Renderings from Mystery of Siddhas - Part I

Renderings from Mystery of Siddhas-Part I - from 'Siddh Bhoomi Gyanganj', written by Gopinath Kaviraj ji and translated into Hindi by SN Khandelwal. 

In Hindu Dharma, we often hear reference of 84 Siddhas or adepts. Similar reference are found in Chritian, Sufi, Jain and Buddhist traditions too. So the question becomes, Who are these adepts or Siddhas and how to proclaim a person as a Siddha or How an ordinary human being reaches the pedestal of A Siddha state?

In the base of whole creation a great power resides, which is complete and one alone. It is fully conscious and bliss with limitless power. Its blemishless, eternal, all powerful, unfragmented state. None can touch it. It is beyond all kinds of rules and regulations, totally free. Human is bound by triad of Sleeping-Dreaming and Waking state. But complete entity of God though residing in these states is beyond them. He is established as super conscious and eternal entity. We can call this state as Turiya state. Beyond this also there is a state which extremely solemn, where even consciousness doest not arise, In truth, we can say that this is not even a state. It is beyond conscious and unconscious both, there are no words to describe it. This state can be like a solemn sleep state. In this form creation does not take place. 

That which is beyond, gross-subtle, conscious-unconscious, Creation-annihilation-establishment, is called that complete conscious Purush. He alone indulges in continuous creation and is fully aware of it always. Doing all this, He does not know that He alone is that Oneness because there is no need for that. The completeness which a human attains in Siddha state, one has no connection to it. His only connection is with the trade of the cosmic creation. The creator Ishwar is not beyond space and time. but he is beyond cause and effect. In the middle of his consciousness, creation of the cosmos starts. The time through which he remains active is known as Mahakalp. Whole creation has come out of his action space.

Like Ishwar is integral with the complete, in same manner is jeev too. The only difference between the two is that Ishwar is fully conscious while Jeev is partial conscious and partially unconscious. He knows only his limited self and does not comprehend that he is limitless, one atma itself. Time-Space, cause-effect duality limits it. Jeev also remains till mahapralaya like Ishwar. When he achieves state of completeness, is expereinces Oneness of that complete, eternal state. 

Due to presence of Mind, Pran etc. atma is experienced by Jeev, as they are the attributes from Parmatama. For achieve a state of lord's witness, one has to let go of these faculties. One does not achieve this state at the time of death. Till worldly attachment is not removed, this state prevails even after death. When all the attachments are decimated, then even in this mortal frame one enjoys this state of consciousness. This annihilation of attachment etc is achieved through knowledge (ज्ञान). The consciouness of a Jeev is always pierced with these attachments and consciousness remians devoid of its own expereince. After removal of all these, one can attain experience of that state. The atma which is bereft of contracted or limited state, is called Pure Atma (शुद्ध आत्मा). So the aim of a jeev is to join with the great entity which is beyond consciousness. For that all the attachements at the level of creation and body are to be completely burned away. Though such a state is acieved by all humans during deep sleep but it is not achieved with knowledge because in this state, attachemnts are not removed completely but they are in sleep form and wakes up again. Thus during deep sleep and death also attachment is not removed. After getting out of deep sleep of death, in a new body, these attachments wake up though past memories are not remebered by him. That is why yogis say,' There is no benefit in 'Dying Dead'. Only that persons death is a success who 'died awake'. To guard one's consciousness in the state beyond consciousness is called 'dying consciously'. Jeev pierces the creation by piercing the illusion of Maya. This is real meaning of life for a jeev. This is the achievement of natural state of atma and also known as a state of Sta-Chit-Anand. This state can never be destroyed. This can be experienced only after rising of knowledge (divine). When Sat-Chit-Anand (सत-चित्त्-आनन्द) param tattva joins with knowledge and consciousness, this state is achieved. This is known as eternally awakened  state or Siddha state or state of an adept. Now, seer-scene, cause-effect, creator-created, past-present-future all become one. Only a siddha experiences this state. Due to ignorance only one experiences duality in this oneness.  

In fact Param Atma is Param Tattva or greatest element. He alone is playing in the form of Ishwar, Siddha and Jeev. That limitless power is endowed with unseen experience of oneness and limitless form. In the state if Ishwar, all these things are there in him but he experiences Creation-establishment and annihilation. In the form of Jeev he is all powerful but due to his attachments he does not experience it. Thus the limitless param atma in the form of a jeev feels himself limited. In Siddha only, he experiences his power consciously.

The state of siddha is oneness with Ishwar or Bhagwan. When this state is attained, then Sadhak is called a Yogi. Thus he transcends his Jeevbhav and finds permanent bodning with Ishwar. Now he does not feel that he has achieved anything different from earlier. He feels same as before and there is no difference in him as compared to earlier. This play has been going on for aeons and it is just a play of maya or illusion. 

Due to this illusion, some time this play becomes unbearable for a jeev. The cause of this illusion is nothing but one's ego. In the intital stage there is no ego, but as consciousnes arises, this ego becomes stronger. Taking support of this ego only, ignorance resides unseen. This is the main obstruction to attainment of bhagwat sakshatkar (साक्षात्कार). Till ego is fully removed (in deep sleep it disappears for a moment only), one can not experience complete eternal bonding with the lord. Thus we can say that just by removal of outer experiencing one can not achieve this state, for that ego has to be removed fully and flow of consciousness has to be fully towards the lord....continued to Part-II...Shaktanand.(www.nirvanasage.com).