Siddha

“One nondual Brahman alone is everything, and there is no other.” “Thus, by your own experience, know your own Self to be indivisible and be a siddha; and abide most joyfully in the Self whose nature is free of thought-construction.” “Thus, by your own experience, know your own Self to be indivisible and be a siddha.” Knowing it from scripture will not do. Whether the Vedas say so or the Smritis say so—it will not do. Hearing will not resolve it. Know it by your own experience; thus become a siddha. Siddha means: one beyond whom there is no further journey or movement. Siddha means the final halt, the last destination, beyond which all roads end. Asiddha means: as we are. Asiddha means: one whose work is still unfinished; something remains to be done; something will happen, and then there will be happiness.

Yesterday someone asked a question. I did not answer it then; I had kept it for today. The question is: Who is a siddha?

Drowsy, listless, the days slipped by; nights won vows of wakefulness. Why does arrival turn to departure? Why does destruction become creation? Is death birth, or birth death? Nowhere a resolution appears. Pride in knowledge is all that remains, sewing together the start and end. In a moment, sunlight turned to shadow— Maya’s forms, and forms enamored of Maya. Water in the stone, stone in the water; in each soul the world is nestled. In the river—wave; in the wave—current; in each current, all of life. O you who fill drop by drop— why do brimming oceans run empty? “All’s well”—that’s what we heard; why did all depart, head in hands? If Brahman is truth and the world a lie, why do sunbeams weave dream-sky? In darkness—rays; in rays—dark prisons; victory upon victory, and yet life lost. A diamond-birth squandered so, weeping—singing, eating—drinking. Pride in knowledge is all that remains,…

Taru has asked.

What does siddha mean? It means that what was a seed within you has become a tree; it has flowered. It means: what you were meant to become, you have become; your destiny is fulfilled. Where the Ganga falls into the ocean, she becomes siddha. Where the seed becomes a flower, it is siddha. Siddha means: nothing remains to be done, nothing remains to be gained, nowhere remains to go. No goal remains—you are the goal. No temple, no mosque, no pilgrimage remains. No journey remains. You are the temple; you are the mosque. The beginning has arrived at the end. The traveler who set out has arrived. Then there is no need to forget. For being is so blissful… Have you ever noticed? Whenever you are happy, you do not want to forget yourself. Only when you are unhappy do you want to forget. A happy man does not…

Siddhi means that place from which no urge to go anywhere else arises. As long as that urge arises, there is samsara. Siddhi means where you are is the ultimate place—no urge to go elsewhere. Even if someone puts liberation in front of you, you close your eyes: “I am already seated in liberation.” There is a story about Nan-in—a Zen mystic. At the foot of a mountain, atop which was a pilgrimage shrine toward which thousands walked each year, Nan-in lay under a tree. Many monks went on pilgrimage too. The ignorant have no special link with householders—monks and renunciates are equally ignorant. They also go up the mountain—as if there were something there! Nan-in lay under the tree. One day some monks saw him. They had stopped to rest under the tree. They said, “Nan-in, we come every year on pilgrimage.