From Victoria, British Columbia:

I wonder why there is so much emphasis on miracle powers when describing tantra, when that isn’t the point. Even in books that purport to discuss the spiritual path, there can be this emphasis. I am thinking of Autobiography of a Yogi, for example. Yogananda says that miracle powers are not the point, and yet a good portion of the book describes various people and their miracle powers.

Many people desire to have a “peak experience” that will soften their feelings of isolation. We search for these peak experiences in sex, food, drugs, religion and in our spiritual practice or from our Gurus.

The desire to be saved attracts a lot of people to lineages in which teachers give shaktipat as a regular practice. We can become spiritual experience junkies just as we can become sugar or heroin addicts.

We want to be saved from the pain of separation, our root ignorance. So, far from being “evil,” the desire for these peak experiences is the same desire that will eventually lead us to Self-realization. There is wisdom in this desire. It is the wisdom of our own suffering.

But the desire for a savior or a saving experience, for something or someone outside of ourselves to push us over the edge of our limitations is in itself an expression of limitation. It is just a stage along the way, and it is abandoned as we discover responsibility.

When we begin to take responsibility for our Self-realization, we become capable of working with a teacher and of relating to the teachings in a more mature way. We develop a higher capacity for self-reflection, and our reactivity to the circumstances of our lives begins to diminish.

We work very hard. We are really on the path. Now we desire to find within ourselves the courage and capacity to relax our tensions and discover our real nature.

This is also a stage–perhaps thousands of lifetimes long. It is the stage of hard sadhana.

At some point, though, our desperation begins to soften. We find ourselves in less of a life and death struggle with our fixations. We discover a new sense of intimacy with all life. The distinctions between “inside” and “outside” begin to dissolve. We no longer experience our teachers or other wisdom beings as being radically different from ourselves. When we hear the voices of our teachers, we hear our own wisdom speaking to us.

Eventually, we realize that the entire world is a living communication of Self to Self. There is nothing to pursue or collect.

When I finally read Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi at the age of forty-five, I was deep in the stage of effortful sadhana. I felt desperate for insight into the nature of Reality, my nature. I am talking about real desperation. The kind that hurts your heart and leaves you gasping for breath.

What struck me about the story was near the end. The narrator is granted visions of accomplished beings who have moved on to other, non-earthly realms and who are still doing hard sadhana to help them unwind remaining karmas.

I felt, not excited, but a sense of horror. Was I going to be at this for eons? Painstakingly untying the knots in age after age, realm after realm?

Now, however, the feeling of separation has softened. I find it impossible to experience the life process as so burdensome. I no longer experience horror at the thought of myself soldiering on alone toward enlightenment. Not that I am enlightened, mind you. I’m just not so much of an “I” anymore–not a soldier–not alone. And so there is more humor and less horror.

The world is wondrous, however. It is important not to dismiss the wonder in a rush to sober up and become a more respectable practitioner. I find that, for Westerners, it is especially important to read stories about so-called miracles, about the fruits of practice, because we have less experience meeting accomplished yogis and siddhas than do our South Asian counterparts.

So let the wonder of the world in. Please do consider that Reality is much, much more interesting than you imagine. But when you encounter something outside of your (very) limited range, don’t hang onto it with a stranglehold. Attachment is just attachment, and any attachments will hold you back.

And remember, the greatest siddhi is kindness. No doubt about that.

In Ma’s love,
Shambhavi

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