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Dr. Pillai (Guruji) Speaks on Sidhhi
Dr. Baskaran Pillai (Guruji) is a scholar-mystic from the ancient Tamil
Siddha tradition of southern India. He is the first guru from this
tradition to come to the West. Guruji studied meditation with different
gurus in Rishikesh, the Himalayas, and later in southern India, where he
was born and raised. He received his Masters Degree in English Literature
and Master of Letters from the University of Madurai in India. Guruji holds
a Ph.D. in COmparative Religions from the University of Pittsburgh, where he
taught meditation and Eastern religions for the past decade. He has served
as Coordinator of Indian Studies for the University of Pittsburgh and as
chairman for the Maharishi Institute on Creative Intelligence.
Guruji Speaks on Siddhi
What is Siddhi?
Siddhi is unity consciousness. The practitioner who lives Siddhi
consciousness lives in a non-dual world. For him, the thought and its
objective referent are one and the same. He knows that a thought is energy
and the object represented by the thought is matter. This means that in the
Siddha's consciousness, there is no distinction between thought and the object
of the thought. One cannot exist without the other-they are two sides of the
same coin. What creates the difference between matter and energy is time.
One has a great deal of freedom if one has access to the wisdom that explains
the relationship between energy, matter and time.
In order to understand Siddhi consciousness, one has to understand the nature
of consciousness itself. Consciousness is a structure created primarily of
sound waves. Without the sound waves there is no consciousness. The
sound waves can be classified as either audible waves or inaudible waves.
The audible sound waves, which become thought and speech, arise from the
inaudible sound waves. At the inaudible level the sound waves carry the
wisdom of non-duality. At the level of inaudible sound, energy and matter,
thought and the object of thought are united. This is unity consciousness.
The key to gaining Siddhi consciousness is the ability to live in unity
consciousness. At this level one has no doubt whatsoever and there is no
restriction in the way energy flows- no barrier between matter and energy.
Siddhi consciousness is a consciousness of pure, overflowing joy both within
oneself and with one's relationship to the created world. This consciousness
is usually awakened either by the grace of the Guru or directly by the grace
of God. Nevertheless, there are techniques that the Siddhas have developed
to awaken the Siddhi awareness. Patanjali, author of The Yoga Sutras, wrote
an entire section on Siddhi called the Vibhuti Pada. In the Vibhuti Pada,
Patanjali outlines many techniques to gain super-normal powers.
Unfortunately, Patanjali doesn't explain himself. He simply states the
sutra(aphorism) and then says that by doing samyama(a special type of
meditation) on the sutra that the practitioner will gain the supernormal power
that the sutra describes.
The Sun Sutra
In the Vibhuti Pada, Patanjali states that samyama on the Sun will give a yogi
knowledge of the worlds.
How can it be possible that a meditation on the Sun will give the practitioner
knowledge of the worlds?
Meditation on the Sun is important because the Sun is the most conscious
Being, Spirit, Force and object in the solar system. In this modern era of
materialism, scientists conceive of the Sun only as an object- as a star. For
the Siddhas, knowledge of the Sun is comprehensive. According to the
philosophy of the Siddhas, consciousness, illumination and intelligence are
synonymous. The more luminous or more brilliant one is, the greater is
one's intelligence.
Within our solar system the Sun is undoubtedly the most luminous object,
which makes the intelligence and energy represented by the Sun exemplary.
This type of consciousness is highly desirable to the Siddhas. The
methodology they adopt to obtain the consciousness of the Sun is simple. It
is based on the philosophy that one becomes what one thinks. If one
constantly thinks about the Sun then one becomes the Sun and acquires all of
the Sun's intelligence.
The Sun is synonymous with life. The Sun knows every form of life because
all life is a transformed version of solar energy. This is how, by meditation
on the Sun, one acquires knowledge of the worlds. The meditation on the
Sun is as exhaustive as the rays that come out of the Sun. Each ray of the
Sun represents a specific type of power and intelligence. It would take
modern science millions of years of study to understand the full range of the
Sun's powers. The Siddhas found a short-cut to an understanding- they found
a way to access The Sun's power through a simple meditation technique.
And that is why Patanjali instructs Siddhi students to do samyama on the
Sun.
Einstein once said that he wanted to know how God created the world. The
way to know God's mind is to become God. I will give several simple
techniques to access the Sun's energy in my next writing.
