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Kriya Yoga:
Highway to the Infinite
From The
Path, by J. Donald Walters (Swami Kriyananda), Selections from
Chapter 34: Kriya Yoga
Jesus said,
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."
The truth in these simple words has been acclaimed equally by great
saints of East and West... Jesus didn't say, "Blessed are my
followers, for they shall see God." His message was universal:
By the yardstick of inner purity alone is a person's closeness to
God determined.
What is purity of heart? Jesus in effect defined it elsewhere as
the capacity to love God with all one's heart, soul, mind, and strength.
And why is this capacity called purity? Simply because we belong
in God; worldliness is foreign to our essential nature.
To develop love for God, the first prerequisite is that no other
desire hinder its free flow. This, then, is our first spiritual
"work": to give up every desire that conflicts with our
devotion. We need not destroy our desires so much as rechannel their
energies Godward.
And it is in this true labor of love that the techniques of yoga
serve most effectively. Wrong desires, it need hardly be added,
could never be transmuted by technique alone. But just as the techniques
of running are useful to those with a desire to be good runners,
so the techniques of yoga can help devotees to control their physical
energies, and to redirect them toward God. Yoga practice by itself
won't give us God, but it can help us very much in our efforts to
give ourselves to Him. The yoga science, in other words, helps us
to cooperate with divine grace.
Take a simple example. Devotees naturally want to love God. Many,
however, have no clear notion of how to go about loving Him. Too
often their efforts are merely cerebral, and end in frustration.
Yet Jesus hinted at a technique when he said, "Blessed are
the pure in heart." For, as everyone who has loved deeply knows,
it is in the heart that love is felt-not in the physical heart,
literally, but in the heart center, or spinal nerve plexus just
behind the heart. Christian saints have stressed again and again
"the love of the heart." And yogis claim that love is
developed more easily if, instead of merely thinking love, one will
direct the thought of love upwards from the heart center, through
the spine to the brain.
Take another
example. Devotees attempting inward communion with God often find
their efforts thwarted by restless thoughts. But long ago yogis
found a technique for overcoming this obstacle. The breath, they
discovered, is intimately related to the mental processes. A restless
mind accompanies a restless breath. By simple, effective techniques
for calming the breath, they found they could free the mind more
easily for divine contemplation.
Thus, by its
practical application of laws governing man's physical body and
nervous system, the science of yoga helps one to become more receptive
to the flow of divine grace, much as technical proficiency at the
piano makes possible the uninterrupted flow of musical inspiration.
And divine communion, as St. Paul said, comes not by "pleasing"
God, overtly, but only by making oneself fully receptive to His
love. That love of its very nature wants to give itself.
I referred to
the ego in Chapter 32 as a vortex of consciousness that separates
itself from the ocean of awareness by its own centripetal force.
Once this vortex is dissolved, I said, self-awareness flows outward
to embrace infinity. But now I should explain that it vastly over-simplifies
matters to speak of the ego as but a single vortex. The fact is,
egoic awareness gives rise to countless millions of subsidiary eddies:
vortices of likes and dislikes, resulting in desires, which in turn
lead to ego-motivated activities. Every such vortex draws energy
to itself, and thereby also reaffirms and strengthens the ego from
which it derives its energy. Until a desire has been fulfilled in
action, or else dissipated by wisdom, it may remain dormant, like
a seed, in the subconsciousness for incarnations. The stronger the
mental tendency, the greater the ego's commitment to it. The amount
of energy diverted toward these myriad commitments is incalculably
great. Paramhansa Yogananda used to tell us, "There is enough
latent energy in one gram of your flesh to supply the city of Chicago
with electricity for a week. Yet you imagine yourselves powerless
in the face of a few difficulties!" The reason we can tap so
little of the energy potentially available to us is that most of
what we attract to ourselves from the surrounding universe has already
been "spoken for"; it is absorbed by countless eddies
of prior egoic commitments.
To understand
how to utilize rightly the enormous amounts of energy that are available
to us, we must understand how energy functions in the body. Its
main channel is the spine. The spine, like a bar magnet, has its
north pole at the spiritual eye, and its south pole at the base,
in the coccyx. In a bar magnet, all the molecules, each having its
own north-south polarity, are turned in the same direction. In an
unmagnetized bar the molecules, though similarly polarized, are
turned every which way, and cancel one another out. A common man,
similarly, may lack the dynamic power that one associates with human
greatness, but it isn't because he has less energy than the mightiest
genius; it is only that the "molecules" of his subconscious
desires and impulses pull him in conflicting directions, and cancel
one another out.
A steel bar becomes magnetized, not by the introduction of any new
element, but simply by the realignment of its molecules. Human magnetism,
similarly, results when the "molecules" of conflicting
desires are realigned unidirectionally... But deeper realities of
human nature, and the fact that the very way our bodies are made
reflects those realities, make it impossible for us to bring all
our "molecules" into alignment until we adjust them to
the north-south polarity of the spine. That is to say, all our desires
and aspirations must flow upwards, toward the spiritual eye: the
"doorway" to Infinity.
Likes and dislikes, and their resultant desires and aversions, are
the root cause of mortal bondage. The progressive stages of involvement
with maya may be traced through the basic functions of human consciousness:
mon, buddhi, ahankara, and chitta: mind, intellect, ego, and feeling.
Paramhansa Yogananda explained these basic functions by the illustration
of a horse seen reflected in a mirror. The mirror is the mind (mon),
reflecting the image just as it appears through the senses, without
in any way qualifying or defining that image. Buddhi (intellect)
then defines what it sees, informing us, "That is a horse."
Ahankara (ego) steps in next to say, "That's my horse."
Up to this point we are not yet really bound by the thought of ownership;
the identification, though personal, remains more or less abstract.
But then comes chitta (feeling), which says, "How happy I am
to see my horse!" Chitta is our emotional, reactive process,
our likes and dislikes, and is, as I said, the true source of all
our delusions. Thus, the ancient sage Patanjali, classical exponent
of the yoga science, defined yoga itself as "the neutralization
of the vortices (vrittis) of chitta."
"Blessed are the pure in heart," said Jesus, "for
they shall see God." The teachings of the Galilean Master and
those of India's great yogis were cut from the same cloth of Self-realization.
Only when the likes and dislikes of the heart, and their resultant
vortices of desire and aversion, have been dissolved-in short, when
the heart has been purified-can Self-realization be attained. The
vortex of ego itself is then dissipated with relative ease, for
without objective attachments it soon loses its momentum, and is
dispersed at last by the currents of divine inspiration.
Most efforts
to transform oneself involve a laborious struggle to correct an
endless array of individual faults-a tendency to gossip, over-attachment
to sweets, physical laziness, and the like. The devotee must, of
course, fight such battles as they present themselves to his mind.
But to attempt to win the whole war in this piecemeal fashion would
be like trying to realign each molecule in a bar of steel separately.
Purely psychological efforts at self-transformation are a never-ending
task. Even after one has succeeded, finally, in turning a few mental
"molecules" in the right direction, there is no guarantee
they'll remain turned that way once one leaves them to work on the
next lot.
The way to magnetize
a bar of steel is to introduce a south-north current into it, by
placing it in close proximity to a magnetized bar. The way to become
spiritually magnetized, similarly, is to place oneself in spiritual
"proximity" to one's guru; that is to say, to attune oneself
to him mentally. Because the energy of an awakened master flows
naturally upwards, toward the spiritual eye, attunement with him
generates a similar flow in the disciple.
But of course, more is involved here than passive acceptance of
the guru's blessings. Any disciple, indeed, who relies on those
blessings alone will make only negligible progress. For man is not
inert metal; he can and must cooperate in the process of self-transformation.
As Yogananda put it, "The path is twenty-five percent the disciple's
own effort, twenty-five percent the guru's effort on his behalf,
and fifty percent the grace of God." The guru needs the disciple's
cooperation. And the disciple can cooperate best when he understands
how this magnetic influence actually works in his body, raising
subtle currents of energy through the spine to the brain. Cooperation
with the guru's efforts, and with divine grace, means doing what
one can himself to direct energy upwards through the spine.
The correlation between spiritual awakening and this upward movement
of energy can be observed somewhat in ordinary human experience
as well. When, for example, a person feels an increase of happiness
or inspiration, or when he makes a firm resolution to do something
wholesome and positive, he will, if he introspects, observe an accompanying
upward flow of energy to his brain. He may even find himself standing
or sitting more erect, holding his head higher, looking upward,
turning the corners of his mouth up in a smile. On the other hand,
if he feels depressed or discouraged, he will note a corresponding
flow of energy, downward, away from the brain. He may even slump
a little, look down at the floor, turn the corners of his mouth
downward, and actually feel physically a little heavier.
Spiritual awakening takes place when all one's energy is directed
upward to the spiritual eye. Hence the saying of Jesus, "Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy strength": that is,
"with all thy energy."
This upward flow is obstructed in most people by countless eddies
of chitta, which, once formed in the heart, get distributed along
the spine according to their anticipated level of fulfillment-the
lower the level, the more materialistic the desire; the higher the
level, the more spiritual. These eddies, or vrittis, can be dissipated
by a flow of energy through the spine strong enough to neutralize
their centripetal force. Numerous techniques of yoga have as their
main objective the awakening of this energy-flow.
Of all such
yoga techniques, the most effective, according to Paramhansa Yogananda
and his line of gurus, because the most central and direct in its
application, is Kriya Yoga. This was the technique, they said, that
was taught in ancient times by Lord Krishna to Arjuna. And Krishna,
in the Bhagavad Gita, states that he gave this technique to humanity
in an incarnation long prior to the one in which he taught Arjuna.
Of all the techniques of yoga, Kriya is quite probably the most
ancient.
Kriya Yoga directs
energy lengthwise around the spine, gradually neutralizing the eddies
of chitta. At the same time it strengthens the nerves in the spine
and brain to receive cosmic currents of energy and consciousness.
Yogananda stated that Kriya is the supreme yoga science. Beside
it, other yoga techniques that work on calming the breath, concentrating
the mind, etc., though important in themselves (Yogananda also taught
a number of them), must be classed as subsidiary.
He often said that Kriya Yoga strengthens one in whatever path-whether
devotion, discrimination, or service; Hindu, Christian, Moslem,
or Judaic-one is inclined by temperament, or by upbringing, to follow.
A visitor who once came to his Ranchi school had been practicing
Bhakti Yoga, the path of single-minded devotion, for twenty years.
Though deeply devoted, he had never yet experienced the Lord's blissful
presence.
"Kriya Yoga would help you," the Master suggested to him
earnestly.
But the man
was fearful of being disloyal to his own path.
"No, Kriya
won't conflict with your present practices," Master insisted.
"It will only deepen you in them."
Still the man
was hesitant.
"Look here,"
Master finally said, "you are like a man who for twenty years
has been trying to get out of a room through the walls, the floor,
the ceiling. Kriya Yoga will simply show you where the door is.
There is no conflict, in that kind of aid, with your own devotional
path. To pass through the doorway you must still do so with devotion."
The man relented
at last, and was initiated. Hardly a week passed before he received
his first deep experience of God.
"I wasn't sent to the West," Yogananda often told his
audiences, "by Christ and the great masters of India to dogmatize
you with a new theology. Jesus himself asked Babaji to send someone
here to teach you the science of Kriya Yoga, that people might learn
how to commune with God directly. I want to help you to attain actual
experience of Him, through your daily practice of Kriya Yoga."
He added, "The time for knowing God has come!"
Next: Kriya
Yoga Lessons and Initiation
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Techniques to Enhance Your Practice
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