On Mar 26, 2010, at 11:02 AM, Rick Archer wrote:
You really need to look no further than the Yoga Sutras to find
that siddhis are contraindicated in awakening, they just induce
delusions of grandeur in people. But the primary text on
enlightenment in the Shankaracharya tradition is even more direct,
it not only lists many of the classical warnings against siddhi
cultivation, it explicitly warns against use of samyama and the
sutras of the vibhuti-pada, and specifically warns AGAINST yogic
flying.
If you can find them, it would be interesting to read some of these
verses.
The yoga-vasishtha is one example given:
Sri Rama:
Why is it, O best of Self-knowers, that we do not see such powers as the
ability to fly through the air among the bodies of those in Unity
Consciousness?
Vasistha:
O Raghava, even one who does not know the Self and is not liberated
acquires
the trick (yukti) of roaming about the clouds and the like through
the use of
rasayanas, mantras, yagyas, and time.
This concern does not belong to the Self-knower, for the Self-knower
sees
only the Self. Satisfied by himself in himself, he does not run after
ignorance.
Any worldly things whatsoever, the wise know them to be fashioned by
ignorance. How could a Self-knower who has abandoned ignorance possibly
plunge into these things?
The powers of rasayanas, mantras, yagyas, and time are effective for
bestowing supernatural abilities, but none of these help in attaining
the state of
the highest Self.
The attainment of the Self arises when the web of all desires comes
to an
end. How could a mind immersed in the pursuit of siddhis attain
that?
The jivan-mukti-viveka, still today a primary work on Enlightenment
in the Shankaracharya tradition states:
The two terms (paramahansa and yogin) are used together in order to
exclude someone who is only a yogin and someone who is a paramahansa.
Someone who is only a yogin is a person who, because of his lack of
the knowledge
of truth, is attached to amazing feats of yogic power, such as
knowing the past,
present, and future, yogic flying, etc., and has made efforts toward
this or
that siddhi with the various samyama formulae.
Consequently he becomes separated from the highest aim of human
existence, Enlightenment (jivan-mukti).
