The Science of Kriya Yoga — Autobiography of a Yogi — SRF Teachings Portal
26.The Science of Kriya Yoga
Paramahansa Yogananda·~15 min
tto lessen or prevent the decay of tissues. The advanced yogi transmutes his cells into 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 materialize and dematerialize at will.
Kriya is an ancient science. Lahiri Mahasaya received it from his great guru, Babaji, who rediscovered and clarified the technique after it had been lost in the Dark Ages. Babaji renamed it, simply, Kriya Yoga.
"The Kriya Yoga that I am giving to the world through you in this nineteenth century," Babaji told Lahiri Mahasaya, "is a revival of the same science that Krishna gave millenniums ago to Arjuna; and that was later known to Patanjali and Christ, and to St. John, St. Paul, and other disciples."
Kriya Yoga is twice referred to by Lord Krishna, India's greatest prophet, in the Bhagavad Gita. One stanza reads: "Offering the inhaling breath into the exhaling breath and offering the exhaling breath into the inhaling breath, the yogi neutralizes both breaths; thus he releases prana from the heart and brings life force under his control."² The interpretation is: "The yogi arrests decay in the body by securing an additional supply of prana (life force) through quieting the action of the lungs and heart; he also arrests mutations of growth in the body by control of apana (eliminating current). Thus neutralizing decay and growth, the yogi learns life-force control."
Another Gita stanza states: "That meditation-expert (muni) becomes eternally free who, seeking the Supreme Goal, is able to withdraw from external phenomena by fixing his gaze within the mid-spot of the eyebrows and by neutralizing the even currents of prana and apana [that flow] within the nostrils and lungs; and to control his sensory mind and intellect; and to banish desire, fear, and anger."²
Krishna also relates⁴ 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.⁵ He, in turn, instructed Ikshwaku, founder 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.⁶ Then, because of priestly secrecy and man's indifference, the sacred lore 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."⁷ Patanjali speaks of God as the actual Cosmic
Sound of Aum that is heard in meditation.⁸ Aum is the Creative Word, the whir of the Vibratory Motor, the witness⁹ of Divine Presence. Even the beginner in yoga may soon hear the wondrous sound of Aum. Through this blissful spiritual encouragement, he becomes convinced that he is in communion with supernal realms.
Patanjali refers a second time to the Kriya technique or life-force control thus: "Liberation can be attained by that pranayama which is accomplished by disjoining the course of inspiration and expiration."¹⁰
St. Paul knew Kriya Yoga, or a similar technique, by which he could switch life currents to and from the senses. He was therefore able to say: "I protest by our rejoicing which I have in Christ, I die daily."¹¹ By a method of centering inwardly all bodily life force (which ordinarily is directed only outwardly, to the sensory world, thus lending it a seeming validity), St. Paul experienced daily a true yoga union with the "rejoicing" (bliss) of the Christ Consciousness. In that felicitous state he was conscious of being "dead" to or freed from sensory delusions, the world of maya.
In the initial states of God-communion (sabikalpa samadhi) the devotee's consciousness merges in 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.¹²
"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 heart action, 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 a series of 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 and attain cosmic consciousness.
One thousand Kriyas practiced in 8½ 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 that Nature brings to pass in a million years. The Kriya shortcut, of course, can be taken only by deeply developed yogis. With the guidance of a guru, such yogis have carefully prepared their body and brain to withstand the power generated by intensive practice.
The Kriya beginner employs his yogic technique only fourteen to twenty-four 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 naturally 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, which constitutes 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. Attempts to hold breath forcibly in the lungs are unnatural and decidedly unpleasant. Kriya practice, on the other hand, is accompanied from the very beginning by feelings of peace and by soothing sensations of regenerative effect in the spine.
The ancient yogic technique converts the breath into mind-stuff. By spiritual advancement, one is able to cognize the breath as a mental concept, 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 creatures noted for their longevity have a respiratory rate that is less than man's. The giant tortoise, for instance, which may attain the age of three hundred years, breathes only 4 times a 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 in the six subdynamos of his spinal centers. Unknowingly, the sleeper is thus recharged by the cosmic energy that 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 undecayable light and thus to keep them in a spiritually magnetized condition. He scientifically makes breathing unnecessary, and does not enter (during his hours of practice) the negative states of sleep, unconsciousness, or death.
In men under maya or natural law, the flow of life energy is toward the outward world; the currents are wasted and abused in the senses. The practice of Kriya reverses the flow; life force is mentally guided to the inner cosmos and becomes reunited with subtle spinal energies. By such reinforcement of life force, the yogi's body and brain cells are renewed by a spiritual elixir.
Through proper food, sunlight, and harmonious thoughts, men who are led only by Nature and her divine plan will achieve Self-realization in a million years. Twelve years of normal healthful living are required to effect even slight refinements in brain structure; a million solar returns are exacted to purify the cerebral tenement sufficiently for manifestation of cosmic consciousness. A Kriya Yogi, however, by use of a spiritual science removes himself from the necessary for a long period of careful observance of natural laws.
Untying the cord of breath that binds the soul to the body, Kriya serves to prolong life and to enlarge the consciousness to infinity. The yoga technique overcomes the tug-of-war between the mind and the matter-entangled senses, and frees the devotee to reinherit his eternal kingdom. He knows then that his real being is bound neither by physical encasement nor by breath — symbol of mortal man's enslavement to air, to Nature's elemental compulsions.
Master of his body and mind, the Kriya Yogi ultimately achieves victory over the "last enemy,"¹³ Death.
So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men:
And Death once dead, there's no more dying then.¹⁴
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 Yoga may justly be called the "airplane" route.
The yogic science is based on an empirical consideration of all forms of concentration and meditation techniques. Yoga enables the devotee to switch off or on, at will, life current to 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.
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; emerging from his ego-prison, he tastes the deep air of omnipresence. The thralldom of natural living is, in contrast, set in a pace humiliating. Conforming his life merely to the evolutionary order, a man can command no concessionary haste from Nature. Though he live without error against the laws that govern his body and mind, he still requires a million years of masquerading incarnations to attain final emancipation.
The telescopic methods of a yogi, disengaging himself from physical and mental identifications in favor of soul individuality, are therefore commended 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; pursuing instead unnatural complexities and offending in his thoughts and body the sweet sanities of Nature. For him, two times a million years can scarce suffice for liberation.
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 sure if seemingly 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 in the human body or mind against Emperor Soul, manifesting as disease or irrationality, is due to no disloyalty among the humble subjects, but stems from past or present misuse by man of his individuality or free will — given to him simultaneously 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 merely 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. The world's scriptures declare man to be not a corruptible body but a living soul; in Kriya Yoga he finds a method to prove the scriptural affirmation.
"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.
The true yogi, withholding his thoughts, will, and feelings from false identification with bodily desires, uniting his mind with superconscious forces in the spinal shrines, thus lives in the world as God hath planned; he is impelled neither by impulses from the past nor by fresh motivations of human witlessness. Receiving fulfillment of his Supreme Desire, he is safe in the final haven of inexhaustibly blissful Spirit.
Referring to the sure and methodical efficacy of yoga, 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!"15
Kriya Yoga is the real "fire rite" oft extolled in the Gita. The yogi casts his human longings into a monotheistic bonfire consecrated 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 metaphorical bones stripped of all desirous flesh, his karmic skeleton bleached by the antiseptic sun of wisdom, inoffensive before man and Maker, he is clean at last.
A WESTERNER IN SAMADHI
Rajarsi Janakananda (James J. Lynn)
On a private beach at Encinitas, California, in January 1937, after five years of daily practice of Kriya Yoga, Mr. Lynn received in samadhi (superconsciousness) the Beatific Vision: the Infinite Lord as the Indwelling Glory.
"The balanced life of Mr. Lynn may serve as an inspiration for all men," Yogananda said. Conscientiously discharging the duties of his worldly life, Mr. Lynn yet found time daily for deep meditation on God. The successful businessman became an illumined Kriya Yogi.
Paramahansaji often lovingly referred to him as "Saint Lynn," and in 1951 bestowed on him the monastic name Rajarsi Janakananda (after the spiritually illustrious King Janaka of ancient India). The title rajarsi, literally "royal rishi," is derived from raja ("king") + rsi (or rishi, "great saint").
9 "These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God." — Revelation 3:14. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . All things were made by him [the Word or Aum]; and without him was not any thing made that was made." — John 1:1–3. Aum of the Vedas became the sacred word Hum of the Tibetans, Amin of the Moslems, and Amen of the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Jews, and Christians. Its meaning in Hebrew is sure, faithful.
10 Yoga Sutras II:49.
11 I Corinthians 15:31. "Our rejoicing" is the correct translation; not, as usually given, "your rejoicing." St. Paul was referring to the universality of the Christ Consciousness.
12 The Sanskrit word bikalpa means "difference, nonidentity." Sabikalpa is the state of samadhi "with difference," nirbikalpa is the state "without difference." That is, in sabikalpa samadhi the devotee still retains a slight feeling of separateness from God; in nirbikalpa samadhi he realizes fully his identity as Spirit.
13 "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death" (I Corinthians 15:26). The incorruptibility of Paramahansa Yogananda's body after death proved him a perfected Kriya Yogi. Not all great masters, however, manifest bodily nondecay after death. Such miracles occur, the Hindu scriptures tell us, only for some special purpose. In Paramahansaji's case, the "special purpose" was doubtless to convince the West of the value of yoga. Yoganandaji had been commanded by Babaji and Sri Yukteswarji to serve the West; Paramahansaji fulfilled that trust both in his life and in his death. (Publisher's Note)
14 Shakespeare: Sonnet 146.
15 Bhagavad Gita VI:46.
Modern science is beginning to discover the truly extraordinary curative and rejuvenating effects, on body and mind, of non-breathing. Dr. Alvan L. Barach of the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York has originated a local lung-rest therapy that is restoring to health many tuberculosis sufferers. The use of an equalizing pressure chamber enables the patient to stop breathing. The New York Times of Feb. 1, 1947, quoted Dr. Barach as follows: "The effect of cessation of breathing on the central nervous system is of considerable interest. The impulse for movement of the voluntary muscles in the extremities is strikingly diminished. The patient may lie in the chamber for hours without moving his hands or changing position. The desire to smoke disappears when voluntary respiration stops, even in patients who have been accustomed to smoke two packages of cigarettes daily. In many instances the relaxation is of such a nature that the patient does not require amusement." In 1951 Dr. Barach publicly confirmed the value of the treatment, which, he said, "not only rests the lungs but also the entire body, and, seemingly, the mind. The heart, for example, has its work decreased by a third. Our subjects stop worrying. None feel bored."
From these facts, one begins to understand how it is possible for yogis to sit motionless for long periods without mental or bodily urge toward restless activity. Only by such quietude may the soul find its way back to God. Though ordinary men must remain in an equalizing pressure chamber to obtain certain benefits of non-breathing, the yogi needs nothing but the Kriya Yoga technique to receive rewards in body and mind, and in soul-awareness.
Founding a Yoga School in Ranchi
"Why are you averse to organizational work?"
Master's question startled me a bit. It is true that my private conviction at the time was that organizations are "hornets' nests."
"It is a thankless task, sir," I answered. "No matter what the leader does, or does not do, he is criticized."
"Do you want the whole divine channa (milk curd) for yourself alone?" My guru's retort was accompanied by a stern glance. "Could you or anyone else achieve God-communion through yoga if a line of generous-hearted masters had not been willing to convey their knowledge to others?" He added, "God is the Honey, organizations are the hives; both are necessary. Any form is useless, of course, without the spirit, but why should you not start busy hives full of the spiritual nectar?"
His counsel moved me deeply. Although I made no outward reply, an adamant resolution arose in my breast: I would share with my fellows, so far as lay in my power, the unshackling truths I had learned at my guru's feet. "Lord," I