Begin Quote from Wikipedia under the heading "Siddhi"
Siddhi (
Devanagari सिद्धि;
IAST: siddhi;
Tibetan:
དངོས་གྲུབ,
Wylie:
dngos grub[1]) is a
Sanskrit noun that can be translated as "perfection", "accomplishment", "attainment", or "success".
[2] The term is first attested in the
Mahabharata. In the
Pancatantra, a siddhi may be any unusual skill or faculty or capability. As a legal term in the
Manusmriti, it refers to the settlement of a debt.
In the
Samkhya Karika and
Tattva Samasa, and hence in
Tantric Buddhism, it specifically refers to the acquisition of supernatural powers by psychic or magical means or the supposed faculty so acquired. These powers include items such as
clairvoyance,
levitation,
bilocation, becoming as small as an atom,
materialization, having access to memories from
past lives, etc. The term is also used in this sense in the
Sarva-darśana-saṃgraha of
Madhvacharya (1238–1317).
End quote from Wikipedia under the heading "Siddhi"
The way that I have observed all this works first hand during my lifetime is that someone is born with certain attributes or gifts. Many Tibetan Lamas and Mystical Christian Teachers and Swamis and Native American Medicine Men and Women that I have studied with all say somewhat similar things about all this even though they may use slightly different terms.
This is my observance personally about all this: First, a being is born with certain gifts. According to some these gifts come from the conscious developing gifts in previous lifetimes. I have not heard another explanation about gifts that makes as much sense to me as this one does. So, if this is true then as one develops both compassion and gifts of all kinds from one lifetime to another one slowly over many lifetimes becomes quite gifted, just exactly the same as someone who studies to be a doctor over many years then becomes gifted as a doctor in the healing arts. Only these gifts that pass over from lifetime to lifetime often can be of almost any variety from being an artist, musician, writer, poet or healer of oneself or others. Or sometimes all of these qualities or more at once. By discipline and interest and life experience one develops in all sorts of ways over thousands of years. One of the ways all this gets tied together in a sensible way is when one begins to remember past lives. However, this can be dangerous because of horrific deaths and awful happenings in past lives or all encompassing loves that lasted a lifetime or ended without consummation. So, though it might be incredibly enlightening to remember past lifetimes it is also incredibly dangerous like a minefield in some ways.
However, after safely usually through many efficient prayers crossing this almost infinite minefield of past lives, one might then understand who one actually has been for thousands or millions of years through thousands or millions of lifetimes as humans or whatever on multiple planets and dimensions including almost infinite amounts of time spent in heaven realms between lifetimes. Once this has been done one can go about developing the skills learned in other lifetimes or begin working on new ones more useful in this day and age. For example, I have memories of levitating as recently in another lifetime as the 1870s until about 1930 when passed on two lifetimes ago. Then I reincarnated in Japan only to die at the blast in Nagasaki which I remember dying in quite well at only 12 years of age. Then I was born in Seattle, Washington which is my present lifetime. But when I try to make sense of my experience of being born in Tibet or Nepal (depending upon what eras borders you use) and what life was like then compared to growing up until dying at age 12 in Japan in my next life compared to my lifetime now in the U.S. it sometimes makes me feel nauseous to contemplate all that because of all the extremely different cultural points of view of all three of those lifetimes including this one. Even when I contemplate how I prayed two lifetimes ago to be born in the U.S. in order to change the world to a better place, what my life is like now is not at all what I thought I would be doing 2 lifetimes later because the world no longer is what it was then and how was I to know fully what it would become in the future when I planned all this in the early 1900's when I was an old man then born around 1850 in Tibet? So, the whole thing on a certain level is very confusing for me to contemplate even as a 63 years old man now. But, what carries through is my commitment towards compassion towards all sentient life in the universe. And my memories of lifetimes on this planet and many others dating back 6 million years or more now as well as lifetimes already lived by me 1 million years or more into the future help me make sense of all this more. When I add to that my memories of millions of years in hundreds to thousands of different or interconnected heaven realms throughout the universe it finally begins to make some sense to me what I am doing here now. My life now is like one day in the life of my soul that has been alive at least millions of years already in the past, present and future of the universe.
So, once I can make sense of some of this I find that as Siddhis manifest in me and around me automatically from God into people and situations all over the earth every day, compassion appears to be helping all souls no matter what their understanding of all this might be at present all over the earth right now in the past, present and future by God's Grace. And I am only one of millions or billions of people on earth having these kinds of experiences every day here on earth.
