Siddhi is typically defined as "a magical or spiritual power for the control
of self, others and the forces of nature." The siddhis described by occultists
and yogis are in actuality supernormal perceptual states available to all human
beings. These are absolutely natural abilities that can be explained in highly
rational terms. There is nothing mysterious or magical about the siddhis.
More formally Siddhi can be defined as follows:
SIDDHI (Sanskrit -- Accomplished One). A term for different
capabilities: Through recognizing emptiness, clarity and openness of the mind,
different qualities arise naturally, since they are part of mind. The Buddha,
whose personal name Siddharta is based in the root-word and means "he
whose aim is accomplished," distinguishes between two types:
-
Normal Siddhis: all those forces of the conditioned world that
transform elements.
-
Extraordinary Siddhis: the ability to open beings up for the
liberating and enlightening truths; to lead to Realization.
Just like any other natural human ability, different people display
differing abilities towards learning and/or spontaneously displaying siddhis
with
Karma often playing a primary role. Some people are born with
siddhis that they exercise without being aware that their particular psychic
gift is unusual. In such cases, it may come as a traumatic event to the
individual when they learn that their ability is not common and that they are
considered a "misfit" by other people not possessing the psychic ability.
In other cases, one can practice yoga and actively develop siddhis. In
addition to birth and Karma the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Chapter IV,
verse 1 states the power of siddhis can come because of the use of
Mantras, and/or
Samadhi. According to occult theory, this is the rational
and desirable way to go about achieving siddhis.
Another means to trigger siddhis also mentioned in the sutra, albeit in an
unexpected and uncontrolled manner, is by the use of certain drugs. For
example, certain hallucinogenic drugs an herbs such as LSD, mescaline, peyote
and others. However, UNLESS used under the auspices of an experienced
spiritual guide similar to Native American rituals that use
Sacred
Datura for example or the Mazatec
Velada
Ceremony they can stimulate siddhis in an uncontrolled fashion and
quite possibly lead to an internal mental environment that causes great
psychological trauma. See
Aushadhis, the power of siddhis through herbs.
As well, a variety of other stimuli may cause siddhis spontaneously, such
as a fall or a blow to the head.
No matter in what fashion the siddhis are produced, the fact is, THEY
EXIST. The existence of the siddhis is doubted by most people because they
have no experience with them. However, the act of dreaming is considered a
siddhi. Thus, any one who has dreamed has utilized a siddhi.
Our so-called normal psychological attributes bleed imperceptibly
into the perceptual realms (the Planes of Nature) opened up by the awakening
of the siddhis, thus it is not clear cut at all as to where "normal"
psychological behaviors end, and siddhis begin.
And to further complicate the situation, though academic psychologists see
many cases of people experiencing siddhis, the academic psychology community,
on the whole, is completely unaware of the nature and existence of the siddhis.
Often this leads to the psychologist or psychiatrist treating individuals who
are experiencing siddhis in an inappropriate and damaging fashion. Often,
cases of so-called insanity or psychosis are cases of people experiencing
siddhis who are scared and confused, in which case the individual may be given
completely inappropriate treatment that only worsens the individual's
condition. Of course there are valid forms of psychosis in which confinement
or institutionalization are required. Again, however, the borderline between
such cases and cases of people experiencing siddhis is ambiguous and ill
defined presently.
In the future, Western academic science will be forced to accept the
realities of the siddhis as their nature becomes better understood.
In conclusion, it must be strongly and thoroughly stressed that the siddhis
are absolutely natural abilities latent in all humans. If one takes the time
to learn and practice the correct yoga exercises, then it is inevitable that
one will directly experience the awakening of their own siddhis. Again, there
is nothing magical or mysterious going on here, and all claims put forth
regarding the siddhis stand open to any type of test of their validity that
anyone wishes to pose. However, those skeptical of the siddhis and who wish to
challenge the claim to the existence of the siddhis must be prepared to
recognize that the nature of the siddhis will not fit easily into biased
misconceptions. One who experiences siddhis operates in a greater, more
expanded psychological reality than one who does not and therefore the skeptic
must be prepared to expand his or her understanding in an attempt to either
prove or disprove the existence of the siddhis.
RECORDED EXAMPLES OF SIDDHIS, Modern Day and in History:
There are many examples of siddhis throughout history, in a variety of
texts and various religions, but one of the greatest observed or recorded
exponents of modern day is
Sri
Seshadri Swamigal, the so-called "saint with the golden hand," of
which, for example, the following is written:
Sri Krishnaswamy Sastri's wife was suffering from swelling of the
stomach,hands and legs and vomiting of roundworm. Doctors gave up hope and
they visited the Swami in Tiruvannamalai as a last resort on a horse
carriage. Sri Seshadri Swamigal got into the carriage and put his leg on her
swollen body and rode the carriage into the
sadhu choultry and asked her to swallow some sand and apply it
on her body for three days. Miraculously, she was cured of her disease
completely.
Other siddhis attributed to the Swami are:
-
Making rains come on the request of his devotees.
-
Giving a darshan of himself to five or six devotees at different
places at the same time.
-
Showing devotees swargalokam(heaven) and mumurthi devas
(mythological Gods in Hindu literature).
-
Giving darshan as Parvathi devi(Hindu Goddess) to many
devotees.
Rather than anything closly related to Siddhis,
Ganapati Muni is known more for his "conversion to," and
Enlightenment under, the great Indian sage
Sri
Ramana Maharshi. Before that however, he was a personage in his
own right, known for and sometimes feared for the following:
Ganapati Muni was born as an ‘amsa’ of Dundi Ganapati, had a huge
following, and was a born poet. He was a great scholar and a tapasvi with
powerful Siddhis who could bring down or stop the rains! He could
destroy a whole town. Once when he was harassed during his stay in the city
of Nasik he cursed that the whole city should be destroyed. Soon the whole
city was destroyed through the dreaded disease of plague.
The following example of siddhi was written by the British author
W.
Somerset Maugham and published in A Writer's Notebook.
Maugham was well versed in Indian mysticism, had met the Baghavan Sri Ramana
Maharshi personally, and traveled extensively in India:
In India a
Yogi wanted to go somewhere by train, but having no money, asked
the station-master if he could go for nothing; the station-master refused,
so the Yogi sat down on the platform. When it was time for the train to go
it would not start. It was supposed that something was wrong with the
engine, so mechanics were sent for and they did all they knew, but still the
train could not go. At last the station-master told the officials of the
Yogi. He was asked to get in the train and it immediately started.
The above train story sounds a lot like one of those urban legends, but, if
you want to see the on record original source for it, go to
Lahiri
Mahasaya
The next example is also from Maugham, but comes from his novel
The Razor's Edge:
An Indian Yogi came to a bank of a river; he didn't have the money to pay
the ferryman to take him across and the ferryman refused to take him for
nothing, so he stepped on the water and walked upon its surface to the other
side. The Yogi (telling the story) shrugged his shoulders rather scornfully
and said, "A miracle like that is worth no more than the penny it would have
cost to go on the ferryboat.
How Maugham got that last story, where it comes from or if it is an
original or a modification from some other source is not known...it is known,
however the following is attributed to
Gautama Buddha and found in the book "BUDDHISM: It's Essence
and Development" by Edward Conze (pp 104-5):
One day the Buddha met an ascetic who sat by the bank of a river. This
ascetic had practised austerities for 25 years. The Buddha asked him what he
had received for all his labor. The ascetic proudly replied that, now at
last, he could cross the river by walking on the water. The Buddha pointed
out that this gain was insignificant for all the years of labor, since he
could cross the river using a ferry for one penny!
In a more up to date, modern-day account, in an event actually observed and
experienced in real life by
the
Wanderling personally, the following is offered:
My very first encounter with an Obeahman occurred long before I began my
apprenticeship under the Jamaican man of spells I eventually studied under.
Although I had been in Jamaica for some time I had never heard of Obeah or
an Obeahman until the day a Jamaican friend of mine and I were taking a trip
across the island in his car. We had gone to Montego Bay along the north
coast for several days and on our return trip to Kingston my friend decided
it would be quicker as well as more fun if we took a short cut through some
of the cane fields. We were doing about eighty miles per hour when we passed
a little old man on the side of the road walking with a wooden staff and
carrying a bundle over his shoulder. My Jamaican friend immediately hit the
brakes and screeched to a halt telling me the old man was an Obeah and
leaving him to walk so far out in the middle of nowhere would be bad luck.
Since his vehicle was a small little two-door British car, to show respect
due the Obeah, I got out and squeezed into the small rear seat allowing him
to sit in the front. Soon we were back up to speed cruising the back roads
of the cane fields at about eighty miles per hour. Then, all of a sudden the
engine started to cough and sputter, eventually just dying and stopping to
run altogether. We coasted to the side, my friend got out and asked me to
get into the drivers seat to try and start the engine as he fiddled with
stuff under the hood. Two or three times we tried and the car refused to
start. The Obeah got out and went to the front of the car, and, although the
hood obscured my view somewhat, I could tell he tapped the engine a couple
of times with his staff. My friend asked me to try it again and immediately
the engine fired up. The next morning my friend was late to work. He said
after we left the Obeah off where he requested and me home, he went home.
However, when he got up the next morning his car refused to start and that
it acted exactly the same as it had in the cane fields. When he got it to
the shop to be repaired the mechanic showed him the ONLY thing he
could find wrong with it. A spring in the carburetor was physically broken
and with that spring broken the car could not run under
any circumstances. The mechanic replaced the spring and the car
started up and ran perfectly.
(source)
Some people would argue quite stringently that siddhis are inherently
different than the
Power of the Shaman. However, that power actually emanates
from the same original grounding source. The coincidence of characteristics
and striking similarities between Buddhist adepts and
Shamans and Shamanism
has been studied and outlined quite thoroughly by
Mircea Eliade in his monograph, Shamanism: Archaic
Techniques of Ecstacy. For example, the
Arhats
sixfold knowledge of the worthy ones that includes, like the Cloud Shaman, the
seeming ability to appear and disappear at will. In the final book written by
Carlos Castaneda, titled "The Active Side of Infinity,"
Castaneda tells his readers that sometime before his eventual meeting between
himself and the Yaqui sorcerer Don Juan Matus, an anthropologist colleague
told him what he knew about Cloud Shamans:
"For instance, there are Cloud Shamans who turn into clouds, into mist. I
have never seen this happen, but I knew a Cloud Shaman. I never saw him
disappearing or turning into mist in front of my eyes, but I chased him
once, and he simply vanished in an area where there was no place for him to
hide. Although I didn't see him turning into a cloud, he disappeared. I
couldn't explain where he went. There were no rocks or vegetation around the
place where he ended up. I was there half a minute after he was, but the
Shaman was gone."
(source)
There is a supernormal phenomenon known in the West as
Apportation that has a long history in Eastern cultures, albeit,
not under the name Apportation. An example of such a Siddhi-like phenomenon is
recorded involving the venerated Indian saint
Vallalar (also known as Swami Ramalingam, 1828-1874) wherein one
day, while in Madras, he, along with several devotees and disciples, were
walking to Tiruvottiyur inorder to worship at the Ishwara temple. During the
journey the Swami and his party got caught in an exceptionally heavy downpour,
all in the group suffering much difficulty because of the sudden flooding and
rushing water. The Swami showed them a shortcut and in an instant they
reached Tiruvottiyur. T.V.G. Chetty, in the book Life of Swami
Ramalingam, describes the incident as follows:
They had reached half the way to Tiruvottiyur.
There was heavy rain. His followers began to run pell‑mell. But the Swami
"rallied them all together and darted through some mysterious bye‑lane" and
got the entire body in front of the temple in a second of time.
Chetty goes on to write:
The above incident seems to be a case of
collective dematerialisation and materialisation, that is to say the Swami
took them within his subtle‑physical body or possibly enveloped them in his
environmental body which is its extension and reached the destination
instantly and projected them out again. His devotees should have felt the
whole process as going through a mysterious way and reaching the temple in
an instant.
Interestingly enough, a similar incident transpired involving the
previously mentioned Wanderling, above, although as a ten year old boy. He was
traveling with his
Uncle,
a notorious bio-searcher, deep in the desert southwest, when they were
happened upon by military-types who put them under guard. They were taken to
the vehicle they arrived in and told to stay there. When the military person
giving the order returned to the truck he found the bio-searcher and the boy
gone, and the guard assigned to watch him having no clue where he went or what
happened to him. A search of the area showed no sign of either of them in the
vicinity, as though he simply disappeared or vanished, the desert and the
surrounding environment somehow swallowing him up without a trace.
To the OUTSIDE OBSERVER both seemed to have just vanished, however
to themselves everything was normal. The boy walking with his uncle wasn't
aware of any difference. His uncle may have been fully aware of the situation,
but for the boy, not versed in such things, just went along with his uncle
enveloped by the circumstances. The only difference, still recalled very
vividly, was that the distance they traveled by vehicle that day was quite far
and took quite a long time, however the trip walking back across the desert on
foot took only a short time. As a youngster the boy never really thought much
about the time-distance difference one way or the other, as a grown man it is
another matter.(source)
The last example revolves around a revered Indian sage named
Baba Faqir Chand who practiced an ancient meditation technique
called Surat Shabd Yoga, a technique which attempts to induce a
consciously controlled
Near Death Experience (NDE). Mastery of Shabd Yoga is said
to enable one to participate in experiences beyond the normal waking state.
Relating an event in the military during World War One, Faqir recalls:
After about three months, the fighting came to an end and the Jawans
retired to their barracks. I returned to Bagdad, where there were many
satsangis. When they learned of my arrival, they all came together to see
me. They made me sit on a raised platform, offered flowers, and worshipped
me. It was all very unexpected and a surprising scene for me. I asked them,
"Our Guru Maharaj is at Lahore. I am not your Guru. Why do you worship me?"
They replied in unison, "On the battlefield we were in danger. Death lurked
over our heads. You appeared before us in those moments of danger and gave
us directions for our safety. We followed your instructions and thus were
saved."
Sometimes it is very dangerous to have occult powers. The mysterious
wandering monk
Totapuri, recognized for bringing the full fruit of Awakening to
Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, tells, it has been said, of the following:
There once was a great Siddha (a spiritual man possessing psychic powers)
was sitting on the sea-shore when there came a great storm. The Siddha,
being greatly distressed by it, exclaimed, ‘Let the storm cease!’ and his
words were fulfilled. Just then a ship was going at a distance with all
sails set, and as the wind suddenly died away, it capsized, drowning all who
were on board the ship. Now the sin of causing the death of so many persons
accrued to the Siddha, and for that reason he lost all his occult powers and
had to suffer.
Thus said, the following, by Sri Swami
Sivananda from his paper
Satsanga
and Svadhyaya, is being offered as a cautionary word of advice:
"Another great blunder people generally commit is that they judge the
Enlightenment of Sadhus by the Siddhis they display. In the world generally,
the common inclination is to judge the merits and ability of a Sadhu through
his Siddhis. It is a blunder indeed. They should not judge the Enlightenment
of a Sadhu in this way. Siddhis are by-products of concentration. Siddhis
have nothing to do with Self-realization. A Sadhu may manifest Siddhis due
to strong passions and intense desires, and if that be the case, he is
undoubtedly a big householder only. You must believe me when I tell you that
Siddhis are a great hindrance to spiritual progress, and so long as one is
within the realm of Siddhis and does not try to rise above it and march
onwards, there is not the least hope of God-realization for him. But, this
does not mean that a person manifesting Siddhis is not a realized soul.
There are several instances of such persons who have exhibited several
Siddhis purely for the elevation and uplift of the world, but never for
selfish motives.
"During the days of
Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, a
certain Sadhu approached him and showed two Siddhis: one was that he could
roam about without being seen by anybody. The other was that light emanated
from portions of his body when he walked.
This man, after some time, began misusing his power, entering the
apartment of a lady unseen, fell in love with her and LOST his two powers.
In the world generally, the common run of people and even educated
persons judge Sadhus by their Siddhis only. It is a serious blunder and
hence I seriously warn you."
(source)
The Buddha was cognizant of the fact that there are those who devote
themselves to yogic exercises only to acquire supernatural powers as well. He
refined the practice by telling devotees that acquisition of supernatural
powers does not confer any special spiritual advantage (Akankheyya Sutta,
Vol. XI, see link below). It was for this reason that the Buddha forbade
his disciples to work miracles for display. Craving for supernatural powers
and taking delight therein after acquirement does not help to free one from
The Three Poisons of Desire, Hatred and Ignorance. It is
advised that anyone striving along the path of holiness toward final
liberation guard themselves to not get caught up in it all and forget the true
purpose.
SIDDHIS II
SEE ALSO:
THE NINE MAIN SIDDHIS
AKANKHEYYA SUTTA: Vol. XI of The Sacred Books of the East
THE POWER OF THE SHAMAN
CONSULTING MEDIUMS
WHITE LIGHT SHIELDS
CODEX ATLANTICUS
HUN TUN
JORIKI
OBEAH
PORTIONS OF THE ABOVE ARTICLE WITH THANKS TO:
INESSA KING ZALESKI
© 1998, HTH, All Rights Reserved
