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Siddhis

Siddhis are the spiritual powers or "perfections" classically attributed to advanced yogis — flying, walking through walls, foreknowledge, manifestation, healing, and so on. Patanjali's Yoga Sutras catalog them in detail. AYP's position: they are real, but they are not the point. Chasing them is a trap; they arrive as a side effect of a practice designed for something else entirely.

Lesson 76: "By the time siddhis come, will we care? Life will be permanent ecstatic bliss long before. Now that is a real miracle."

AYP's stance in one sentence

Siddhis are produced by samyama — but samyama is not practiced for siddhis. It is practiced for the purification and expansion of abiding inner silence and ecstatic radiance that happen on the way to them.

Lesson 76: "Samyama is systematically initiating particular intentions within pure bliss consciousness. But samyama isn't done for siddhis. It is done for the purification it produces in the nervous system on the way to siddhis."

Why they are not the goal

Two reasons AYP downplays siddhis even while acknowledging they are real:

  1. They are a trap for the ego. Practitioners chasing powers tend to get stuck in them, using practice to inflate rather than transcend the self.
  2. By the time they arrive, the practitioner is usually not attached. The ego has already been absorbed into abiding inner silence through years of practice. At that point siddhis are scenery along a path that continues beyond them.

The real "miracle" AYP points to is permanent ecstatic bliss in daily life — less dramatic than flying but infinitely more valuable. Siddhis are a consequence, not a destination.

Ordinary miracles for ordinary people

Lesson 76 is careful to note that "ordinary folks can cultivate constant miraculous experience in our lives" without becoming siddhi-holders in the classical sense. The continuous rise of pure bliss consciousness, ecstatic conductivity, unity, divine outpouring in daily life — these are miraculous without being magical. They are what AYP is actually for.

Lesson 76: "Will you settle for pure bliss consciousness and endless ecstasy? That we can have in abundance if we are willing to put in the effort."

How siddhis relate to samyama

The mechanism from Patanjali: samyama is the integrated application of the last three limbs of yoga (concentration, meditation, absorption) directed toward an object within abiding inner silence. The by-product of this application at the level of deep silence is what the classical tradition catalogs as siddhis. AYP's samyama practice (introduced in Lesson 150 onward — not yet ingested) is a direct implementation of this principle, aimed at the purification/radiance outcome rather than the powers.

See also

True siddhis vs the "black arts"

Addition 184.1 draws a sharp structural distinction that isn't obvious from the traditional literature. The question: "Will I get paranormal powers I can use for getting what I want?" Yogani's answer is blunt:

Siddhis aren't taboo — the problem is approaching them from the angle of personal use, which can never produce true siddhis. Addition 184.1 calls that angle "the black arts — personal use of powers, a different path altogether, leading to all sorts of problems."

The distinction:

  • True siddhis come naturally from cultivating inner silence and releasing intentions in it (samyama). They express as the divine flow, not as personal power. You don't "get" them; they arise as you give your silence away. The practitioner is a conduit, not a magician. The "many small miracles" of daily life (the parking-space example) are typical of true siddhis: impersonal alignment with divine flow that consistently produces beneficial results, not through calculation but through released intention.
  • "Black arts" = pursuing specific powers for personal use through concentrated intention. Not necessarily evil in intent — it can be as simple as "I want telepathy so I can know what people are thinking." But structurally, it bypasses the moral self-regulation of true samyama because it maintains personal identification with the doing. It produces karmic aberrations in the nervous system and is "ineffective and hazardous."

The route to siddhis — including the small daily miracles, like reliably finding a parking space near the door — is simply to meditate daily and learn samyama, "the art of letting intentions go in stillness." Addition 184.1 promises siddhis and insights in abundance, though "not necessarily the ones you want. Definitely the ones you need in each moment."

Siddhis are not something we "get." To have them, and enlightenment itself, "we will automatically be giving them away every day. It is counter-intuitive for the acquiring mind, and enlightenment for the soul."

The karmic cost of pursuing specific siddhis

Lesson 184 addresses a practitioner who wanted to develop teleportation to see a friend from a past life. The warning:

Lesson 184: "The strong energy you feel on the way to siddhis is the real fruit of the performance. The siddhi itself is not the fruit. The fruit is the purification in our nervous system that facilitates our enlightenment, and that is of much greater value than any power we might develop as a consequence. … There is a cost for developing a particular power at the expense of our overall enlightenment."

The cost: karmic aberrations in the nervous system. Concentrating too much attention on a specific outcome bends the subtle channels in a way that doesn't serve global purification. It's the same principle as fixating on muladhara at the expense of the whole system (see eight limbs of yoga). The recommended approach is always: focus on enlightenment through daily practices, and let the relevant abilities arise on their own schedule.

Human power vs divine power

Lesson 164 addresses a related question: how do siddhis relate to other "human powers" like hypnotism, mesmerism, and telepathy? AYP's answer puts all of these in structural perspective:

  • Powers of the subconscious mind (telepathy, hypnotism, mesmerism, etc.) are real but shallow — they operate at the level of mental energy, not at the level of the pure bliss consciousness that sources mental energy.
  • The greatest human power is the divine within. Yoga is for becoming it. Everything else is secondary.
  • Seek the kingdom first. Yogani quotes Jesus directly: "Seek first the kingdom of God, and all things will be added to you." The AYP strategy maps exactly onto this: cultivate inner silence first, and the powers come up as by-products of the expansion rather than as the goal.
  • Samyama is the integrated approach. Rather than trying to develop specific powers through specialized techniques, samyama cultivates the same inner silence that produces all the powers, and the powers appear as natural effects of the rising silence. "First expand pure bliss consciousness; then the rest comes up as a by-product."

Lesson 164: "The greatest of all human power is the divine within. Yoga is for joining (union) with and becoming that. The first priority in yoga is union with God within us."

The moral self-regulation of real power

Addition 164.1 is one of AYP's more philosophically interesting dialogs. A practitioner describes feeling during meditation that their "power is arriving" — a sense that a sustained intention could reshape their life, but simultaneously a realization that any choice generates unpredictable cascading consequences affecting countless other lives. The practitioner is paralyzed by fear of harming others through the use of this emerging power.

Yogani's answer has several parts:

  • The answer is samyama. Structured samyama practice trains the reflex of releasing intentions in stillness rather than projecting them from the conscious mind. Intentions released in stillness are "morally self-regulating" — the morality of action and its karmic effects are for the best when the intention originates in silence rather than in personal calculation.
  • Even without samyama, daily DM alone is enough. As long as deep meditation is cultivating abiding inner silence, there's nothing to worry about. Action arising from stillness is for the best; you don't need to calculate consequences.
  • Don't fret about consequences. "Real spiritual development will lead us to actions in harmony with divine flow that are evolutionary for ourselves and automatically for those who are influenced by our actions, near and far. We do not have to do any detailed calculations. It is all occurring beyond the calculating mind."
  • Ahimsa (non-harming) arises automatically. The first yama — non-harming — comes up as a natural feature of rising silence. You become sensitive to wrong actions (they feel uncomfortable, as "out of the divine flow") and correct them quickly. No rule-following required.

Action arising from within stillness is, in Addition 164.1's phrase, "morally self-regulating" — releasing intentions in stillness and acting from there produces the best moral and karmic outcome without needing to police it. It is a gradual transcendence of using power for personal gain, shifting toward becoming one with the divine flow moving through us.

Personal power becomes divine power as practice matures. The rising power is safe not because it's restrained but because its source shifts from personal calculation to divine flow. See karma and morality.

Breatharian / sun-gazing siddhis

Lesson 167 addresses a specific siddhi that fascinates some practitioners: the ability to live on air and sunlight alone, without food. Ancient MahaSiddhas reportedly did this; modern figures like Hira Ratan Manek have claimed to develop it through sun-gazing. AYP's framing applies the general siddhi principle:

  • The mechanism is consistent with AYP physiology. As the nervous system purifies, practitioners become increasingly nourished by inner prana (from the pelvic storehouse rising through the sushumna). Breath naturally suspends during mature practice, not because the practitioner is holding it but because the body's metabolic need for oxygen has reduced. Food intake can follow the same pattern — less dependence on constant eating as inner nourishment takes over.
  • Breatharian practices may work for storing external prana — replenishing the inner reservoir via harvesting prana from air and sunlight rather than from food. This makes them a later-stage technique rather than a replacement for ordinary nutrition.
  • But the ordering matters. "These practices would seem to be later stage things in the overall process of enlightenment." Going after breatharian ability before cultivating the nervous-system purification that makes inner nourishment possible is cart-before-horse — see the general siddhi warning above.
  • Not very important anyway. Yogani's framing: "How we replenish our prana is a fairly mundane subject compared to the divine union going on inside." The real work is the cultivation of silence and ecstatic energies; how the body gets its nutrition is scenery.

Lesson 167: "No doubt higher abilities will come when required by the opening of our nervous system, and the natural rise of ecstatic bliss and divine love. This is the best, and least distracting, attitude to have about the development of any kind of siddhis."

The general principle: trust that the relevant abilities will arise when the nervous system needs them. Trying to develop specific siddhis ahead of general purification is almost always counterproductive.

Astral projection — effect, not cause

Lesson 264 gives a sharp illustration of the siddhi-as-effect principle through a practitioner's spontaneous astral projection experience. They woke in their astral body at their parents' house 1,800 miles away, returned disoriented, then found their meditation afterward immediately deep and ecstatic. Their question: is the astral energy the same as samadhi, or a prerequisite for it?

Yogani's answer is no and no.

Lesson 264: "Such experiences do happen as a result of samadhi, but are not prerequisites to it. They can happen without samadhi also, and that is why motivation to attain powers for their own sake is not considered to be in the best interest of spiritual progress. It will more likely be a distraction."

Key structural points:

  • Samadhi = inner silence (pure bliss consciousness), not an energy in itself — "though all energy comes out from it."
  • Astral projection, bi-location, and powers generally are abilities, not causes of spiritual evolution.
  • Service (genuine need) is the best context for spontaneous powers. If they arise in service of another — being present where needed, helping at a distance — that is their proper expression.
  • The right response to spontaneous powers: take it in stride and move on. The practitioner in L264 did exactly right: noted the experience, returned to sadhana.

The unity-stage cultivation formula: samyama (releasing intentions in stillness) + self-inquiry + selfless service. Powers arise as features of a more universal awareness, not as demonstration or attainment.

Joy — the greatest siddhi

Lesson 303 cuts through the catalogue of dramatic powers with a simple claim:

Lesson 303: "While there are many possibilities for divine expression that can flow from within, the greatest of all these is Joy. Joy is the spontaneous letting go of all that we are into our infinite and eternal nature. It is surrender into that by which all is manifesting. Joy is the essential constituent in all of life and is the greatest siddhi — the greatest of all the super-normal powers."

The most tangible siddhis reported by long-term practitioners are mundane and practical: better health, nearly always finding a parking space by the door, not getting rained on, life getting easier and less sticky. "Yogis and yoginis are able to stay out of the mud and thorns of life." These quiet, invisible effects are the everyday currency of samyama — not flying or moving objects with the mind.

Samyama is morally self-regulating. No matter what sutra is used, if released into inner silence the result is constructive. It is not possible to use genuine samyama for harm: "Negativity cannot flow from pure bliss consciousness." Projecting a sutra outward as personal will is not samyama — it is a weakened action that fails and produces no siddhi.

Samyama without DM doesn't work. Samyama requires abiding inner silence as its substrate. Without daily deep meditation cultivating the witness, samyama produces little. Pursuing powers without this foundation is "trying to build a house with no foundation." Once the foundation of abiding inner silence is in, the siddhis (natural flow in daily life) will arise regardless of whether we pursue them.

Don't attach to powers. Attachment to dramatic powers when they arise is an obstacle on the path — not a sign of progress. The practitioner with documented "powers" who focuses on them rather than on deepening practice will plateau. What matters is the quality of daily life and deepening liberation. "Psychic manifestations are fascinating, but cultivating abiding inner silence and learning to surrender our intentions in stillness brings liberation from suffering in this life, and an ability to help others find peace."

Lesson 264: "Selfless service is the most visible expression of the expansion of pure bliss consciousness to the unity stage in a person. Sense of self then encompasses all as outpouring divine love."

Source lessons