Kriya Yoga

1. Kriya Yoga: A Powerful Technique for Spiritual Awakening in the New Age

"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."

Kriya Yoga is a transformative practice suited for our current age of energy awareness. It works directly with the life force (prana) in the spine, helping practitioners gain control over their energy, thoughts, and emotions. This control leads to spiritual awakening and freedom from karmic bondage.

Kriya Yoga is more than just a meditation technique:

• It's a comprehensive approach to life
• Includes physical exercises, breathing practices, and meditation
• Aims to awaken dormant spiritual energy

The practice aligns with the shift from Kali Yuga (age of materialism) to Dwapara Yuga (age of energy), making it particularly relevant for modern seekers. By practicing Kriya, individuals can:

• Develop greater awareness of subtle energies
• Gain control over their reactive processes
• Experience heightened states of consciousness
• Accelerate their spiritual evolution

2. Balance Art and Science in Meditation for Optimal Results

"Do not mistake the technique for the Goal."

Effective meditation combines technique and devotion. While scientific methods are essential, they must be balanced with the art of meditation, which includes devotion, intuition, and creativity.

Key aspects of balancing art and science in meditation:

• Technique (Science):
  • Proper posture
  • Breath control
  • Energy manipulation
• Devotion (Art):
  • Love for the Divine
  • Intuitive feeling
  • Creative visualization

Avoid becoming overly mechanical in your practice. Instead, approach meditation with enthusiasm, love, and a sense of sacred offering. This balance ensures that your practice remains vibrant and leads to deeper spiritual experiences, rather than becoming a dry, repetitive exercise.

3. Transmute Human Emotions into Divine Feeling Through Kriya Practice

"Touch me but once and I will change, all my clay into Thy gold."

Kriya Yoga transforms lower emotions into higher spiritual qualities. Instead of suppressing or indulging in human emotions, practitioners learn to transmute them into divine feelings such as unconditional love, compassion, and bliss.

The process of emotional transmutation:

1. Recognize the emotion
2. Offer it to the Divine during meditation
3. Direct the energy upward through the spine
4. Experience the transformed, higher emotion

This practice helps overcome:

• Fear
• Grief
• Anger
• Attachment

By consistently applying this approach, practitioners gradually develop a more stable, joyful, and compassionate nature, reflecting their growing spiritual awareness.

4. Cooperate with Divine Grace to Accelerate Spiritual Progress

"When we lift one hand up to God, He lowers two hands to pick us up."

Spiritual progress requires active cooperation with divine grace. While grace is always available, we must make sincere efforts to receive and work with it.

Ways to cooperate with divine grace:

• Maintain a regular spiritual practice
• Cultivate devotion and self-offering
• Serve others selflessly
• Develop receptivity to higher guidance

Yogananda's formula for success:

• 25% individual effort
• 25% guru's effort
• 50% God's grace

Remember that your 25% represents 100% of your capacity. By making consistent, wholehearted efforts in your spiritual life, you create the conditions for grace to flow more abundantly, accelerating your progress on the path.

5. Control the Reactive Process to Overcome Suffering and Fear

"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."

Mastering the reactive process is key to spiritual freedom. By gaining control over our inner energy flows, we can overcome the automatic reactions that lead to suffering and fear.

The reactive process involves:

• Energy moving through the ida and pingala nadis (subtle energy channels)
• Automatic responses to external stimuli
• Fluctuations between emotional extremes

Kriya Yoga helps control this process by:

1. Focusing energy in the central channel (sushumna)
2. Developing awareness of energy movements
3. Cultivating equanimity in the face of challenges

As you gain mastery over your reactions, you'll experience:

• Greater inner peace
• Reduced suffering
• Increased spiritual insight
• Freedom from karmic bondage

6. Change Your Destiny by Increasing Your Spiritual Magnetism

"Everything in future will improve if you are making a spiritual effort now."

Your spiritual efforts create a powerful, protective magnetism. This magnetism not only shields you from negative influences but also attracts positive experiences and opportunities for growth.

Ways to increase spiritual magnetism:

• Regular Kriya Yoga practice
• Selfless service
• Positive thinking and affirmations
• Devotional practices

The benefits of increased spiritual magnetism:

1. Protection from negative karmic influences
2. Attraction of supportive people and circumstances
3. Enhanced ability to overcome challenges
4. Accelerated spiritual progress

By consistently working to increase your spiritual magnetism, you actively participate in shaping a more positive destiny for yourself and those around you.

7. Transcend the Ego Through Selfless Service and Self-Offering

"The first duty of every soul is to release the hold that ego-consciousness has upon it. All other spiritual practices are subservient to this one supreme obligation."

Ego transcendence is essential for spiritual growth. Rather than trying to kill the ego, which is impossible, focus on offering it to the Divine through selfless service and devotional practices.

Practices for ego transcendence:

• Karma Yoga (selfless service)
• Bhakti Yoga (devotional practices)
• Self-offering in meditation
• Cultivating humility and non-attachment

Benefits of ego transcendence:

1. Greater inner freedom
2. Increased joy and peace
3. Improved relationships
4. Accelerated spiritual progress

Remember that ego transcendence is a gradual process. Approach it with patience, persistence, and a sense of playfulness, celebrating each small victory over the ego's demands.

8. Attune to the Guru's Guidance for Faster Spiritual Growth

"Kriya Yoga, in order to be wholly effective, must be received not only intellectually (in written or spoken form), but vibrationally, in the form of initiation."

A living connection with a guru accelerates spiritual progress. The guru's magnetism and guidance help transform the disciple's consciousness more quickly and effectively than solitary practice alone.

Ways to attune to the guru:

• Study and apply the guru's teachings
• Meditate on the guru's presence
• Serve the guru's mission
• Cultivate devotion and receptivity

Benefits of guru attunement:

1. Faster spiritual growth
2. Protection from negative influences
3. Clearer inner guidance
4. Transmission of spiritual power

While finding a living guru is ideal, sincere seekers can also attune themselves to enlightened masters of the past, such as Paramhansa Yogananda, through study, practice, and devotion.

9. Develop Inner Communion to Experience God Directly

"The experience [of cosmic consciousness] can never be given through one's mere intellectual willingness or open-mindedness. Only adequate enlargement by yoga practice and devotional bhakti can prepare the mind to absorb the liberating shock of omnipresence."

Direct experience of God comes through inner communion. While techniques are essential, they are merely vehicles to reach the state of inner communion where God can be perceived directly.

Practices for developing inner communion:

• Deep, focused prayer
• Silent meditation after techniques
• Cultivation of devotional feeling
• Receptivity to divine presence

Stages of inner communion:

1. Interiorization of consciousness
2. Concentration on a divine aspect
3. Absorption in divine presence
4. Union with cosmic consciousness

As you develop your capacity for inner communion, you'll experience greater joy, peace, and spiritual insight in your daily life.

10. Prepare for the Final Exam of Life Through Constant God-Remembrance

"Prepare yourself for the coming astral journey of death by daily riding in the balloon of God-perception. Through delusion you are perceiving yourself as a bundle of flesh and bones, which at best is a nest of troubles."

Living in constant God-remembrance prepares you for life's final transition. By cultivating a deep, ongoing connection with the Divine throughout your life, you ensure a peaceful and spiritually uplift

ing departure from this world.

Practices for constant God-remembrance:

• Regular meditation and prayer
• Japa (mantra repetition) throughout the day
• Seeing God in all beings and circumstances
• Offering all actions to the Divine

Benefits of preparing for the final exam:

1. Reduced fear of death
2. Greater peace and joy in daily life
3. Increased detachment from worldly concerns
4. Smoother transition at the time of passing

Remember that each day is an opportunity to prepare for this final exam. By living in attunement with the Divine now, you ensure that your last moments will be filled with the joy and peace of God-realization.

Last updated: August 19, 2024