Yoga s

176 YOGA SŪTRAS
A spiritual master may do this after his body dies. He enters into the forms of
his disciples on earth and speaks to small or large audiences, giving instructions.
This prevents him from having to take a new material form. In that way he
remains in the astral world for many years, avoiding physical rebirth.
Some great yogis like Śrī Adi Shankaracarya and Mahayogin Śrī
Matsyendranath entered the bodies of others, while their disciples maintained
their gross bodies. They did this for special purposes. Over all, a student yogi
should not endeavor for this paraśarīrāveśaḥ siddhi since it is very dangerous.
It is said that recently in our era, T. Lobsang Rampa who was a Tibetan mystic
yogi in his past life, entered into an Englishman’s body after the said occupant
agreed to give over his body in exchange for some merits of Lobsang. Generally
such a course is not recommended for a student yogin.
If one gets in the causal plane and stays there long enough one may develop
an ability to adjust one’s resultant reactions which are left in a particular
dimension and which would forestall one’s liberation. Thus one may do so and
not have to exhibit the paraśarīrāveśaḥ siddhi. It is not recommended.
If one enters the form of another, one has to go through the channels of
that person‘s mento-emotional energy. That entails adopting part of his nature
and assuming some of his responsibilities. That is dangerous since one may
forget oneself, and begin to feel as if one is the other person, all because of
becoming too familiar in identity to that person’s psyche. Śrī Matsyendranath
even though he was a siddha at the time, was rescued by his most advanced
disciple, the mahayogin Śrī Goraksnatha. Matsyendranatha entered the body of
another person and forgot his identity after adopting the stranger’s psyche. In
the case of Śrī Adi Shankaracarya, he did not forget himself, but the queen of
the King’s body whom he adopted, wanted to kill Shankara’s yogi body. She
wanted him to stay on as her husband and not to return to his body. There are
dangers in adopting the body of another.
It is interesting that a great yogin as Śrī Adi Shankara had to enter the
almost dead body of a king, just to experience sexual intercourse with a female,
because after all a yogi can get such experiences on the astral planes which are
near to this world or he may enter a parallel world and get such experiences. It
is not necessary to enter any other person’s physical body to get such
experiences. We must conclude therefore that destiny plays hard cards against
a certain yogin at specific stages of his advancement, in order to force him to
do certain dangerous and risky things.
Śrī Adi Shankaracharya is rated as an incarnation of Lord Siva. From what I
learned in the association of the siddhas in the higher astral world, he is Skanda
Kumara, the celibate son of Lord Shiva. They claimed that due to his
insubordination to Devi, Lord Shiva’s wife, he had that difficulty in that
incarnation. If one plans to be celibate, one should not expect much help from
Goddess Durga, but all the same, She is in a position to cause disruptions in
one’s practice.