- Perfection of the sense-organs and body after destruction of impurity by
austerities.
The word Siddhi is used in two senses. It means both occult power and perfec-
tion. Here, obviously, the word has been used chiefly in the latter sense. The develop-
ment of Siddhis connected with the body takes place on Bhuta-Jaya or mastery of Bhu-
tas as shown in III-46. Since Bhuta-Jaya also leads to the perfection of the body—
Kaya-Sampat—as defined in III-47, the perfection of the body implied in II-43 is of a
different and lower kind than that in III-47. The perfection meant here is obviously
functional i.e., it enables the Yogi to use the body for the purposes of Yoga without any
kind of resistance or hindrance from it.
Since the essential purpose of Tapas is to purify the body anil bring it under the
control of the will as explained in II-32 it will be easily seen why it should culminate
in the functional perfection of the body. It is the presence of impurity in the body and
lack of control which stands in the way of its being used as a perfect instrument of
consciousness. The function of the sense-organs also becomes perfect because this
function is really dependent upon the currents of Prana which are brought under the
control of the Yogi by practices like those of Pranayama, Pranayama is considered to
be Tapas par excellence. As the practice of austerities does sometimes lead to the de-
velopment of some of the lower Siddhis in the case of people who are especially sensi-
tive the word Siddhi may be considered to be used in both the senses given above.
The significance of the phrase Asuddhi-ksayat should be kept in mind. It shows
conclusively that the removal of impurity is the main purpose of performing Tapas and
also that it is only when the body has been completely purified that it can function per-
fectly as an instrument of consciousness.