The Veil in the Body

[Monica]

The display I remember best was a man with a spear. He jams the butt into the ground, puts the point against his throat and leans into it hard enough to bend the shaft almost to the breaking point.

Yes, these feats are common among Kung Fu/Chi Kung masters. Taoist and Hindu folklore are full of stories of master who sat in meditation for 500 years, or reattached severed limbs, ate molten nails, stuff like that.

An excellent source of these tales is Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramanhansa Yogananda.

I haven't heard of anyone eating nails recently, but even today there are amazing feats in the martial arts/Chi Kung community.

For that matter, on a totally different note, I think some of the more 'extreme' sports (the least of which is rock climbing) are pretty amazing. Such attunement to the body...but is there more to it? Like a subconscious death wish maybe? Or a spiritual yearning to escape the confines of the physical vehicle? I have wondered why these people pursue such challenges, fraught with potentially devastating risk.

To perform such feats, their must harmonize their body and mind with perfect focus. I find this fascinating.