Who Are the Siddhas?
Siddha Sages are the liberated mystical yogis who journey beyond ‘enlightenment’.
The grace of self-knowledge, stillness and the highest purpose of life is attained through connecting to the Guru and the ancient lineage of light in experiential teachings of breath, resonance, and yogic techniques.
Much less is known of the yogic traditions of South India as it was guarded in secrecy and taught in the traditional manner of guru to the spiritually mature disciple. In most cases, the enlightened beings went on to evolve into the final objective of yoga and that was to merge into God in the physical form itself. These sages were called Siddhas. Many of these Siddhas maintained spiritual diaries and writings in the form of poetry from the time they actualized into discovering the divine with deeper meaning and the beginning of their journey into yoga while attaining enlightenment, and to the final state of transforming into light, merging with the Supreme.
There are different Siddha schools with some believing in 18 masters and some as Siddha Rajaswamy’s- 210 masters.
According to the Siddha teachings, these masters constantly take birth again and again with their disciples in different divine incarnations in different times and different places around the world constantly to keep up with the changing humanity needs and effecting change. For instance, Jesus Christ is said to have been Siddha Pullipani having reincarnated. Swami Vivekananda was said to have been one of the reincarnations of Siddha Thirumulanathar. Lao Tzu was claimed by Siddha Bhogar to have been one of his incarnations.
‘Siddhas’ were evolved spiritual beings who went beyond enlightenment to accomplish the final yoga of attaining the ultimate perfection as becoming one with God. Perfection in this sense means the state of the highly evolved as Christ after resurrection. This is the ultimate objective of yoga in the Siddha philosophy. Yoga of Siddha tradition in South India meant the accomplishment of merging the body into the supreme light of the absolute as attainments of eight different dimensions of perfection.
Each dimension of perfection is called a ‘siddhi’ and ‘siddhi’ is the miraculous powers that were acquired while practicing this path of yoga.
Although spiritual traditions of Hinduism throughout India shun acquiring ‘siddhis’ due to the belief that acquiring siddhis would grow ego and therefore would withhold the spiritual progress of the yogi, the Siddha path insists on sheer restraint in using any siddhi while encouraging Siddhas to live in solitude or live disguised within a society as an ordinary householders. Siddhas consider attainment of various siddhis as grace which naturally flow into them through their yogic practices and it was held sacred as the mark of the divine presence within themselves.
The realm of Siddhas is mystical, most times unbelievable and has remained unchanged over thousands of years.
To envision this world, it is comparable to the life present in the extreme depth of the ocean existing under intense high pressure and total darkness, hardly ever disturbed by external forces. This would be an example to illustrate the world of the Siddhas beneath the known in Southern India which still vibrant and alive and yet far away from the rest of human civilization. These ancient spiritual places in South India, hidden from the rest of the world resonate with the presence of the Siddhas even today.
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