Beyond the Siddhis

One of the reasons that confusion and disagreement over the Siddhis is the fact that Patanjali contradicts himself throughout the discussion of the Siddhi powers. For example, he stresses the fact that all time is now—that the past is merely memory and the future does not exist. He affirms that the only reality is the reality in the moment, the now; yet in sutra 3.16 he instructs us in the process of divining the future. He implies throughout the sutras that the process of dividing and comparing the objects of perception is an impediment to self-knowledge, then in sutra 3.52 he tells us how to develop the power to divide things that are indivisible. He states that consciousness has no locality, yet in 3.39 he describes how to transfer that consciousness into the localized body of another. The Siddhis exude contradictions. But perhaps the greatest contradiction is in the spirit of the powers themselves.