> Was it the culture at the time that brought > it about? Or, was it the Spanish language > itself that caused it? Maybe the Castillian > pronunciation has a special sound quality... > Maybe, but as you noted, these experiences were the result of 'religious prayer'. There are no Christian miracles that are ascribed to 'self-power'. None of the miracles associated with the Spanish Christian or Muslim religion are attributable to the 'will of the individual'.
The miracles are performed by 'God', not from anyone's own 'self-power', as described in Indian yoga. There is no 'God of Yoga', which enters into the physical universe and causes change. So, most Christian and Muslim religions don't approve of yoga or the siddhis. Religions are based on faith and surrender, not on individual freedom and will-power. According to Maharishi, TM and the TM-Sidhis, are mechanical processes. Siddhis are just an indicator of natural law - consciousness and causation. The Sanskrit term 'yoga' refers to the techniques for experiencing higher states of consciousness in meditation. The earliest mention of meditative states are the Buddhist records of the historical Buddha. According to Mircea Eliade, yoga and the shramana life-view, is native to South Asia - it isn't found in the mythology or religious systems of western culture. Ascetic yoga seems to be peculiar to the Buddhist, Jain, and Hindu philosophies. 'Siddha yoga' means 'perfected, that is, enlightened, transcended into pure consciousness, which is made manifest in the individual by 'Self-Knowlege. Enlightenment is the state pertaining to 'gnosis' - that which ends the identity of the mind with sense phenomena - knowledge that is 'transcendenal', or beyond sense perceptions. The first historical yogin was Shakya the Muni, who formulated the 'Eightfold Path' leading to Nirvana. The term 'nirvana' is Sanskrit, and is the central concept in Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Kashmere Shaivism. Nirvana is the state of being 'enlightened', free from ignorance; where the mind that has come to a point of "perfect lucidity and clarity due to the cessation of the production of volitional formations." According to Patanjali, Yoga is the 'cessation of the fluctuations of the mind-stuff.' Work cited: 'History of Religious Ideas Volume 2' >From Gautama Buddha to the Triumph of University Of Chicago Press, 1985 References: "Yoga refers to traditional physical and mental disciplines originating in India..." Yoga: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga "Siddha Yoga is a spiritual path based on the Hindu spiritual traditions of Vedanta and Kashmir Shaivism..." Siddha Yoga: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siddha_yoga "Nirvana is the state of being free from suffering in sramanic thought..." Nirvana: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana
