THE POWERS OF THE MIND- 20. - Swami Vivekananda

(Delivered at Los Angeles, California, January 8, 1900)
20.

The whole idea was to get at the basis, to reach the fine parts of the thing.
And some of them really showed most marvellous powers.
Many of them were trying to float in the air or pass through it.
I shall tell you a story which I heard from a great scholar in the West.

It was told him by a Governor of Ceylon who saw the performance.
A girl was brought forward and seated cross-legged upon a stool made of sticks crossed.
After she had been seated for a time, the show-man began to take out, one after another, these cross-bars; and when all were taken out, the girl was left floating in the air.
The Governor thought there was some trick, so he drew his sword and violently passed it under the girl; nothing was there.
Now, what was this?

It was not magic or something extraordinary.
That is the peculiarity.
No one in India would tell you that things like this do not exist.
To the Hindu it is a matter of course.
You know what the Hindus would often say when they have to fight their enemies — "Oh, one of our Yogis will come and drive the whole lot out!"

 It is the extreme belief of the race.
What power is there in the hand or the sword?
The power is all in the spirit.
Swami Vivekananda
  To be continued  ....