If the Siddhis are supposed to naturally arise, why doesn't everyone get them once they reach a level of development in meditation?

For instance, Daniel Ingram says he's an Arhant, therefore shouldn't have advanced psychic abilities have arisen for him by now (instead of occuring spontaneously)? And to be clear, I don't mean to ask this as if I'm questioning his attainments (I think he's sincere). I just want to know how this works, it's confusing because there's a lack of information.

Maybe think of this as you might think of learning to read - some people read up to become lawyers, some to become doctors, some to become engineers. Once certain realizations and connections are in place, this is a choice and not an inevitability.

Would you say you can do telepathy?

Yes, and stop thinking that!

 sorry, this just made me LOL
(and i know you are speaking somewhat sarcastically)

I knew you'd laugh.

I knew you'd use your siddhis on this thread!

But don't the Yoga Sutras say this happens naturally? As in you don't have to pursue them, once consciousness reaches a certain point they just develop by themselves. If so, then shouldn't they show up for everyone once they reach this point (regardless of whether they pursue them)?

First you should try for the fruits of awareness, love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The siddhis are gifts that show up when you need them. The desire for the powers they demonstrate is the sure way of never seeing them.

For a contrarian opinion about the siddhis, check out this talk by Stephen Batchelor.

Stephen's view is that the suttas which talk about the siddhis are really talking about artistic creativity.

You need absurdly high levels of concentration in order to play with cool siddhis. Daniel has described some awesome experiences while in his Fire Kasina retreats.
For the most impressive siddhis you need even higher mastery of the kasinas, such as the one described in Visuddhimagga, which is pretty impressive and i don´t think anyone here has reached that level (I can be wrong tho)

Here's a Siddhi I practice (the only one): see how fast you can power up the paths.

Any examples?

Here is mine; see how fast you can Let It Be, Let It Be, Let It Be (I think The Beatles stole this one from me) 

You can find what Daniel Ingram said about his experiences with siddhis here (scroll to below): https://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2018/07/on-supernatural-powers-or-siddhis.html

I've personally known a number of those with similar realisations like Daniel Ingram that has experiences with siddhis. But also plenty that do not. I have very limited experiences of them.

If you want to know how it is like during the Buddha's times, check out Sushima Sutta. Susima Sutta states that many arahants did not have any supernatural powers but relied on wisdom for liberation. https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/SN/SN12_70.html

Developing siddhis it is not a matter of being at some point in meditative development but being on multiple points on various axes of development and then somehow combining multiple skills in to something which barely works and then spending years of effort to develop it not knowing if it is even real in to something which works good enough to make you yourself start believing in it. Then much more time to be able to prove it. The last bit even gurus somehow fail to do so as you can imagine it is not easy.

At least there is something meanigful to practice after the enlightenment.
Except babishing demons that is

What are the Yoga Sutras? Link? 

Thanks

The Yoga Sutras are post Buddhist Hindu teaching about liberation written supposedly by Patanjali in Sanskrit. Patanjali is revered as the founder of yoga although his sutras have very little to do with hatha yoga or physical exercises. Here is one translation.

https://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/yogasutr.htm

If you take a look you'll see that The Yoga Sutras are very terse. They're usually accompanied by a commentary expanding on the base text.  Here's one such which I found useful. 

http://www.swamij.com/yoga-sutras-list.htm

There's a lot of value in the Yoga Sutras but I would be remiss if I didn't point out that they are not Buddhist and their presentation of siddhis isn't a Buddist one. See here 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iddhipada 

and here for one of the Pali suttas on iddhis in the Theravadan tradition.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn51/sn51.020.than.html

[quote=
]First you should try for the fruits of awareness, love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The siddhis are gifts that show up when you need them. The desire for the powers they demonstrate is the sure way of never seeing them.
I completely agree with your first points but I only wish it were true that desire can't lead to powers. I wouldn't claim to any deep accomplishment but I do have concentration skills which I worked assiduously at developing. That is the basis for the development of siddhis. The siddhis and their pursuit can lead to increased suffering and become major distraction if not a complete derailment from the path to liberation.  This I can say with some certainty. In the worst case, they devolve into a morass of black magic/or and delusion. It's not for no reason that the Zen patriarches referred to all this as makyo and suggested that you ignore them. It's also not for no reason that the Lama's warn that the tantric path which goes in a similar direction is fast but dangerous.

If you do begin to develop siddhis and many practitioners do, then my *strong* recommendation is that you re-double your work to develop and practice metta regularly and the supreme siddhi which is the eye that sees enlightenment and the truth of existence directly. Yes, not grasping is a requirement for certain developments but that can be worked at and around as well without abandoning desire and becoming an arhant or even a sotapanna.

If I knew that I had the dharma eye and the siddhi of knowledge of past lives instead of being likely misguided and deluded, I'd tell you that I spent many lives chasing siddhis instead of enlightenment to my great sorrow. I don't. So, I'll just say my experience in this life tells me that's the wrong direction and you can hurt yourself and others by pointing that way. I have at times although I hope not disastrously so. Instead, head towards the light. Help your friends head in the same direction. Hang out with people who are like minded.

One thing that love about practice of developing siddhis is that it teaches you a lot about your own psychic mechanics by giving you an instant feedback on what you are doing.
I actually started from it without ever thinking about dharma and over years realized that in my case without learning and practicing dharma just trying to develop siddhis gets me into a huge inner conflict very fast.
So... dharma is first!

Huge inspiration for me was Dipa Ma ... https://dipama.com

Joseph Goldstein tells amazing story about Dipa Ma's siddhis and how and why she stopped developing them at one point. 
I heard this story inside "Abiding in Mindfulness" somewhere... 

If you really need it - I'll dig and find it for you.

Develop responsibly..

Warmest hugs...
 

Hi John, I agree with you. Certainly, desire can lead to powers, but not of the kind that will complement "the eye which sees enlightenment". It is known of people that master Hypnosis and use it in an abusive way. This is a power similar to Prakamya, "to enter the body of another person". I may be manifesting the power of Anima, "to become invisible".  The other day I walked into a party full of people and they didn't even notice I was there. 

"The other day I walked into a party full of people and they didn't even notice I was there"

Ha! I can do that one too! Is that called Powers!? 

Is that called Powers????!!!!  The best kind, "Unfathomable: powers without actual cause/mechanism, defined as beyond understanding."  Why can't they see me? Is it the power or is it me? Unfathomable.

Thanks. Amigo

The Fire Kasina Website is a good starting point for this kind of practice.