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kinds of strength; perception of the small, the concealed, and the distant; knowledge of other inhabited regions; knowledge about the stars and their motions; knowledge of the interior of the body; control of hunger and thirst; steadiness; seeing the adepts in one's own interior light; general intuition; understanding of the mind; entering the bodies of others; lightness and levitation; brightness; control of material elements; control of the senses; perfection of the body; quickness of the body. . . . 11
Most ancient sacred teachings emphasize the seductive distraction of psychic abilities; they entice us to stray off the spiritual path with thoughts of using them to enhance our individual power or prestige. However, one of Patanjali's goals of meditation was to bring a person out of normal, everyday sensory awareness, and into a nonlocal awareness of unity consciousness. We believe that for those of us who are actively involved with working, thinking, playing, and moving in the physical world, our psychic abilities have much to teach us about the illusion of our separate selves. The acceptance of the reality of our mind-to-mind connections can inspire others, as it has done for the authors, to seek our highest potentials as human beings.
Our psychic abilities become accessible when we are open-minded, and share commonality of purpose and mutual trust with one another. Indeed, the revered seventh-century Hindu teacher Shankara referred to psychic abilities as "powers of the unobstructed life."12 We find the processes of achieving the consensus and rapport with others to be worthwhile activities in themselves, in line with what Shankara called "the joy of harmony with the intent of our being."13
What else might we discover as we remove the psychic barriers to our awareness of our connected natures? Exploring these states of nonlocal consciousness together with friends has given us many richly rewarding experiences. The emergence of our psychic capabilities is a natural occurrence as we learn to focus our attention with mindfulness. As we discover more and more ways to apply our psychic abilities to real-world tasks, we will all have many opportunities to choose which applications of psi are ethical and appropriate for us.

 
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