By Michael Erlewine
What do those of us who have practiced dharma for years and decades have to say about siddhis? Remember Siddhas are perfected practitioners and Siddhis are the outward signs of that perfection. Siddhas may exhibit siddhis.
So, if I am such a good practitioner, where are my siddhis, the signs of my practice? I don’t claim to have any or if I do, I can only think of one, which I will recount.
The signs of our practice (or lack thereof) are how we appear and are what siddhis or gifts demonstrate. I have been fortunate in finding in my life great teachers. That much I have going for me. As for siddhis, signs of dharma success, well, sorry folks, I can’t say I have seen any, with one minor exception. As mentioned, there is one gift that I can’t deny, and while not a big deal, it is very welcome as I see it, but not so much spiritual as it is practical.
As some of you may know, my background is in music, performing and studying music for a long time. Can I walk through walls or levitate, no I can’t. LOL. Well, what can I do?
About the only thing that I have experienced that I have no explanation for is the following.
My early introduction to music, learning music was drums. Back then, as a kid I did not even have a set of drums. What I did have was a little wooden stand with a piece of linoleum tacked to its surface. It was all of 7 inches square, and on it I would practice paradiddles, drum rhythms. I was never even any good at it, yet I tried.
Now flash forward until my mid-twenties (1965) when my brother and I had started a band, the “Prime Movers Blues Band.” I started out playing rhythm guitar and over time ended up as the lead singer and amplified harmonica player. This is what we sounded like.
This went on from 1965 until the early 1970s. Yet, back then, although I could play music, I never felt that I was in ‘the pocket’, and could find the heart of the beat and emphasize it. Yes, I could remain within the rhythmic confine of the tunes, and not fall out, but was I in the pocket, and naturally resting there? No, I was not. And while only I perhaps felt this, being aware of what was not there was not encouraging, so to speak.
Now, jump again forward to just a few years ago. I am old and no longer really playing much music, but listen with clarity, I can and do.
Anyway, a few years ago, quite suddenly, when I listened to music, I suddenly found myself totally at the heart of the beat, in the groove or pocket. It literally made me want to dance. And even listening to music became suddenly enormously pleasurable. I was not ahead or behind the beat even by a millisecond. I was the beat. And being in that groove taught me how deep the beat is, endless.
It’s like we go between the clock-ticking seconds of time to a kind of eternity itself, a sense of space that is profound. And, along with it, my sense of pitch also improved. It was like someone just suddenly adjusted my ability to hear and feel music until it was, for me anyway, perfect.
It’s a rather small thing, but it was amazing to experience, and it has stayed with me. That is as close to a siddhi as I know. That was, for me, a siddhi, one that dovetailed into my natural interest in music.
Does that make me a Siddha? I don’t think so, because it was not really a spiritual attainment, just a cosmic tune-up that probably resulted from my gradually purifying my senses enough so that this sensing of the beat snapped or fell into place.
Nevertheless, I am very grateful for its occurrence. It is a gift.
[Midjourney graphic prompted by me.]
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As Bodhicitta is so precious,
May those without it now create it,
May those who have it not destroy it,
And may it ever grow and flourish.
There is a rhythm to both the cosmos with regard to your astrology program and a rhythm to music you set order to with the library your made. Perhaps your Siddhi is the classification of natural rhythms in all forms (which is of a cosmic nature). This extends in your perceptive writing and photography through your cosmic senses as well. This journal of small gleanings is a way of holding order, in that you make sense of it all, for the masses. It is no mistake you are here now at a time when the internet sends this to the masses so that the knowledge in a dewdrop has the potential living thought power of a pond.