The eight mystic siddhis directly illustrate that sentient beings can operate at different levels of sensory power by being endowed to varying degrees with Kṛṣṇa’s primordial potencies. Śrīla Prabhupāda gives the following description of some of the mystic siddhis:
A mystic yogī can enter into the sun planet simply by using the rays of the sunshine. This perfection is called laghimā. Similarly, a yogī can touch the moon with his finger. Though the modern astronauts go to the moon with the help of spaceships, they undergo many difficulties, whereas a person with mystic perfection can extend his hand and touch the moon with his finger. This siddhi is called prāpti, or acquisition. With this prāpti-siddhi, not only can the perfect mystic yogī touch the moon planet, but he can extend his hand anywhere and take whatever he likes. He may be sitting thousands of miles away from a certain place, and if he likes he can take fruit from a garden there” [NOD, pp. 11-12].
The prāpti-siddhi provides a perfect example of what we mean by the extension of access between locations. Consider the yogī on the earth who reaches out his hand to touch the moon. Does the yogī experience that his hand moves up through the atmosphere and crosses over thousands of miles of outer space, followed by a greatly elongated arm? This hardly seems plausible. We suggest that this siddhi actually allows the yogī to reach any desired location directly, and thus it requires higher-dimensional connections between remotely separated regions. The idea here is that Kṛṣṇa always has direct access to all locations, and by His grace this power of direct access can be conferred to varying degrees on various living beings.
The following verses in the Eleventh Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (11.15.10-13) show that the siddhis are indeed obtained by partial realization of Kṛṣṇa’s inherent potencies:
- aṇimā-becoming smaller than the smallest. “One who worships Me [Kṛṣṇa] in My atomic form pervading all subtle elements [bhūta-sūkṣma and tan-mātra], fixing his mind on that alone, obtains the mystic perfection called aṇimā.”
- mahimā-becoming greater than the greatest. “One who absorbs his mind in the particular form of the mahat-tattva and thus meditates upon Me as the Supreme Soul of the total material existence achieves the mystic perfection called mahimā.”
- laghimā-becoming lighter than the lightest. “I exist within everything, and I am therefore the essence of the atomic constituents of material elements. By attaching his mind to Me in this form, the yogī may achieve the perfection called laghimā, by which he realizes the subtle atomic substance of time.”
- prāpti-acquisition. “Fixing his mind completely on Me within the element of false ego generated from the mode of goodness, the yogī obtains the power of mystic acquisition, by which he becomes the proprietor of the senses of all living entities. He obtains such perfection because his mind is absorbed in Me.”
Similar statements are made about the four other siddhis. According to the purport to SB 11.15.13, “Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura states that those who pursue such perfections without fixing the mind on the Supreme Lord acquire a gross and inferior reflection of each mystic potency.”
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