Namaste,
According some yogic rules the powers that they attain through sadhana to get siddhis should never be revealed in public or to the faithless, so if someone is displaying powers then it would go against certain rules. There is the problem of misleading, but if something is used to establish Dharma and the way then its acceptable. Perhaps now in these days the ability of man to reach more potentail is dwindled and may even be non existent, and there are so many so called Gurus and Godmen that will exploit the past for fame, money and adoration.
In India there are so many stories, in fact the whole culture is based on miraculous things happening, how we interpret this is another thing.
Siddhis and powers have long been existing within Indian Culture. In the Pali Tradition the accounts of Moggallana are quite interesting, Moggallana was an adept yogi and mystic, Siddharta was quite strict about the use of powers that arouse from Siddhi or Iddhi in Pali, but he gave credit to Moggallana who used his skills in helping people.
This is an interesting read
Moggallana's Magical Powers
In the discourse about the disciples who excelled in special capacities and qualities (A. I, 13), the Buddha said that Moggallana was foremost among the Bhikkhus who possessed magical faculties. One day when Moggallana with some of his disciples walked up and down, the Buddha told his monks that Moggallana possessed great supernormal powers, and so did his pupils; thus beings congregate according to their nature and disposition. (S. 14, 15) There were, of course, also other prominent disciples highly skilled in one or the other of the various magical powers. But they mastered only some of them: the monk Anuruddha and the nun Sakula, for instance, possessed the supernormal vision of the Divine Eye; the monk Sobhita and the nun Bhadda Kapilani could recollect far into the past; the monk Sagalo had masterly control of the fire element; Cula Panthaka was skilled in "astral travel"; and Pilinda excelled in communication with heavenly beings. Maha Moggallana, however, was perfect master of the magical faculties in a very comprehensive way. He mastered the various kinds of supernormal powers altogether, surpassing in them the other disciples. He also excelled by far the nun Uppallavanna who was foremost among the nuns in regard to magical faculties.
For appreciating the old reports on Moggallana's magical (parapsychological) faculties, one ought to know how such things can be possible at all. The world of so-called matter as perceived through our five senses — which to-day's physicists conceive as a manifestation of energy — is only a small section of that much wider reality which consists of other vibrational forms of energy. Inklings of it, under terms like "anti-matter," "Psi-power," the "Astral," or "Prana," have penetrated into our range of experience. As we perceive only the narrow sector of our human world, we are inclined to regard its limited laws as absolutes. But the universe as experienced by the wise, is much larger, and the laws in force in it have also an impact upon our own world. It is that impact of different laws which is called a miracle. But whenever a higher or wider world manifests itself, the true miracle is that people can be so imprisoned within their narrow outlook that they just ignore all what is beyond their limited faculties, in spite of the fact that the effects of those other forces and laws are undeniably present. But whosoever, as the Buddha and Moggallana, has highly developed his capacity to experience that wider reality with his higher sense faculties refined by cultivating the Four Ways of Power
(iddhipada), will realize a sheer infinite widening of experience in space and time. His horizon and experiential knowledge will grow universal and immeasurable, transcending all boundaries and limitations.
When Sariputta asked (in M. 32) to which type of monk those assembled would give the highest praise, Moggallana replied that from his point of view such a monk would be truly brilliant who can engage best in dialogues and discussions on the Teaching. Later the Buddha confirmed that Moggallana was indeed a very capable speaker on Dhamma. In fact, talks on Dhamma gain in range and depth when they issue from an experience that transcends the realm of the senses. The more one had widened one's consciousness by such experiences, the more one had to say. One who has personal experience of those many avenues of liberating wisdom will best be able to conduct talks on Dhamma and make them lively and stimulating. Examples of such discourses given by Maha-Moggallana are M. 15 and 37, A, X. 84, S. 35, 202, S. 44, 7-8.
We shall now turn to what the Buddhist canonical texts relate about Moggallana's supernormal faculties, presenting the material grouped according to the types of faculties concerned.
1. Penetration of others' minds and thought-reading (telepathy)
Once on an Uposatha day, the Buddha sat silently throughout the whole night in front of the assembly of monks. When the morning dawned, he only said: "This assembly is impure." Thereupon Moggallana surveyed with his mind the entire assembly from monk to monk and saw that one monk was entirely corrupted. He went towards him and asked him to leave. When that monk did not move though asked thrice, Moggallana took him by the arm, led him out of the hall and bolted the door. Then he begged the Exalted One to recite the Rules of Monastic Discipline (Patimokkha), as the assembly was now pure again. (A. VIII, 20)
Once the Master stayed together with a community of five hundred monks who all were saints. When Moggallana joined them, he at once discerned in his heart that all these monks were canker-freed Arahats. Then one of these saintly monks who, on his part, cognized Moggallana's supernormal perception, rose from his seat and praised Moggallana in the following verses:
"Him who serenely sits on mountain's slope,
a sage who has transcended ill entire —
to him disciples pay their homage,
themselves of triple knowledge, vanquishers of death.
He has discerned them by his mental power,
the master of the supernormal, Moggallana.
He probed their minds with his
and found them free and unattached."
— Samyutta Nikaya 8, 10
A third report says: Once, while the venerable Anuruddha was meditating in solitude, he considered how, by means of the four Foundations of Mindfulness (satipatthana) the Noble Path that leads to the extinction of suffering can be perfected. Then Moggallana, penetrating Anuruddha's mind by his own, appeared before him through supernormal power and requested him to describe in detail this method of practice (Samy. 52, 1-2).
2. The Divine Ear (clair-audience)
One evening when Sariputta went to see Moggallana, he found his features had such a strikingly serene expression that Sariputta felt moved to ask Moggallana whether he had dwelt in one of the peaceful abodes of mind. Moggallana replied that he had dwelt only in one of the less refined abodes, but that he had been engaged in a talk on the Teaching. On being asked with whom he had such a talk, he replied that it had been with the Exalted One. Sariputta remarked that the Master was now dwelling very far away, in Savatthi, while they themselves were here in Rajagaha. Did Moggallana, by way of his supernormal power, go to the Buddha, or did the Buddha come to him? Moggallana replied that neither had been the case. It was rather the Divine Eye and the Divine Ear, which had been purified and perfected in both of them, that enabled them to have a Dhamma talk on the mental faculty of energy. Then Sariputta exclaimed that Moggallana, being endowed with powers so great, might be able to live through an entire aeon (kalpa), like a Buddha, if he so wished. (Samy. 21, 3)
With the Divine Ear, Moggallana could also hear the voices of non-human beings, deities, spirits, etc., and receive messages from them. So, for instance, a spirit had warned him against Devadatta who harbored evil intentions towards the Buddha and planned a plot against him. (Culla Vagga VII, 2)
3. The Divine Eye (Clairvoyance, Second Sight, Visions)
As mentioned above, Moggallana, with his Divine Eye, was able to perceive the Buddha over a long-distance. (Samy. 21, 3)
Once the following happened. While Sariputta was sitting in quiet meditation, a wanton demon (Yakkha) hit him on the head. Moggallana saw it and asked his friend whether he had felt much pain. Sariputta smiled and said that he had just felt a slight touch of headache. Them Moggallana praised his strength of concentration, but Sariputta said that Moggallana had been able to see that demon while he himself could not. (Ud. IV, 4)
Once Moggallana saw with the Divine Eye how King Pasenadi had been defeated in battle by the Licchavis, but that afterwards he had gathered his troops again and vanquished the Licchavis. When Moggallana told this, some monks accused him that he had falsely boasted about his supernormal faculties, which is a disciplinary offense making a monk subject to expulsion from the Order. The Buddha, however, explained that Moggallana had told only what he saw and what had actually happened. (Parajika IV, 95; case No. 17)
Above all, he often saw the operation of the law of Kamma and its fruits. Again and again he saw how human beings, due to their evil actions that harmed fellow-beings, were reborn among unhappy ghosts under-going much suffering; while others by their charitable deeds rose upwards to lower heavenly worlds that were close to the human plane. He often gave instances of this for exemplifying the law of kamma. The reports about this are too numerous for including them here. In two books of the Pali canon, dealing with the ghost realm (the
Petavatthu) and the heavenly abodes (the
Vimanavathu), nine, respectively fifty-one, of such reports are given. From this it can be readily understood why Moggallana was famous as one who knew the worlds beyond as well as the workings of Kamma. The reports are too numerous for inclusion, but at least one of his recorded in the Samyutta Nikaya should be mentioned here (Samy. 19. 1-21 == Paraj. IV, 9; 15th case).
Once Moggallana lived on Vulture's Peak, near Rajagaha, together with the Bhikkhu Lakkhana, one of the thousand Brahman ascetics who had been converted together with Uruvela-Kassapa. One morning when they had descended from the peak for going on alms-round in the town, Moggallana smiled when they reached a certain place on the road. When his companion asked him for the reason, Moggallana said that now it was not the right time to explain it, he would tell it in the presence of the Master. When they later met the Buddha, Lakkhana repeated his question. Moggallana now said that at that spot he had seen many miserable ghosts flying through the air, chased around and tormented by various kinds of afflictions and sufferings. The Buddha confirmed this as absolutely true and added that he himself spoke only reluctantly about such appearances because people with superficial minds would not believe it. Then the Buddha, out of his universal knowledge, explained what propensities and behavior had brought those ghosts seen by Moggallana to their present pitiable position.
