Siddhas and Social Change

A Siddha in Tantra means a “Perfected One” from which we get the word “Siddhi” which means mystical attainments.

The Siddhas have their roots in the Kshatriya or warrior caste of India that placed their focus on self-reliance and self-discipline over group ritualism and the Brahmin priestly caste.

One thing you learn when looking at the Siddha tradition in India is that beliefs are relatively unimportant.

What matters to the Siddhas are the daily disciplines of yoga, meditation, and even martial art practice that hones the body, mind, and spirit into a perfect vehicle of self-mastery tuned to divine right order.

Siddhas prioritize embodied self-discipline and direct personal spiritual experience over belief and rote external ritualism.

For this reason, Siddhas were always a heretical, rebellious threat to the priestly castes of India and the very social order they tried to hold in place.

Ironically it’s from the heretical and self-disciplined rebels at the margins that innovation, new ideas, and evolutionary change are often brought into society.

This dance of the awakened and perfected individual, and the group is the flywheel of social evolution.

The masses eat the inspiration of the awakened individual, and the awakened individual is always wrestling with the limits of the masses, and the wheel in the sky keeps on turning …