--- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: <snip> > I am not the Sanskrit scholar that Card is, but > I find it difficult to believe that the Yoga > Sutras contain actual instructions for how to > perform the siddhis. Such techniques were and are > taught orally or via direct transmission, as part > of an initiation that has been *earned*. And as > Bharitu would probably confirm, the "earning" > part isn't easy, and doesn't involve coming up > with the asking price.
I'm not sure either that the Yoga Sutras contain actual instructions for how to perform the siddhis, but then I'm not sure that's how MMY would describe the instructions. According to MMY, actual *performance* of the siddhis depends on the condition of the individual nervous system. As MMY teaches Patanjali, one practices the siddhis sutras to purify the nervous system with the goal of developing Unity consciousness; performance of the siddhis is a sort of byproduct, not the end in and of itself. As to the tradition of oral instruction, I sure wouldn't know how to *implement* Patanjali's instructions simply from what he wrote (I'd have to depend on a translation, of course, but I'm dubious that I'd be able to figure it out even if I were intimately familiar with the original Sanskrit). It was MMY's oral explanations of how to perform samyama on the sutras that made it possible for me to follow Patanjali's instructions. And I suspect that may have been Patanjali's design, to make his own instructions obscure so as to ensure that personal oral teaching and guidance were required. > But I don't know. All I know is that the energy > field surrounding someone who is really able to > perform certain siddhis is *completely* different > than the energy field that surrounds a TMer prac- > ticing the corresponding TM siddhis. Have you ever been around a TMer who was able to perform those particular siddhis on the same level? If not, it isn't surprising that the "energy fields" would be different. It may be that a person's "energy field" reflects the condition of the nervous system on which performance depends. Again, it's really important to remember that as MMY teaches Patanjali, the goal of practice is not to perform siddhis but to develop consciousness. It may be the case that, to the extent that the various "warnings" in the literature are valid, what they're warning against is attempting to learn to perform siddhis as an end in itself. I personally > believe that the latter are a made-up set of > techniques that have nothing to do with what > Patanjali was describing, but if others choose > to believe that they're "authentic Patanjali" > and derive some benefit from practicing them, > cool.
