A discussion from the recent Tips article leads to some points worth discussing on Yogic flying.
Why would we even practice siddhis (abilities)? We’re unlikely to get any good at many of them, simply because of the age we’re in.
The point is not to gain abilities; chasing results will just lead to new attachments. (We have control over action alone, never over its fruits.) The point is to learn to use intention while maintaining samadhi. This cultures presence and helps prepare the ground for awakening.
The specific intentions also help move our energy through various channels in the body. This helps to purify and clear them so the prana (life force) can move more freely. This also opens things up for the Shaktis later on. And it helps shift the gunas toward sattva and supports the flow of soma, which nourishes the devas of the body and improves our support of nature.
That said, the practice requires a significant time commitment and requires a greater investment in activity to help ground all the opening. For some, it’s too much and there is the hazard of spiritual bypassing. (Yes, people can get addicted to spiritual practices as an escape from dealing with life.)
The various siddhis help with different channels, but the flying sutra is more whole-body. Group practice of flying also has a collective influence on consciousness as a whole. Sage Vasishtha described this in some detail.
The Yoga Sutra lists “formula” in book 3 but is not a how to. In this tradition, a teacher directly teaches techniques because they’re experiential. If the Yoga Sutra were a how to, many more people would have learned them from reading one of the many translations.
The technique is called samyama, which is a blend of being able to maintain samadhi, effortlessly focus attention, and add an intention; all without disturbing the samadhi.
Before this, as soon as we have a thought, we move out of samadhi. Samadhi means ‘evenness of intellect.’ This happens when we settle into pure consciousness. But when a thought or emotion comes, that evenness is disturbed.
Later, consciousness becomes clearer, and its ever-present nature becomes established to a degree. Then we’ll have experiences like noticing we’re transcending (samadhi) and experiencing it without being knocked out of it. Then we’re ripe for samyama.
There are many historical examples of flyers, like Joseph of Cupertino, Milarepa of Tibet, Aborigines in Australia, and so on.
Flying is verse 3:42.
“From samyama on the relationship of the body and space and by mental absorption in the lightness of cotton, movement through space is gained.”
An important part of the Yoga Sutra is recognizing context. After the flying sutra is the one describing mastery of the elements, so we know flying is related, a mastery of space element.
Shift the balance toward space element and the body will be much easier to move. No need to “defy gravity.” Then we can move the body with intention rather than muscle.
Our ability to fly develops in stages. I’ve seen a few variations of the steps, like Vasishtha doesn’t include the first. This is how I’d describe it:
Stage 1: Body shakes
Stage 2: Body hops like a frog
Stage 3: Body floats
Stage 4: Body flies
Stage 1: Body shakes
In the current time, this is typically shortly after instruction in the technique. The intention causes energy flows into fresh places and an opening up of the channels, causing the body to wiggle and twist.
We’ve not yet found a way to express the intention, although shaking can also happen before liftoff in stage 2.
Stage 2: Body hops like a frog
Once we clear enough and let go of resistance to the body acting, the body can respond to the intention in consciousness and attempts to lift off.
Clearly, a physical action is taking place, even one that looks a little silly. However, the experience differs a lot from moving the body the same way without the practice.
The siddhi is:
– not tiring the way a physical imitation is
– able to go higher and farther than we can with effort
– can be quite blissful
– a kavach or protection develops. If there is no attempt at personal manipulation, no injury happens, even with spectacular crashes. For example, I’ve hit a 10′ ceiling, hard. It was funny. 🙂
Long practice can be hard on the leg joints, though.
Stage 3: Body floats
This means the body goes up but doesn’t just fall back down again as in hopping. The intention can be sustained, and the quality of lightness is successful.
Here on, I’m not talking from experience. I’ve had and have seen pauses but not full floating.
The Yoga Vasishtha describes the body becoming like an empty tube. The space element has become dominant, with just a surface appearance like a crust on top.
Then, just an intention can move the body. Outside the words of the sutra is the intention to fly.
Stage 4: Body flies
This is mastery of the siddhi, where we can move the body through space easily.
I’ve seen descriptions of a sub-stage where the body flows on a beam of light, then later can fly freely. However, this may be a mistranslation of the body flowing on sattva guna.
Mastery of the body and elements means we’re able to travel high in the air, under water, into space, be any size, and so forth. We could call this physical liberation.
There have been some statements that a stage of development in consciousness will automatically bring perfected siddhis. To some extent, this is true. Clarity of consciousness will bring more noticeable flavours. However, the stages are shifts in our relationship with consciousness. While that supports samyama, it doesn’t mean the other layers are clear enough to bring a whole gamut of abilities on-line. They operate on different levels.
I fully appreciate that some teachers, like Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, have said otherwise. There are several reasons for this. One is cultural. In the West, we expect teachers to speak factually. However, in India it’s common to speak intentionally, to an ideal.
Maharishi, for example, said 5-7 years of meditation to reach Cosmic Consciousness. This is the intention or goal rather than the common experience. Would we have been as inspired if he’d told us 40+ years? Happily, all those meditators clearing the collective have made it easier and faster now.
Also in play are expectations of personal perfection. However, this is a bad concept. Awakening in consciousness takes just an instant, but it takes much longer for the denser layers to catch up to that. Such ideas mean we think we have to be perfect or stress-free or similar to wake up. That’s not the case, and the idea creates a barrier to awakening. Plus, the sprouted seeds of our karma will continue to unfold for the rest of our lives, awake or not. Awake and unattached make the process much easier, but doesn’t stop it.
Similarly, it’s a common expectation that someone who’s awake is automatically a teacher. However, teaching is a skill not everyone has or will develop. It’s not most people’s dharma. Much the same, awakening doesn’t give you the ability to play the piano or basketball. Ability (talent) and skill have to be present and developed.
I do expect that as consciousness rises, it will become easier to express the siddhis. In the same way, those in higher stages of development of consciousness have been increasing in numbers. We’re seeing stages now that were extremely rare just a decade ago.
Davidya
Last Updated on June 26, 2023 by Davidya
To be clear, this article is not in jest. 🙂
Just, wow.
Thank you, David, for another fantastic post. Your description is accurate and nuanced. The importance is in the inner development/coherence creating effect, but it´s fun to. And the effect on collective consciousness is so important, ref. the massive research on The extended Maharishi effect. For those interested in levitation/yogic flying, which has been going on massively throughout all history, Yogic Flying by Craig Pearson, Human Levitation by Preston Dennett and Levitation by Steve Richards are wonderful books on the subject. Literally thousands of people have lifted of the ground, and that´s just the known/recorded cases.
Thanks, Kjetil
Yes, you make an important point. Teams of Yogic flyers have demonstrated repeatedly that when the square root of 1% of the population do group practice, they can end wars, reduce the crime rate and hospital admissions, and so forth. They can predict the results of the group in advance. All this without any intention to do so. Just sitting in group practice, increasing coherence in consciousness.
The challenge is sustaining such a group. I’ve been in some pretty big groups and it’s quite potent. The largest was over 7,000 flyers.
Thanks for the book suggestions. I have Craig’s book. I’ve not seen the other 2. I love that the publisher has a caveat on the second “Although this book provides instructional guidance for personal levitation, the publisher in no way advocates, advises, or condones these practices due to the varied dangers involved.” Indeed, without the kavach, I’d have broken bones and split my skull open multiple times. (laughs)
I should note that in my younger days, I was a bit of a kamikaze flyer. Less hopping and more flinging. (laughs)
I was a great flyer. First to take off on my flying course and enjoyed the practice during the years I lived in a community of siddhas. But I stopped after I left the group and hadn’t done it for over a decade until I went on a couple of long courses last year. Then I effortlessly started again and was surprised to find it came back just as pleasurably as before. Looking forward to getting back to it when I’m back in a large group next month.
Hi Harriet
I was 2nd. 🙂
I enjoyed long practice for while, and some big groups. But family life compressed the available time. Spent a year in the dome while in grad school.
D, thank you so much for this clear and full article on yogic flying. All this time I’ve been thinking that the siddhis nourish and awaken “sleepy” areas of the physical brain. I so appreciate now realizing that they’re also to nourish and enliven “sleepy” channels in the whole body. So useful and wonderful to realize. Hopefully will help whole siddhi practice be more enjoyable. Heretofore I’ve mainly enjoyed yogic flying and meditation.
You’re welcome, Sharon.
> Long practice can be hard on the leg joints, though.
I’ve found that use of an exercise ball can solve the knee pain. Moreover, the ball doesn’t dampen the hopping the way that foam does.
Caution – Do not attempt to meditate or do the rest of the sidhis on a ball. If you do, you’ll likely fall off. To me, it looks like yogic flying is far enough out from the transcendent that balance is maintained.
(laughs) Good idea, Rick. I noted above a foam stack worked for me. Same idea. More leaping than hopping, but that really doesn’t matter.
Not so much out of the TC but body aware enough. 🙂
One-stop clarity on all things. Mega gratitude here, D!
🙂
I practiced the TM Sidhis for 15 years . Davidya’s account of beginning stages matches my experiences. I have not practiced now for quite a few years but my knees still remember….not a problem back then but now….have to take care!
Having said that , I am fortunate to have had the teaching and the time to devote and wonderful groups large and small to practice among.
🙂
And for those who practice yogic sitting…..is there any hope? : )
Sure, Warren. Just doing it brings benefits. Every physiology is different so every expression is different. And performance is not an indication of your ripeness for awakening, as per the article.
In fact, with a couple of people, I found the cure for that was a different sitting position.
Thank you David and all who post your experiences. I learned the TM sidhi’s program in 1979 when I became a Governor (a Teacher of TM who learned the sidhi’s). I LOVE doing program. The unfoldment and blossoming of the “lesser” sidhi’s are very profound in my life. It took awhile for me to “lift off”; I was in the middle of the group when I learned. I mostly have been earthbound for decades but I notice the power surges that go up and down the chakras. When I have been in small groups there is some movement. I have been back to the dome about five years ago. And lifting off was fun with waves of bliss.
I am grateful to everyone who is raising Collective Consciousness, to the people here with the Davidya blog, David, but my HEART and my eternal gratitude is to Maharishi/Guru Dev/ The Holy Tradition which I am devoted to for my entire adult life (over 50 years). I am proud to identify this small body and mind as a devotee to Maharishi.
Thank you again David for the post. It was very clear and made me smile.
Hi Peter
Yes, I’ve enjoyed the rich flavours of the others. Especially when circumstances didn’t support lift-off.
Same. The tradition has brought so many blessings to the world. Jai Guru Dev.
Hi Jalal
What I found worked was flying on a stack of foam in a sitting position.
The connection was noticed from close study of the text – have written a translation and commentary, gradually being polished. Vasishtha mentioning becoming a hollow tube confirmed that.
The question in every rational persons mind is why there aren’t any videos of subsequent stages such as floating/ flying?
Is it because the collective is not ready to see it so some unseen forces prevent it from being recorded or shown to the masses? Or is it just vigorous hopping? The video is impressive but I’m not sure how springy that surface is!
Hi Sas
For one, the ability has been rare in the darker ages. Even long term meditators often barely have a sense of the quality of space, let alone master it. But there are numerous historical examples of the exceptions.
I have seen a number of videos of people floating. However, it’s a sport of fakirs and magicians so a lot of it is bogus. And now in the age of deep fake, its going to get harder to tell. I did see one clip of someone flying and it totally freaked out the nearby people, who ran in terror. But again, it was unclear how it was bring done. There are a lot of issues with doing something like this in public at this point in time.
I write about things like this as the sages have spoken about it in some detail, including the benefits it can bring society. Not in public demonstrations but in creating waves of harmony in the collective. I’ve seen that first-hand. It’s a technique that can literally end wars.
It’s not so much there’s “unseen forces” so much as the way the collective works. There are some famous stories about people not even seeing things in front of them when they were too outside their expectations.
Generally, yogic hoppers practice on rooms filled with foam mattresses. Those tend to absorb the drops rather than add to the spring. It’s not like a spring mattress. Old ones even mute the hops.
But again, it’s not really about the surface appearance. There’s a lot more going on inside, like getting a blast of energy and bliss at liftoff. EEG studies show peak all-brain coherence. etc.
That is interesting thank you David.
This is just great stuff. I have been doing the siddhis for almost 15 years. The progression is so subtle. But lately it’s getting much more intense and exciting. I particularly enjoy this process you describe as: “consciousness becomes clearer, and its ever-present nature becomes established to a degree. Then we’ll have experiences like noticing we’re transcending (samadhi) and experiencing it without being knocked out of it. ” The experience of transcending seems almost instantaneous with every meditation and the alternation of the finest level and the transcendent is fascinating. The gaps have become more and more silent with periodic “rushes” of intense body thrills with clearer and clearer practice. And flying seems to just happen all by itself with nothing more than the slightest attention and intention. It is often difficult to resist and trying to grab some rest while doing the flying sutra requires some distraction or I just lift off again and again. As a veteran of some fairly early days of the TM movement(1972 -3)I did long rounding and unstressing was intense and very real. I have on a number of occasions in the last 15 years gone and done long practice of the full program for weeks at a time, 6 to 8 hour a day and felt nothing remotely like unstressing. It seems to me the inner planes are just clearer and more accessible and the outer world is doing all the unstressing.
Hi TO!
Great observations – alternating finest level with pure consciousness. Not so many seeds left to take you further out. And yes, bliss can be enjoyed on various levels, including bodily, emotionally, etc.
As far as inner and outer, just wait for Unity. Then inner and outer are the same and you are the world “doing all the unstressing”. However, it’s not personal, just in the environment. Kind of like traffic noise. But it’s not “out there”. 🙂
Your comment is another example of the simplicity and power of Maharishi’s teaching: “Knowledge is structured in consciousness.” Yep, I see it as “out there” and someone in Unity says, “Au contraire.”[note attempt at poetic framing]
Yes sir! Actually, I’d say CC is more the “au contraire.”
Unity is more “et tu”.
Brahman is not is.
🙂
I’ve practiced the TM-Sidhi program for decades and not once even hopped. I guess someone has to hold down the fort. Congratulations to all who are experiencing bliss and benefits–many of which I suspect are not noticed or attributed to the sidhis and flying sutra practice. Enjoy!
Hi LK
Right – just because there isn’t an outward expression doesn’t mean there’s no results or benefit, both for you and the world.
However, I can note that I’m aware of 2 people who started hopping after changing their sitting position, in one case moving to a chair.
You’ve spent some time discussing the power siddhis but what about the first 3? The expansion of these 3 attributes and their benifit to experiencing higher levels of consciousness. How have they manifested during practice and outside in activity?
Hi Lewis
Powerful question. I assume you mean the first 3 in the TM-sidhi program. The first 3 in the Yoga Sutra are about remembering past lives & speaking to animals. There are over 50 mentioned in the text and many others possible.
The first 3 relate to 4 qualities listed in a much earlier verse:
“The mind becomes purified by cultivating friendliness toward the happy, compassion toward the unhappy, delight in the virtuous and equanimity toward the unvirtuous.” v1:33
These are essentially qualities of the open heart, which relate to the God Consciousness phase. Yet by culturing these qualities, we allow more deeply and respond more suitably to life. (Not trying to control how we feel, just what we favour.) But it varies some what we need. In my case, for example, I began culturing gratitude. That allowed a deeper acceptance of life and enough allowing that waking up happened.
So they can help the ripe state flower into awakening and they can help culture a GC stage.
During practice they show up as those qualities and soften the constraints and crust on the heart. In activity, the sutra above describes it.
Correct, I meant the TM Siddhis. I’ve always agreed with the expression that used to be on a church near where I lived “God is Love” and also in Maharishi’s idea that life is bliss as well as joy and happiness…. There once was a book on TM entitled “Happiness”….. Like to know your experiences of meditation and siddhis cultivating these qualities.
Hi Lew
Both ideas are quite literal. The life force we can experience as bliss. Hence, life is bliss.
Love is a quality of the Divine, hence, God is Love.
I wouldn’t say those qualities were cultured by meditation itself. Rather meditation cultures transcendence, which clears the way for them to flower. Then they’re more easily cultured.
And then when the heart opens around GC, they’re able to flower. The heart is the center chakra and transition from individual to universal. Friendliness, compassion, and love, for example, are more collective. They’re not “personal” emotions like anger and fear. I usually call the first fine feelings, and the later, emotions.
As for my own experience, those were the flavours that developed in the siddhi practice and gradually spilled out into life. Though it varies some how fully they express at any given time. The biggest part of that was with GC when the heart opened and love and compassion became boundless and sought an object of devotion. It also gave the capacity to handle the suffering of the world. Then, our protective shells can fall away, opening up vastly fuller emotions and qualities of experience.
Hi David,
Can we use something simple like “Pure Divinity” as a sutra to help embody later stages? Or is that inviting trouble?
Thank you
Hi Stephen
When it’s not something in the experience, it’s less effective. You may be amplifying a concept. Better to amplify what’s known, like with qualities of Divinity. There are programs for that, like L&L’s DSI program.
I was fortunate to go to Zambia in the fall of 1978. It was a world peace project that Maharishi organized. Much gunfire the first night we were there, then nothing afterwards. I’ll never forget it. The president, Kenneth Kwanda learned TM and never stopped.
Hi Mike
I’ve heard some great stories about those projects, entering conflict zones with the right % and settling things down just by doing the practice together in the region.
I was on the Invincibility campaign in ’78, Taste of Utopia in ’83, and some other big gatherings. But then we started a family… 🙂