Month: November 2012

Perhaps the most sought after part of the Six Thousand Years of Wisdom Book of the Armenians is the part that teaches how to attain miraculous mystical powers. These powers seem to defy the laws of nature. It is for this reason that the ancient wise men who compiled this book kept it for a select elite group of enlightened souls who would not use it for evil purposes. Such powers wrongly used could exploit masses of innocent people and eventually enslave them to cruel despots.

I will explain the eight important powers that were delineated in the Vetz Hazaria that were possible to master with the appropriate teacher and a completely submissive student. These eight powers were never meant to be used for evil purposes. However, human nature is such that when one becomes excessively powerful, the tendency is to want to control and dominate nature and people. It should be understood that all powers and capabilities come from God, Who is the supreme controller, owner, giver and retriever of all powers. He can give and just as easily take back any power, wealth, knowledge, or capability that He bestows on a living being. The quality most important to cultivate in order to receive and correctly use such incredible powers is complete submission to the will of God and His pure representative or holy teacher and unflinching willingness to serve only the purpose ordained by God and not any selfish desire for self-indulgence.

In the Bible, we read that Jesus Christ was able to multiply a few loaves of bread and a few fish in such quantity that he fed 4000 people. His mother Mary gave birth to Jesus immaculately without any seminal discharge of her husband Joseph. He also revived Lazarus from the dead. On the Sea of Galilee, He walked on water. Before his arrest by the Roman soldiers, he predicted that Peter would betray Him. He rose from the dead and appeared among his disciples for 40 days and then rose to heaven in the same body that was crucified. After being tortured on the crucifix for an entire day, He forgave the people that crucified Him before he died. These are all manifestations of incredible mystic powers that Jesus exhibited as part of His ministry without trying to exploit them for personal profit. The following discussion will help us understand what these mystical powers are. I will use the original Sanskrit names to describe them. Mystic perfections are called Siddhis. One who possesses them is called a Siddha.

Anima siddhi is the ability to reduce oneself to the size of an atom. A human being who has mastered this perfection can become smaller than the smallest thing and enter even into solid rock and pass through it at will. There is no barrier that the Siddha cannot traverse. This seems impossible to imagine. Yet, modern science has partially achieved this art. Using machinery, it is possible to bore holes that penetrate rocks. With this machinery, man can build tunnels underground and roads that go through mountains. This is a rough approximation of the anima siddhi using modern technology.

Mahima siddhi is the power to expand oneself to an infinitely large size. One can also become heavier than the heaviest object. By such incredible expansion of size one can perform unimaginable feats such as space travel and traversing long distances quickly. One also can lift very heavy objects such as mountains.

Laghima siddhi enables one to become weightless as if lighter than a soft feather. One can float in the air or walk on water. With this power, it is possible to use the rays of the sunshine to travel to the sun. In other words, one can travel anywhere in a few seconds.

Prapti siddhi is described as the power of acquisition. One can extend his hand any length and take whatever he wants. He can even touch an object on the moon or anywhere in the universe. He can take a fruit or anything he desires from thousands of miles distance.

By the potency of Isita siddhi, one can create or destroy and entire planet simply by his will power. This siddhi permits a person to manipulate and control the material energy even to the point of creating a living being. The person who possesses this power is not equal to God by any means, but to ordinary people he seems to be all powerful.

One who possesses Vasita siddhi can bring anyone under his control. This is a type of hypnotism which is almost irresistible. Hitler had a near hypnotic power of speech when he addressed huge crowds of Germans.

The siddhi called Prakamya enables one to achieve anything he desires. A person who possesses Prakamya siddhi is never frustrated in achieving any desire in this world. It acts to create wonderful effects within the scope of nature. This power is within the realm of nature and possibility.

The most powerful of all siddhis is Kamavasayita. This is an advanced mystic power or supreme magic that permits one to contradict nature and do things that are normally impossible. One is capable of achieving the impossible including the creation of an alternate universe. By this siddhi one can assume any shape or form desired and obtain anything from anywhere to satisfy his wildest dreams.

Human beings have the ability to achieve these siddhis, but they are rarely attained because it requires many hundreds and thousands of years of severe austerities to master powers thoroughly. Often, one may partially master one or more of these powers to dazzle uneducated such people and exploit them.

In the life of Jesus, we see that He was able to master many of the siddhis and use them for the betterment of humanity. His goal was to spread the glories of His Father. Ultimately, He accepted to sacrifice Himself for the sins of others.

There are still a rare few teachers who can train a sincere student in these mystical arts. But, one must first be recognized by such a teacher and then pass the test of the teacher. The test has three main criterions: complete submission to the teacher, asking only serious questions aimed at spiritual progress and offering unselfish devotion and love for God. The mind of the student must be completely pure of any desires for sex and gross material desires.

The desire to attain the above material mystic perfections is itself a material desire. Even though these mystic perfections are motivated by material desire, one can still attain them if the attempt is mixed with pure desires to serve God. Without any trace of service and love for God, it is impossible to attain such powers. But the nature of even a small touch of material desire is so contaminating that once one has achieved the mastery of such powers it is very easy to fall prey to misusing them for material profit and prestige.
Every human being has a limited range of exercise of free will. Therefore, after many years of severe austerities to master the siddhis, one may use them uniquely for a spiritual purpose like Jesus Christ, or become intoxicated with the powers and misuse them for personal aggrandizement. God never interferes with our exercise of limited free will.

The siddhis are mastery of material powers. They are not spiritual. One can use them for a spiritual purpose. An airplane is a complex machine that can exhibit some of the perfection of Laghima siddhi or defying the law of gravity and acting as if one is weightless. There are commercial airplanes that transport people and merchandise and there are warplanes that carry bombs meant for destruction of people and property. Both uses are being manifest by the will of the people who are using the airplanes.

Similarly, siddhas have the choice to use their mystic powers for good or evil purposes. Even though they follow a quasi-spiritual process to attain the powers, after mastering them, they can still decide to misuse them for selfish and destructive purposes. Jesus was tempted by the Devil who promised Him even more supernatural powers if He rejected God. But, Jesus stood steadfast and commanded the Devil to leave. Therefore, mastery of the siddhis is not the ultimate goal of spiritual life. They can become an impediment to progress in spiritual life if one misuses them for a material purpose.

There are five major ways to attain power in this world. They all require very strict adherence to discipline under the guidance of a spiritual teacher. They are the following:
1- performing ritual sacrifices for attainment of material opulence and making some spiritual advancement;

2- acquiring tremendous knowledge of what is impermanent and what is eternal so that by discerning of the two one can dedicate himself to advancing toward the goal of liberation from birth and death. Usually this path leads to an impersonal liberation or a neutral state where one attempts to merge into the spiritual light emanating from the Body of God where one attains a sense of homogeneous oneness with God and eternal peace. This goal is however an incomplete understanding of God and eventually one may fall down again to the mortal plane due to a material desire for variety and relationship. The sense of oneness with God precludes any possibility of love and service because one must annihilate individuality to merge into the state of absolute oneness;

3- attainment of the siddhis by which one can work miraculous feats that are material in nature but very dazzling when manifest to common people;

4- the fourth path is pure love and devotion to God without any material motive such as the above three. With a pure heart one serves God without any motive other than to please Him and without any expectation of a return benefit. It is total surrender to the will of God with the only purpose of pleasing Him. One is not interested in liberation from birth and death as long as one may continue to serve God in heaven or hell or in the eternal spiritual world above the material heaven. The sincere lover of God depends entirely on the good will of the Lord in all endeavors. He or she is not influenced by success or failure. In spite of any obstacles due to sickness, old age, poverty, natural calamities, etc., one continues serving without being disturbed. Such purity is rarely achieved because most people expect to gain something by sacrificing their time and energy. When God is pleased by the sincerity of His sincere servant, He gives Himself and all His attention to His servant. An amazing reciprocal relation develops that defies all imagination and material rationality. God possesses all opulence, knowledge and He is the master of all mystic perfection. Therefore, His sincere servant does not have to separately attempt to achieve these material facilities. He simply depends on God’s Grace and obediently serves the will of the Lord without any material expectation. He works under the protection of the Lord and without any trace of material contamination or influence of lust, anger, greed, envy, madness and illusion;

5- the fifth path is one of envy and insubordination to the will of God with the intent of overthrowing the dominion of the Lord by misleading the unwitting masses of living entities. In this path, one commits ever increasing and progressively hideous sinful acts that confer a sort of increasing power to the miscreant. The irony of this path is that the adherent receives facilities and power from God but chooses to misuse them for personal gain and out of envy of the Lord. Ultimately, such evil persons are defeated by the omnipotent Lord who gives them many opportunities to relent and repent for their sinful activities. The powers they attain are given by the Lord and as they become more and more defiant, the Lord gradually and painfully withdraws their powers until they are totally bereft of any facility to do evil.

There is much more to be said about these siddhis and their subordinate powers that one can attain. It is a vast subject that requires deep thought to understand them. One should know however that the path of devotion and love for God far surpasses any amount of mystic power one can get by mastering the siddhis. All material perfections are limited in time and space. But pure love of God goes beyond the limits of this material world because one enters into the spiritual world of eternity, bliss and knowledge with full individual identity to reciprocate loving exchanges with God and His associates eternally without the destructive influence of time and the temporary forms of material nature. One enters the spiritual world with a spiritual body that is timeless and without any of the frailties of the material body that covers our soul in this material world.