Miracles

Yesterday, someone talked of Swami Sivananda's miracles. What are miracles? They're trump cards to attract people, to put them on the path. On the other hand, they're side effects that benefit the devotees! The greatest miracle, as Sathya Sai seems to suggest, is love.

I've seen that the eight maha-siddhis are given too much importance by some. They don't realize that these powers are traps in spiritual progress. I'm reading The Pilgrimage by Paulo Coelho and a lot of miracles are written about! I might comment more on the book once I'm done with it a couple of days down, but overall its average, still interesting and of course, the nice fable-styled writing of Paulo can't be ignored.

Back to miracles, over the past many years, I used to be impressed by Maharshi Mahesh Yogi's flying yoga or Kundalini powers, not to see & read about, but I wanted to *get* those. Not of much value, but it seemed interesting... a kiddish academic interest. Of course, the former's FY also has a lot of peaceful effects on the universe, but I was purely interested in the magical experience. As of now, I don't know if I want to spend the valuable vyavhaaric time in such meaningless play; I always feared the traps. What if I get addicted to those powers and such? Not that I would make bad use of it, but what if I just get indulged so much that I turn a yoga-bhrashta? (Someone even had told me that in my past life I was a yoga-bhrashta. All the more reason then, to stay away :) Someone asked Nisargadatta Maharaj once about the miracles that happen around him. He said that the questioner or people around see them and he denied that he is *doing* those. "Miracles happen".