Siddha Yoga

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For other uses, see Siddha Yoga (disambiguation).
Shiva statue, Shree Muktananda Ashram, New York

Siddha Yoga is a spiritual path founded by Muktananda (1908–1982). The organization states in its literature that the Siddha Yoga tradition is "based mainly on eastern philosophies". It also states that it "draws many of its teachings from the Indian yogic texts of Vedanta and Kashmir Shaivism, the Bhagavad Gita and the poet-saints."[1] The present head of Siddha Yoga is Gurumayi Chidvilasananda.

Ashrams and meditation centers provide places to learn and practice Siddha Yoga. The two main ashrams are: Gurudev Siddha Peeth in Ganeshpuri, India, and Shree Muktananda Ashram in upstate New York. There are meditation centers in a number of countries, including India, the United States, Australia, United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Canada, Mexico, Brazil and Japan.[2]

Etymology[]

"Siddha Yoga" ("perfect" or "perfected" yoga) is a Sanskrit term adopted by Muktananda to describe the path of self-realization that he embarked on under the guidance of his spiritual teacher, the Indian saint Bhagawan Nityananda. Muktananda regarded the path he learned from his teacher as a perfect path because it embraced all of the traditional yogas (jnana yoga, karma yoga, raja yoga, and bhakti yoga), spontaneously bringing the disciple to perfection in each. In 1975 Muktananda founded the SYDA Foundation (Siddha Yoga Dham Associates) to administer the work of his global "meditation revolution."[3]

"Siddha Yoga" has been a registered service mark[4] of the SYDA Foundation, a domestic non-profit corporation, since 1977.[5] As an educational service mark, it is used in teaching and conducting workshops for individual spiritual development.[4]

The ancient generic Sanskrit term "Siddha Yoga" (or "perfected" yoga) is attested in the Third Tantra of the Thirumandhiram of Thirumoolar,[6][citation needed] a Tamil poet of the 7th or 8th century.[7] A definition of "Siddha Yoga" is also offered by Swami Shankar Purushottam Tirtha, a yogi from the dual Tirtha/Siddhayoga lineage, who wrote two books on "Siddhayoga" in the early 1900s:[8]

The easy way of attaining it (salvation) is said to be Siddhayoga... Siddhayoga or Siddhimarga is that means by which yoga can be attained without difficulty... Siddhayoga is attained by the infusion of spiritual force through the good grace of a saintly preceptor... Siddhayoga or Siddhimarga is nothing but the knowledge of the unity of Self and Brahma...[9]

A further definition of "Siddha Yoga" was offered in 1948 by Swami Purushottam Tirtha's disciple, Swami Vishnu Tirtha:

Therefore the yoga of Kundalini is known as Mahayoga. It is also sometimes called Siddhayoga because it can be acquired only through the favor of a perfect master (Siddha Guru), without any effort on the part of the initiated.[10]

It has been said that through shaktipat Kundalini is soon awakened, and that Mahayoga or Siddhayoga is the direct outcome.[11]

Teachings and practices[]

Muktananda's Siddha Yoga is based on his personal selection "from the teachings of his guru, Nityananda, and philosophical and practical traditions that preceded him, especially premodern hatha yoga, Vedanta, and Kashmir Shaivism."[12][note 1]

The Siddha Yoga practices are intended to help the seeker "touch and expand the inner mystical state, until over time he or she becomes established in his experience of yoga or oneness with God."[13]

Yoga practices[]

Siddha Yoga meditation, or the practice of turning the attention inward, involves silently focusing the attention on a mantra and on the flow of breath. The principal Siddha Yoga meditation mantra is Om Namah Shivaya.[14]

Siddha Yoga chanting involves the use of music and sacred mantras "to enter into a dialogue with the divine." There are two main types of Siddha Yoga chants: namasankirtana (lyrical chanting of Sanskrit mantras, typically the names of God), and swadhyaya (the chanting of longer Sanskrit scriptural texts). Scriptural texts chanted in Siddha Yoga ashrams and meditation centers include the morning and evening Arati;[15] the Guru Gita, a hymn of 182 verses transmitted in the Skanda Purana;[16] Shree Rudram, an ancient hymn to Rudra (Shiva) preserved in the Krishna Yajurveda; and the Kundalini Stavah, an eight-stanza hymn to Kundalini.[15]

Siddha Yoga students can participate in satsang, group meetings or programs held weekly at Siddha Yoga ashrams and meditation centers. Satsangs typically include talks, chanting, and meditation.[17] The SYDA Foundation offers a variety of courses and retreats throughout the year, including the meditation intensives first developed by Muktananda in the 1970s.[18]

Siddha Yoga students engage in seva, or "selfless service," as a spiritual practice. Students can practice seva through volunteer work at an ashram or a meditation center in their city. The work of the SYDA Foundation is carried out by the work of "sevites."[19]

Other Siddha Yoga practices include japa (mantra repetition), contemplation, and dakshina, the traditional practice of making a voluntary monetary offering to a saint as an expression of gratitude for the grace and teachings one is said to have received.[20]

Shaktipat[]

A central element of the Siddha Yoga path is shaktipat-diksha, literally translated as “initiation by descent of divine power,” through which a seeker’s Kundalini Shakti is awakened God-realization by the Guru. Once active, this inner power is said to support the seeker’s steady efforts to attain self-realization.[21][12][note 2]

Holy days[]

Students of Siddha Yoga celebrate two major Hindu religious holy days: Maha Shivaratri (celebrated two days before the new moon in February/March) and Guru Purnima (celebrated on the full moon in July–August). They also celebrate the birthdays of Muktananda and Chidvilasananda; Muktananda's divya diksha day (the day he received initiation); and the mahasamadhi anniversaries of Muktananda and Bhagawan Nityananda.[23]

History[]

Muktananda[]

Further information: Muktananda

Muktananda's spiritual teacher, Bhagawan Nityananda, has been widely regarded throughout India as a Siddha Guru and as an Avadhut since the mid-20th century.[citation needed] Born in South India, he first came to Ganeshpuri, a small village located 82 kilometers north of Mumbai, in 1936, settling there in a small hut built for him by the caretakers of the local Shiva temple. As his visitors and devotees increased in number, the hut expanded into an ashram.

In his autobiography, Play of Consciousness, Muktananda describes how he received shaktipat initiation from Nityananda on August 15, 1947, and how he attained God-realization or moksha after nine more years of sadhana and discipleship.[24]

Nityananda installed Muktananda in a small three-room dwelling in Gavdevi, a mile from Ganeshpuri. After his death in 1961, Nityananda's Ganeshpuri ashram was converted into a samadhi shrine and has subsequently become a renowned temple and pilgrimage site. Under Muktananda's leadership the three-room dwelling in Gavdevi also expanded into a flourishing ashram and international retreat site (Sri Gurudev Ashram, now Gurudev Siddha Peeth).[25]

From August 27 to 30, 1974, Muktananda led the first Shaktipat Intensive in Aspen, Colorado.[26] Through Shaktipat Intensives, created by Muktananda, participants are said to receive shaktipat initiation (the awakening of Kundalini Shakti that is said to reside within a person) and to deepen their practice of Siddha Yoga meditation.[27] Historically, Shaktipat initiation had been reserved for the few who had done many years of spiritual service and practices; Muktananda offered this initiation to newcomers and yogis alike.[28]

Lake Nityananda, Shree Muktananda Ashram, New York State

In 1974, Muktananda founded the SYDA Foundation, an organization designated to protect, preserve and facilitate the dissemination of the Siddha Yoga teachings. In 1975 Muktananda founded the Siddha Yoga Ashram in Oakland in the San Francisco Bay Area, and in 1976 he established Shree Nityananda Ashram (now Shree Muktananda Ashram) at South Fallsburg in the Catskills Mountains, north of New York City. His fame increased to the point that he was made the subject of a New York magazine article ("Hanging out with the Guru") and a Time magazine article ("Instant Energy"), both in 1976.[29] In 1979, Muktananda created The Prison Project, designed to making the teachings, practices and experience of the Siddha Yoga path available to incarcerated seekers.[30]

Gurumayi[]

Further information: Gurumayi Chidvilasananda
Sydney Ashram

One of Muktananda's earliest and principal disciples was Malti Shetty, a young woman from Mumbai who accompanied him as his English language interpreter on his second and third World Tours. In May 1982, Muktananda installed Shetty (now known as Gurumayi Chidvilasananda or Gurumayi) and her brother Subhash Shetty (now known as Mahamandaleshwar Nityananda) as co-gurus and spiritual leaders of the Siddha Yoga path. Muktananda died on October 2, 1982.[31]

In 1985, Gurumayi's brother Nityananda stepped down "in disputed circumstances",[31] in which he and Gurumayi "messily parted ways".[32] In October 1985 he had his sannyasa vows revoked; he later told a journalist this was because he had broken his celibacy vow.[31] A different version of the events was reported later, that there had been a battle for succession.[32] In 1987, Nityananda started his own organization, Shanti Mandir.[33]

Gurumayi has been the sole spiritual leader of Siddha Yoga since then.[31] The indologist Douglas Renfrew Brooks stated that Gurumayi, like Muktananda before her, "cite frequently but selectively ... since ethical pre-conditions create criteria that inform the Siddha Yoga guru's scriptural choices" from the tantric scriptures.[34][35]

In 1992 Gurumayi founded the Prasad Project, an independent, not-for-profit, charitable organization that provides impoverished communities in India with medical, dental, and eye care, as well as nutrition, education and community development.[36] In 1997 she established the Muktabodha Institute, an independent non-profit foundation with its own publishing imprint, Agama Press, to foster the preservation and study of the ancient philosophical texts of India.[37]

By 2004, the majority of devotees at the South Fallsburg ashram were white, educated, middle-class women, in the view of author Karen Pechilis making the fact that Gurumayi is female significant; one devotee told her that Gurumayi was "very much a woman".[31] She notes that the titles of Gurumayi's autobiographical books Ashes at My Guru's Feet and Growing up with Baba emphasize the importance of lineage in Siddha Yoga, placing Gurumayi as the third of its spiritual masters.[31] At the same time, Gurumayi built up the Siddha Yoga organization "into a multimillion dollar entity" with business-type executives, a CEO and a COO.[31]

Controversy[]

Further information: Sexual abuse by yoga gurus

Author Andrea Jain writes that "Muktananda engaged in secret sexual rituals with several of his young female disciples - some of whom were teenagers - that were meant to transmit sakti to the tantric hero."[38][39] In 1981, Stan Trout, a swami for Siddha Yoga, wrote an open letter in which he referred a number of stories of Muktananda engaging in sexual activities with young women, and threats and harassment to force people to "stop talking about your escapades with young girls in your bedroom."[40] In 1983 William Rodarmor printed several allegations in CoEvolution Quarterly from anonymous female devotees that Muktananda regularly raped them.[41][40][42] In the article, based on twenty five interviews,[43] former devotees charged that Muktananda had engaged in sexual interactions with young devotees,[41] which "drew naive young women into esoteric Tantric rituals."[44]

Lis Harris repeated and extended Rodarmor's allegations in an article in The New Yorker (1994).[43][42] According to Lola Williamson, "Muktananda stressed the value of celibacy for making progress on the spiritual path, but he almost certainly violated his own rules."[40] Sarah Caldwell, in an essay in the academic journal Nova Religio (2001), argued that Muktananda was both an enlightened spiritual teacher and a practitioner of Shakta Tantrism, but also "engaged in actions that were not ethical, legal or liberatory with many disciples."[39] In 1996 former devotees started a website entitled Leaving Siddha Yoga to express their grievances against Siddha Yoga.[45]

Analysis[]

Purity is emphasized in the Siddha Yoga tradition; Pechilis writes that Gurumayi's purity is highlighted to show that she continues the guru tradition, and that she is a suitably pure person to be the spiritual leader of the organization. Pechilis comments that while purity may have been an implicit credential for her predecessor gurus, one point of view would be that it became "explicit and greatly emphasized during the succession dispute and is now a primary lens"[31] for understanding Gurumayi's spiritual path; unusually for female gurus, Pechilis writes, she was not apparently expected to marry at any time, and instead she took sannyasa in the way a male guru would.[31]

John Paul Healy, who had been a devotee from 1981 to 1985, analysed the sociology of 32 former Siddha Yoga devotees. Some of the participants had moved to one or another of the two groups which split off from Siddha Yoga, Swami Nityananda's Shanti Mandir and Shankarananda's Shiva Yoga; they were moved to leave by the death of Muktananda, the changing leadership and the allegations that Muktananda had had sexual interactions with devotees, as well as changes in their own lives. Healy found that the brainwashing theory of conversion to cults did not apply to Siddha Yoga, but that people joined and stayed because they found the practice attractive, from the aromatic incense, the diet and lifestyle, the group meditation and chanting, and the experiences of the group, including of the guru.[46][47] The changes within the organization after Muktananda's death have been examined by scholars including Gene Thursby and Douglas Osto.[48][49]

See also[]

Notes[]

  1. ^ The Siddha Yoga tradition is "based mainly on eastern philosophies," and "draws many of its teachings from the Indian yogic texts of Vedanta and Kashmir Shaivism, the Bhagavad Gita and the poet-saints."[1] Principal texts from the Vedantic tradition include the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Viveka Chudamani of Shankaracharya, and the Yoga Vasistha. Texts from the Kashmir Shaivite tradition include the Shiva Sutras of Vasugupta, the Spanda Karikas of Vasugupta, the Prataybhijnahridayam, and the Vijnana Bhairava. Other texts referred to by Muktananda and Chidvilasananda include Jnaneshwari, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, the Bhakti Sutras of Narada, the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, and poet saints such as Kabir and Tukaram Maharaj.[citation needed]
  2. ^ The Siddha Yoga vision statement is, "For everyone, everywhere, to realize the presence of divinity in themselves and creation, the cessation of all miseries and suffering, and the attainment of supreme bliss."[22] The Siddha Yoga mission statement reads, "To constantly impart the knowledge of the Self. (Shiva Sutras III.28)[22]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b "The Scriptural Tradition". SYDA Foundation. Retrieved 2009-12-02.
  2. ^ "Centers and Ashrams". SYDA Foundation. Retrieved 2009-12-02.
  3. ^ "Swami Muktananda". SYDA Foundation. Retrieved 2009-12-02.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b "United States Patent and Trademark Office – Trademark Electronic Search System". Retrieved 2007-05-04.. Questions about the trademarking of generic spiritual terms such as "Siddha Yoga" were raised by an editorial by <Palani, Sivasiva (November 1990). "The Trademark Wars". Hinduism Today..
  5. ^ "New York State's Division of Corporations Entry for SYDA Foundation". Retrieved 2007-03-18.[permanent dead link].
  6. ^ Natarajan (1979), p. 92
  7. ^ Winternitz 1972, p. 588, note 1.
  8. ^ Swami Shankar Purushottam Tirtha's Yoga Vani: Instructions for the Attainment of Siddhayoga and Guru Bani: 100 Ways to Attain Inner Peace have been published in Bengali, Hindi, and English.
  9. ^ Tirtha 1990, pp. 2–4.
  10. ^ Tirtha 1948, p. 79.
  11. ^ Tirtha 1948, p. 80.
  12. ^ Jump up to: a b Jain 2015, p. 85.
  13. ^ "The Siddha Yoga Practices". SYDA Foundation. Retrieved 2009-12-02.
  14. ^ "The Siddha Yoga Practices: Meditation". Retrieved 2009-12-02.
  15. ^ Jump up to: a b "Chanting". SYDA Foundation. Retrieved 2014-07-09.
  16. ^ SYDA 1990, p. 57.
  17. ^ "Siddha Yoga Glossary". SYDA Foundation. Retrieved 2007-03-18.
  18. ^ "Events". SYDA Foundation. Retrieved 2014-07-09.
  19. ^ "Selfless Service". SYDA Foundation. Retrieved 2014-07-09.
  20. ^ "The Practices". SYDA Foundation. Retrieved 2014-07-09.
  21. ^ Brooks 1997, pp. xix–l.
  22. ^ Jump up to: a b "Vision and Mission". Retrieved 2009-12-02.
  23. ^ "Siddha Yoga Holidays and Observances". Retrieved 2010-09-29.
  24. ^ Muktananda 1971, p. [page needed]
  25. ^ "Hinduism Today, "Baba Muktananda's 'Meditation Revolution' Continues"". October 1992. Retrieved 2007-03-18.
  26. ^ Brooks 1997, p. 576 (Appendix 2).
  27. ^ Brooks 1997, pp. 135–152.
  28. ^ Brooks 1997, p. 93.
  29. ^ "Instant Energy". Time Magazine. July 26, 1976. Archived from the original on September 30, 2007. Retrieved 2007-04-25.
  30. ^ "Prison Project". Retrieved 2014-07-09.
  31. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i Pechilis 2004, pp. 219–243.
  32. ^ Jump up to: a b Syman 2010, pp. 285–289.
  33. ^ "Former SYDA Co-Guru Explains". Hinduism Today. April 1995. Retrieved 2007-03-18.
  34. ^ Jain 2015, p. 86.
  35. ^ Brooks 1997, p. 334.
  36. ^ "Prasad Project". Retrieved 2007-03-18.
  37. ^ "Muktabodha". Retrieved 2007-03-18.
  38. ^ Jain 2014, p. 204.
  39. ^ Jump up to: a b Caldwell 2001.
  40. ^ Jump up to: a b c Williamson 2010, p. 114.
  41. ^ Jump up to: a b Rodarmor 1983.
  42. ^ Jump up to: a b Urban 2012, p. 247.
  43. ^ Jump up to: a b Harris 1994.
  44. ^ Urban 2012, p. 244.
  45. ^ "Leaving Siddha Yoga website". Retrieved 2007-03-18.
  46. ^ Healy 2010, pp. 1–9.
  47. ^ Williamson, Lola (2011). "[Review]: Yearning to Belong: Discovering a New Religious Movement". Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review. 2 (1): 136–138. doi:10.5840/asrr20112143.
  48. ^ Thursby 1991, pp. 165–182.
  49. ^ Osto 2020, chapter 4.

Sources[]

Primary
  • Muktananda, Swami (1971). Play of Consciousness. SYDA Foundation. ISBN 978-0-914602-37-8. Also cited as: Publisher=Siddha Yoga Publications; ISBN 0-911307-81-8
  • SYDA (1990) [1972]. The Nectar of Chanting. SYDA Foundation. ISBN 0-914602-16-0.
  • Tirtha, Swami Vishnu (1948). Devatma Shakti (Kundalini) Divine Power. India: Yoga Shri Peeth Trust. 1st edition (in English)
  • Tirumular (1991). Tirumantiram. India: Sri Ramakrishna Matt. ISBN 978-81-7120-383-3., Second edition. (in Tamil, translated to English by Dr. B. Natarajan)
  • Tirtha, Swami Shankar Purushottam Tirtha (1990). Yoga Vani: Instructions for the Attainment of Siddhayoga. New York: Sat Yuga Press. First English edition. First published the early 1900s in Bengali and Hindi.
  • Tirtha, Swami Shankar Purushottam Tirtha (1995). Guru Vani: 100 Ways to Attain Inner Peace. New York: Sat Yuga Press. First English edition. First published the early 1900s in Bengali and Hindi.
  • White, John Warren (1990). Kundalini, Evolution and Enlightenment. New York: Paragon House. ISBN 978-1-55778-303-5. Paul Zweig writes of his experience of receiving Shaktipat from Swami Muktananda in this anthology.
Secondary

External links[]

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