The Siddhis — Extraordinary Powers as Both Gift and Obstacle
The siddhis (extraordinary powers) that arise from Samyama are genuine but double-edged: they confirm progress on the path but also tempt the practitioner to detour from liberation into the glamour of psychic achievement.
Sutras 3.16-3.55 catalogue an extraordinary range of Siddhis (supernatural powers) that arise from specific Samyama practices: knowledge of past and future lives, mind-reading, knowledge of previous births, the ability to enter another's body, power over death, knowledge of subtle hidden things, the eight classical siddhis (anima, mahima, garima, laghima, prapti, prakamya, ishitva, vashitva). But sutra 3.37 delivers a crucial warning: 'te samadhau upasarga vyutthane siddhayah' — these are obstacles in samadhi, though they are perfections in the outward-turned state of mind. The siddhis are real powers, but preoccupation with them diverts the yogi from the single goal of liberation. Patanjali is the most sober of yoga's teachers: even genuine spiritual experiences and powers must be treated with Vairagya.
These are perfections in the outward state but obstacles in samadhi.
Sri Aurobindo warns in The Synthesis of Yoga that the siddhis, while genuine phenomena, represent a serious spiritual danger: the ego uses them to reconstitute itself in a subtler and more resistant form — making them, as Patanjali says, the most seductive obstacles on the spiritual path.
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
Written about in
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Patanjali catalogues extraordinary powers across dozens of sutras, then rules in 3.37 that they are obstacles in samadhi though perfections in the outward-turned state. Spiritual attainment becomes a scoreboard as readily as money does. His instruction is that even real powers be met with vairagya — the same detachment asked of ordinary gains.