Science of Kriya Yoga

[Kriya Yogi]

I receive many questions about Kriya Yoga. So I decided to make a thread about it. Instead of giving my own limited explanation I will paste how my Guru Paramahansa Yogananda explained broadly about it in his book Autobiography of a Yogi. Since the text is to long to post in one post I must continue the rest onto my second reply of this thread. Since I believe you will be more willing to read it if you don't have to open a link.

The Science of Kriya Yoga

The science of KRIYA YOGA, mentioned so often in these pages, became widely known in modern India through the instrumentality of Lahiri Mahasaya, my guru's guru. The Sanskrit root of KRIYA is KRI, to do, to act and react; the same root is found in the word KARMA, the natural principle of cause and effect. KRIYA YOGA is thus "union (yoga) with the Infinite through a certain action or rite." A yogi who faithfully follows its technique is gradually freed from karma or the universal chain of causation.

Because of certain ancient yogic injunctions, I cannot give a full explanation of KRIYA YOGA in the pages of a book intended for the general public. The actual technique must be learned from a KRIYABAN or KRIYA YOGI; here a broad reference must suffice.

KRIYA YOGA is a simple, psychophysiological method by which the human blood is decarbonized and recharged with oxygen. The atoms of this extra oxygen are transmuted into life current to rejuvenate the brain and spinal centers. {FN26-1} By stopping the accumulation of venous blood, the yogi is able to lessen or prevent the decay of tissues; the advanced yogi transmutes his cells into pure energy. Elijah, Jesus, Kabir and other prophets were past masters in the use of KRIYA or a similar technique, by which they caused their bodies to dematerialize at will.
KRIYA is an ancient science. Lahiri Mahasaya received it from his guru, Babaji, who rediscovered and clarified the technique after it had been lost in the Dark Ages.

"The KRIYA YOGA which I am giving to the world through you in this nineteenth century," Babaji told Lahiri Mahasaya, "is a revival of the same science which Krishna gave, millenniums ago, to Arjuna, and which was later known to Patanjali, and to Christ, St. John, St. Paul, and other disciples."

KRIYA YOGA is referred to by Krishna, India's greatest prophet, in a stanza of the BHAGAVAD GITA: "Offering inhaling breath into the outgoing breath, and offering the outgoing breath into the inhaling breath, the yogi neutralizes both these breaths; he thus releases the life force from the heart and brings it under his control." {FN26-2} The interpretation is: "The yogi arrests decay in the body by an addition of life force, and arrests the mutations of growth in the body by APAN (eliminating current). Thus neutralizing decay and growth, by quieting the heart, the yogi learns life control."

Krishna also relates {FN26-3} that it was he, in a former incarnation, who communicated the indestructible yoga to an ancient illuminato, Vivasvat, who gave it to Manu, the great legislator. {FN26-4} He, in turn, instructed Ikshwaku, the father of India's solar warrior dynasty. Passing thus from one to another, the royal yoga was guarded by the rishis until the coming of the materialistic ages. {FN26-5} Then, due to priestly secrecy and man's indifference, the sacred knowledge gradually became inaccessible.

KRIYA YOGA is mentioned twice by the ancient sage Patanjali, foremost exponent of yoga, who wrote: "KRIYA YOGA consists of body discipline, mental control, and meditating on AUM." {FN26-6} Patanjali speaks of God as the actual Cosmic Sound of AUM heard in meditation. {FN26-7} AUM is the Creative Word, {FN26-8} the sound of the Vibratory Motor. Even the yoga-beginner soon inwardly hears the wondrous sound of AUM. Receiving this blissful spiritual encouragement, the devotee becomes assured that he is in actual touch with divine realms.
Patanjali refers a second time to the life-control or KRIYA technique thus: "Liberation can be accomplished by that PRANAYAMA which is attained by disjoining the course of inspiration and expiration." {FN26-9}

St. Paul knew KRIYA YOGA, or a technique very similar to it, by which he could switch life currents to and from the senses. He was therefore able to say: "Verily, I protest by our rejoicing which I have in Christ, I DIE DAILY." {FN26-10} By daily withdrawing his bodily life force, he united it by yoga union with the rejoicing (eternal bliss) of the Christ consciousness. In that felicitous state, he was consciously aware of being dead to the delusive sensory world of MAYA.
In the initial states of God-contact (SABIKALPA SAMADHI) the devotee's consciousness merges with the Cosmic Spirit; his life force is withdrawn from the body, which appears "dead," or motionless and rigid. The yogi is fully aware of his bodily condition of suspended animation. As he progresses to higher spiritual states (NIRBIKALPA SAMADHI), however, he communes with God without bodily fixation, and in his ordinary waking consciousness, even in the midst of exacting worldly duties. {FN26-11}

 

[Kriya Yogi]

The science of Kriya Yoga Cont:

"KRIYA YOGA is an instrument through which human evolution can be quickened," Sri Yukteswar explained to his students. "The ancient yogis discovered that the secret of cosmic consciousness is intimately linked with breath mastery. This is India's unique and deathless contribution to the world's treasury of knowledge. The life force, which is ordinarily absorbed in maintaining the heart-pump, must be freed for higher activities by a method of calming and stilling the ceaseless demands of the breath."

The KRIYA YOGI mentally directs his life energy to revolve, upward and downward, around the six spinal centers (medullary, cervical, dorsal, lumbar, sacral, and coccygeal plexuses) which correspond to the twelve astral signs of the zodiac, the symbolic Cosmic Man. One-half minute of revolution of energy around the sensitive spinal cord of man effects subtle progress in his evolution; that half-minute of KRIYA equals one year of natural spiritual unfoldment.

The astral system of a human being, with six (twelve by polarity) inner constellations revolving around the sun of the omniscient spiritual eye, is interrelated with the physical sun and the twelve zodiacal signs. All men are thus affected by an inner and an outer universe. The ancient rishis discovered that man's earthly and heavenly environment, in twelve-year cycles, push him forward on his natural path. The scriptures aver that man requires a million years of normal, diseaseless evolution to perfect his human brain sufficiently to express cosmic consciousness.

One thousand KRIYA practiced in eight hours gives the yogi, in one day, the equivalent of one thousand years of natural evolution: 365,000 years of evolution in one year. In three years, a KRIYA YOGI can thus accomplish by intelligent self-effort the same result which nature brings to pass in a million years. The KRIYA short cut, of course, can be taken only by deeply developed yogis. With the guidance of a guru, such yogis have carefully prepared their bodies and brains to receive the power created by intensive practice.

The KRIYA beginner employs his yogic exercise only fourteen to twenty-eight times, twice daily. A number of yogis achieve emancipation in six or twelve or twenty-four or forty-eight years. A yogi who dies before achieving full realization carries with him the good karma of his past KRIYA effort; in his new life he is harmoniously propelled toward his Infinite Goal.

The body of the average man is like a fifty-watt lamp, which cannot accommodate the billion watts of power roused by an excessive practice of KRIYA. Through gradual and regular increase of the simple and "foolproof" methods of KRIYA, man's body becomes astrally transformed day by day, and is finally fitted to express the infinite potentials of cosmic energy-the first materially active expression of Spirit.
KRIYA YOGA has nothing in common with the unscientific breathing exercises taught by a number of misguided zealots. Their attempts to forcibly hold breath in the lungs is not only unnatural but decidedly unpleasant. KRIYA, on the other hand, is accompanied from the very beginning by an accession of peace, and by soothing sensations of regenerative effect in the spine.

The ancient yogic technique converts the breath into mind. By spiritual advancement, one is able to cognize the breath as an act of mind-a dream-breath.
Many illustrations could be given of the mathematical relationship between man's respiratory rate and the variations in his states of consciousness. A person whose attention is wholly engrossed, as in following some closely knit intellectual argument, or in attempting some delicate or difficult physical feat, automatically breathes very slowly. Fixity of attention depends on slow breathing; quick or uneven breaths are an inevitable accompaniment of harmful emotional states: fear, lust, anger. The restless monkey breathes at the rate of 32 times a minute, in contrast to man's average of 18 times. The elephant, tortoise, snake and other animals noted for their longevity have a respiratory rate which is less than man's. The tortoise, for instance, who may attain the age of 300 years, {FN26-12} breathes only 4 times per minute.

The rejuvenating effects of sleep are due to man's temporary unawareness of body and breathing. The sleeping man becomes a yogi; each night he unconsciously performs the yogic rite of releasing himself from bodily identification, and of merging the life force with healing currents in the main brain region and the six sub-dynamos of his spinal centers. The sleeper thus dips unknowingly into the reservoir of cosmic energy which sustains all life.

The voluntary yogi performs a simple, natural process consciously, not unconsciously like the slow-paced sleeper. The KRIYA YOGI uses his technique to saturate and feed all his physical cells with undecaying light and keep them in a magnetized state. He scientifically makes breath unnecessary, without producing the states of subconscious sleep or unconsciousness.

By KRIYA, the outgoing life force is not wasted and abused in the senses, but constrained to reunite with subtler spinal energies. By such reinforcement of life, the yogi's body and brain cells are electrified with the spiritual elixir. Thus he removes himself from studied observance of natural laws, which can only take him-by circuitous means as given by proper food, sunlight, and harmonious thoughts-to a million-year Goal. It needs twelve years of normal healthful living to effect even slight perceptible change in brain structure, and a million solar returns are exacted to sufficiently refine the cerebral tenement for manifestation of cosmic consciousness.

Untying the cord of breath which binds the soul to the body, KRIYA serves to prolong life and enlarge the consciousness to infinity. The yoga method overcomes the tug of war between the mind and the matter-bound senses, and frees the devotee to reinherit his eternal kingdom. He knows his real nature is bound neither by physical encasement nor by breath, symbol of the mortal enslavement to air, to nature's elemental compulsions.

Introspection, or "sitting in the silence," is an unscientific way of trying to force apart the mind and senses, tied together by the life force. The contemplative mind, attempting its return to divinity, is constantly dragged back toward the senses by the life currents. KRIYA, controlling the mind DIRECTLY through the life force, is the easiest, most effective, and most scientific avenue of approach to the Infinite. In contrast to the slow, uncertain "bullock cart" theological path to God, KRIYA may justly be called the "airplane" route.

The yogic science is based on an empirical consideration of all forms of concentration and meditation exercises. Yoga enables the devotee to switch off or on, at will, life current from the five sense telephones of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. Attaining this power of sense-disconnection, the yogi finds it simple to unite his mind at will with divine realms or with the world of matter. No longer is he unwillingly brought back by the life force to the mundane sphere of rowdy sensations and restless thoughts. Master of his body and mind, the KRIYA YOGI ultimately achieves victory over the "last enemy," death.

So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men: And Death once dead, there's no more dying then. {FN26-13}

The life of an advanced KRIYA YOGI is influenced, not by effects of past actions, but solely by directions from the soul. The devotee thus avoids the slow, evolutionary monitors of egoistic actions, good and bad, of common life, cumbrous and snail-like to the eagle hearts.

The superior method of soul living frees the yogi who, shorn of his ego-prison, tastes the deep air of omnipresence. The thralldom of natural living is, in contrast, set in a pace humiliating. Conforming his life to the evolutionary order, a man can command no concessionary haste from nature but, living without error against the laws of his physical and mental endowment, still requires about a million years of incarnating masquerades to know final emancipation.

The telescopic methods of yogis, disengaging themselves from physical and mental identifications in favor of soul-individuality, thus commend themselves to those who eye with revolt a thousand thousand years. This numerical periphery is enlarged for the ordinary man, who lives in harmony not even with nature, let alone his soul, but pursues instead unnatural complexities, thus offending in his body and thoughts the sweet sanities of nature. For him, two times a million years can scarce suffice for liberation.

 

[Kriya Yogi]

Third and final page of the Science of Kriya Yoga broadly explained:

Gross man seldom or never realizes that his body is a kingdom, governed by Emperor Soul on the throne of the cranium, with subsidiary regents in the six spinal centers or spheres of consciousness. This theocracy extends over a throng of obedient subjects: twenty-seven thousand billion cells-endowed with a sure if automatic intelligence by which they perform all duties of bodily growths, transformations, and dissolutions-and fifty million substratal thoughts, emotions, and variations of alternating phases in man's consciousness in an average life of sixty years. Any apparent insurrection of bodily or cerebral cells toward Emperor Soul, manifesting as disease or depression, is due to no disloyalty among the humble citizens, but to past or present misuse by man of his individuality or free will, given to him simultaneous with a soul, and revocable never.

Identifying himself with a shallow ego, man takes for granted that it is he who thinks, wills, feels, digests meals, and keeps himself alive, never admitting through reflection (only a little would suffice!) that in his ordinary life he is naught but a puppet of past actions (karma) and of nature or environment. Each man's intellectual reactions, feelings, moods, and habits are circumscribed by effects of past causes, whether of this or a prior life. Lofty above such influences, however, is his regal soul. Spurning the transitory truths and freedoms, the KRIYA YOGI passes beyond all disillusionment into his unfettered Being. All scriptures declare man to be not a corruptible body, but a living soul; by KRIYA he is given a method to prove the scriptural truth.

"Outward ritual cannot destroy ignorance, because they are not mutually contradictory," wrote Shankara in his famous CENTURY OF VERSES. "Realized knowledge alone destroys ignorance. . . . Knowledge cannot spring up by any other means than inquiry. 'Who am I? How was this universe born? Who is its maker? What is its material cause?' This is the kind of inquiry referred to." The intellect has no answer for these questions; hence the rishis evolved yoga as the technique of spiritual inquiry.

KRIYA YOGA is the real "fire rite" often extolled in the BHAGAVAD GITA. The purifying fires of yoga bring eternal illumination, and thus differ much from outward and little-effective religious fire ceremonies, where perception of truth is oft burnt, to solemn chanted accompaniment, along with the incense!

The advanced yogi, withholding all his mind, will, and feeling from false identification with bodily desires, uniting his mind with superconscious forces in the spinal shrines, thus lives in this world as God hath planned, not impelled by impulses from the past nor by new witlessnesses of fresh human motivations. Such a yogi receives fulfillment of his Supreme Desire, safe in the final haven of inexhaustibly blissful Spirit.

The yogi offers his labyrinthine human longings to a monotheistic bonfire dedicated to the unparalleled God. This is indeed the true yogic fire ceremony, in which all past and present desires are fuel consumed by love divine. The Ultimate Flame receives the sacrifice of all human madness, and man is pure of dross. His bones stripped of all desirous flesh, his karmic skeleton bleached in the antiseptic suns of wisdom, he is clean at last, inoffensive before man and Maker.

Referring to yoga's sure and methodical efficacy, Lord Krishna praises the technological yogi in the following words: "The yogi is greater than body-disciplining ascetics, greater even than the followers of the path of wisdom (JNANA YOGA), or of the path of action (KARMA YOGA); be thou, O disciple Arjuna, a yogi!"

 

[Kriya Yogi]

So are there no questions or comments about Kriya Yoga?

 

[kaisersose]

So are there no questions or comments about Kriya Yoga?

Thanks for your posts. I was not aware of Kriya Yoga before this.

Where is your Guru now?
Can you describe a typical day's activity towards practicising Kriya Yoga?
Is there a way to measure progress?
How is this related to Kundalini Yoga?

 

[Kriya Yogi]

Thanks for your posts. I was not aware of Kriya Yoga before this.

Where is your Guru now?

He is with me in spirit. He guides me through my own intuitive practice. I read his words and pray to him and everything is always answered when I need it to be.

Can you describe a typical day's activity towards practicising Kriya Yoga?

You should get up early enough to practice it in meditation. For me I work everyday at a job so I get up early and first pray to all Guru's in the Kriya line. I talk to God and ask for a blessed practice and for him to guide me in my day and practice. I take a deep breath and either begin a mantra meditation technique or I usually go straight into Kriya practice. After I do enough to absorb my consciousness within the spine I then use the Aum technique to try to merge with its cosmic motor and at the same time intently focus on the spiritual eye. It usually forms a 5 pointed star in the depth of your internal vision. Its sometimes clear or its an opal blue light that is the door to superconsciousness. With the intense practice of Kriya and its slow breathing the breath in time can become mind and you can use the Aum sound and the pull of the third eye to take you even deeper into God's presence within. As explained above your love and devotion felt in the heart along with the blissful feeling felt in the spine from the practice of Kriya can instantly bring intense bliss even upon the beginning practicioner. Through deeper and more focused practice you can unlock even more and more bliss within. In time you create a powerful magnet that can draw your senses inward strongly enough to immediately forget about the outward world. The great thing about Kriya is there is never any wasted effort. The effort you do today and in the future adds up and inevitably allows you to climb the ladder to Self Realization. The goal eventually is to have such a refined spine and brain from its practice that your body can be allowed to experience Samadhi. That is the goal.

Once I am done meditating I hold onto that bliss and deep God contact and take it with me throughout the day. Some days are easier than others but the intention with Kriya is to hold onto the experiences you have and calmly act as if God is the doer in all of your activities. It is important to try to control what activities you partake in as some activities draw your energy outward away from the spine and sap the bliss you created within. So you see the idea is to slowly but surely reverse your flow of consciousness from normal ordinary human awareness to God awareness. Its all a practice of going back to God by controlling your breath and energy. Ancient rishis have all said the way to God is by controlling the breath and energy both of which are interconnected. My Guru said in meditation where breath stops God begins. Its the goal of all Yogis. After my days activities I meditate even more deeper at night. Its important to make times for long hours of practice .

Is there a way to measure progress?

The best way to measure progress is how blissful your meditations are. The closer you get to God the more blissful your meditations will be. It means you are getting closer and are shedding away more parts of your ego to allow for those blissful experiences. Another way to measure is see how calm your thoughts and how selfless, and spiritual you are. The less attached you are to things and affected by outward karma the more you are connected to God.

How is this related to Kundalini Yoga?

I'm not exactly familiar with any other Kundalini Yoga, but Kriya is a form of meditating using the breath and mind to raise your spines kundalini and enliven the chakras. If they do that in other Yoga forms then they are quite the same. The only difference that might be there is the initiation in where you get a blessing from a deep Kriyaban that connects you karmically with all the advanced Kriya Guru's and Avatars. They will guide your spiritual practice if you practice faithfully. It is fail proof if you make the effort persistently.

 

[Wannabe Yogi]

So are there no questions or comments about Kriya Yoga?

It sounds like in Kriya Yoga there is a lot of pranayama. Is the breath count ratio the same as Hatha yoga and Raja yoga. 2-8-4? Do they give you a mantra to use when doing pranayama? Also do you use Bija mantras for each Chakra if you mediate on the chakras like they do in Kundalini practices in some forms of Tantra.

What is the difference between Raja Yoga and Kriya Yoga ? To me they have always sounded alike.

 

[Kriya Yogi]

It sounds like in Kriya Yoga there is a lot of pranayama. Is the breath count ratio the same as Hatha yoga and Raja yoga. 2-8-4? Do they give you a mantra to use when doing pranayama? Also do you use Bija mantras for each Chakra if you mediate on the chakras like they do in Kundalini practices in some forms of Tantra.

Yes Kriya Yoga is pranayama. Yogis thoughout the ages realized that breath controls energy and mastery of breath is the key to salvation. What better way to reverse to flow our consciousness which is energy then by dealing with that energy itself. The breath count is not like that at all. You breathe as natural as you possibly can. The key is to relax into the process. Although in the beginning to new practicioners they only allow them to practice to about 24 revolutions of Kriya breaths in the spine. I cannot go over the process in detail for you must be initiated by a directed and eiligible Kriyaban. Yes you can use a mantra while doing it. Whatever mantra you want can suffice. The bija mantras I believe come later when you have progressed enough by the first initiation. There are 3 higher initiations after the first intitiation. I don't know the details of those because I have yet to receive anything but the first. I do know that after a while you will do mantras in the spine. They are probably sounds that relate to the vibration of each chakra.

What is the difference between Raja Yoga and Kriya Yoga? To me they have always sounded alike.

There really isn't much difference between the two. Raja yoga is a combination of all forms of Yoga meanwhile Kriya really does the same. I think the only difference here is that Kriya is the most effective form of meditation because it works scientifically and directly with your energy in your deep astral spine. Raja Yoga can be practiced with any form of meditation. In my spritual practice and through my Gurus advice he says to practice Kriya and all forms of Yoga if possible. I practice Bhakti Yoga when chanting and meditating or just talking to God whenever possible. I use Karma Yoga when I am serving others. I use Jnana Yoga when dealing with contemplating a problem I must overcome. I found that Kriya Yoga ties them all together but in reality they are all interlinked and work the best when used all together.