the yogi

are entirely different. So far I have spoken of fakirs. This is the first way.

"The second way is the way of the monk. This is the way of faith, the way of

religious feeling, religious sacrifice. Only a man with very strong religious emotions

and a very strong religious imagination can become a 'monk' in the true sense of the

word. The way of the monk also is very long and hard. A monk spends years and tens

of years struggling with himself, but all his work is concentrated on the second room,

on the second body, that is, on feelings. Subjecting all his other emotions to one emotion, that is, to faith, he develops unity in himself, will over the emotions, and in this way reaches the fourth room. But his physical body and his thinking capacities

may remain undeveloped. In order to be able to make use of what he has attained, he

must develop his body and his capacity to think. This can only be achieved by means