I red this book about Buddha that explained about Buddhism and about the world where Buddha lived in (how the times were and what people did) and the book also explained Buddhas life from birth to reaching enlightement to dying. At one part of Buddhas life Buddha had to convince some group of people to believe him (thats how I understood it) and in order to convince them he used the powers he had gotten from yoga and he shot fire and water from his arms and flew in the air. Now these powers that he had...how true are they? I mean that should a Buddhist really believe that he could do that or are those powers just some images? Do Buddhists believe that through yoga you can fly and do all sorts of magic stuff?
Ehm.. I think most buddhists believe that that is very funny.. hehe.. Cute On a more serious note: I think every spiritual or religious person/story gets 'tainted' by mythological stuff after a while.. you know.. like.. maybe buddha (siddharta gautama) sat on a rock meditating with his clothes falling over the rock.. thus looking like he was at a distance from the ground.. his 'groupies' may have exaggerated this.. you know what I'm trying to say? About yoga.. you might get more answers on this in the yoga forum.. but from yoga you'll become lenient and possibly stronger.. but flying? No Same for meditation.. it'll give you soar legs and stiff limbs maybe though
shakyamuni buddha is generally portrayed as discouraging his followers from displaying siddhis (paranormal/psychic/occult powers) - mostly because, in the final analysis, they are a spiritual dead-end (i.e. they will not lead to "waking up" from our life illusion to moksha/liberation...)
hmm...thanks for the replys so even though Buddha told that there is no point in using these powers it still means that these powers are there (well now thinking there are no such powers but if you think like people back then)Buddhist magic? hehe.....