In an essay I wrote in April 2011, as part of
my M.A at SOAS, I argued that they are. This blog-post is a summary of the main
arguments presented in that essay.
Generations of Indian children have delighted in stories of
Hanumān – how he jumped high into the sky to eat the sun; how he leapt over the
ocean to reach Laṇkā;
how he became the size of an atom and searched Rāvaṇa’s palace undetected; how he made his
tail so long that it burned Laṇkā
down; and how can we ever forget the way he carried a mountain back with the Sanjīvani
herb, saving Lakṣman’s
life. We have no problems with any of this, perhaps because he is super-human.
Part animal. Part God.
Claims that such powers can be possessed by an ordinary human
being are almost always met with great derision and disbelief. “Absolute
poppy-cock!” is the reaction 9 times out of 10. “What utter rubbish!” It doesn’t
help that there are countless fake ‘god-men’ cheating people, that the media
delights in exposing them and rightly so. The movies do their bit - often depicting
‘yogi-babas’ and ‘swamis’ as con-men, greedy
frauds and power hungry villains. Remember Khoka in Trimurti? Bhairo Nath in
Nagina? And of course the caricature prize has to go to Mola Ram in “Indiana
Jones and the Temple of Doom.”
Yogic powers are defined in chapter III of Patañjali’s
yoga-sutras – the Vibhūti Pāda. Very simply put, if the yogic ashṭāṇga path is rigorously
followed, arduously practised certain powers (siddhis) accrue to the
practitioner – which he/she is strongly encouraged to ignore, and not be
de-railed by. They are a by-product of
yogic sādhana (diligent practice). These include being able to fly, make
yourself tiny, very large, very heavy, invisible, understanding the speech of
animals and birds; entering the body (dead or alive) of another person; being able to see the
future and the past, and so on (I recommend I.K Taimini’s commentary on the
Yoga Sutras for details. It is excellent.)
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| Patañjali |
In his introduction to Rāja Yoga, Swami Vivekānanda sends a
strong message. “Anything that is secret and mysterious ... should at once be
rejected.” I propose that there is nothing mysterious or mystifying about yogic
siddhis. In the process of yoga, the mind is detached from the external world
and turned inwards upon itself. Like the energy of the sun being concentrated
through a magnifying glass the mind becomes super-concentrated and capable of
activity beyond the ken of us ordinary folk. Why is that so hard for some to accept?
The body too is trained in yoga – achieving perfect fitness
so that when the yogi meditates, his mind is not distracted by itches,
twitches, aches and pains. We have no problem in applauding Usain Bolt ‘because
he trains’, we are not surprised at Michael Phelps ‘because he trains’ . The
world high jump record is 2.45 meters (that’s over 8 feet!!) held by Javier
Sotomayor. Long jump – 8.95 meters (almost 30 feet) jumped by Michael Powell.
Not a single raised eyebrow? Because they
train. Well yogis train too. And that
is the point we conveniently miss.
More important is the philosophical system that underpins
yoga. Sāṃkhya ontology
posits two principles – the material principle (prakṛti) and the spiritual principle (puruṣa). The entire
physical universe from gross objects that we can perceive, to those that are so
subtle that we cannot see them - is make of prakṛti.
EVERYTHING other than the spirit (puruṣa)
is made of prakṛti.
The path from our eye, including the eye, to the sun, including the sun and
everything in between is an unbroken
continuum of the same material. The yogi gains mastery over this continuum
with his practices. In the same manner
that he masters the mind, he gains mastery over the fields of the elements and
the organs. This enables him to control natural phenomena. He is able to
exercise extraordinary powers – which are called siddhis.
Another complication is the meaning assigned to concepts
when they are translated. It has an impact on how they are perceived by a
speech community other than the one to which they are native. For instance,
siddhi is translated into English as ‘power’ whereas it covers a range of
English words – like accomplishment, perfection, ability, skill and efficacy,
to name a few. I believe siddhis are
considered ‘unreal’ or fake by English speakers (including some Indians) because of the words that are
used to define them in English. For instance, ‘super-natural’ – is not
understood as extra-ordinary, but rather as related to hauntings, demons and
ghosts. There is even an American TV serial called ‘Super-natural’ which deals
with such things.
The English word ‘magical’ which is often used to describe
siddhis, is never applied in Indic languages to the same. Magic translates into Sanskrit as Māyā,
Indrajāl, Vāmācāra, abhicāra and riddhi. NONE of which are associated with yogic
siddhis in our culture. There is a family of Sanskrit words associated with
siddhi arising from √sidh
– meaning to accomplish, to succeed, fulfil, to attain one’s end. Looking at these, we get a very different
sense than ‘magic’. Sādhanā means diligent
practice leading straight to a goal; efficient; effective. Chapter II of the yoga-sutras which deals with
the path yoga enjoins is called Sādhanā pāda.
Sādhya means that which is to be achieved or attained, accomplished; and
a sādhaka is what an aspirant on the path of yoga is called. Siddhi too comes
from this root. It is an accomplishment. Not magic. For that matter, vibhūti which we instantly think of as magical ash, means splendour, greatness, might and magnificence. Let's not forget that the BG chapter in which Kṛṣṇa reveals his divine form (Ch 10) is called Vibhūti Yoga.
I haven’t presented any ‘scientific
proof’ because it is so passé. A bit like Rishi Kapoor in Karz with that funny
helmet on and hundreds of wires stuck to a computer! Many experiments were
conducted in the 1970s in America which proved that yogis had siddhis. Fritz
Staal and David Gordon White have documented these in great detail in their
books. If you wish to explore further, another book which provides fascinating insight
and is more easily available is Swami Rama’s “Living with the Himalayan
Masters.”
As always, I’d like to close with a
quote from Swami Vivekananda: “It is wrong to believe blindly. You must
exercise your own reason and judgement. You must practice and see whether these
things happen or not. Just as you would
take up any other science, exactly in the same manner you should take up this
science (Yoga) for study.”
