A Peek Through the Third Eye

By Mike
Vancouver, Canada

At the 2007 USA Retreat I had a really nice experience with mantras. In one of the practices we chanted a clairvoyance mantra (SUI RA) for around 40 minutes as a group. Clairvoyance is a faculty that allows us to see things "non-physically" with our so called "third eye". Before we began, the teacher leading the practice told us to concentrate really hard on the mantra because afterward we were going to do a little experiment.

It sounded very exciting. So I did my best to concentrate on chanting the mantra, feeling the vibrations and not allowing other thoughts to distract me. When we finished chanting, the teacher brought in a small box and asked us to see what was inside of it. We all got a piece of paper and were allowed to write down our guesses; we were allowed up to two.

Initially I wrote down "rock," but, after writing that down, it didn't feel right. Seeing as we were allowed two guesses, I decided to guess again. On my second guess I tried to get a feel for what the object was and this time I was inspired to write down "leaf" - this had a better feel to it than "rock".

Anyway, as it turned out, inside the box there was a leaf! Initially this was a pleasant surprise. But my doubts began to kick in very soon. Being on a retreat out in nature, I thought, "What else could it have been? A leaf is one of the few obvious choices. Maybe this wasn't the result of any spiritual faculties. How do I really know this mantra helped with clairvoyance?"

Once we had discussed the practice as a group, just before leaving the practice room, I thought I'd try another test of clairvoyance. "What will be served at dinner?" I asked myself. I took a few seconds to really try to clear my mind and relax and then a chicken drumstick came to my mind's eye.

Sure enough, that evening at dinner the retreat caterers had prepared chicken and there were indeed drumsticks! I had the vegetarian meal, but the drumsticks were at the meal and that's all that mattered to me.

From these two simple personal experiences, I gained clear experimental evidence that mantras can give rise to spiritual faculties.