Yoga
Kriya Yoga

Everything is both within me, and outside me. I depend on everything and everything depends on me.

Yoga begins where science ends. But Man with his insatiable quest can bring the two together. The spinal cord in the human body has the basis to perform both external as well as internal functions. On either side of the spinal cord, there is the flow of negative and positive currents which are called, Ida and Pingla respectively. Inside the spinal cord there is the flow of Sushumna energy. Bramha Randhra is situated within Sushumna. When it is activated, the world is seen as being enveloped in divine light. Yogis do not waste their energies on aimless activities. Instead their energy is pushed to fuse with the concentrated energy of the kundalini. The awakened kundalini thereupon enters the sushumna. The released energy can either be constructive or destructive and its use depends solely on the yogi. It can bring a change in the nature of the yogi. This changed nature has two facets. One is velocity and the other is obstruction. Yogis give velocity to the right energy and attain sankalpa.

Karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raj yoga, kriya yoga, bhava yoga, laya yoga and other forms have entered the life of modern man. I have embraced Kriya yoga in the form of Sankalpa Yoga. This is an ancient art and is closely linked to every aspect of nature. Through the ages it has left the imprint of its effectiveness. Devis, devtas and ganas have taken help of sankalpa yoga. The wars of Ramayana and Mahabharata are apt illustrations of Sankalpa yoga, which has been in use since times immemorial.

What is Sankalpa yoga?

When a yogi, releases a concentrated flow of thoughts, and makes a firm resolve, with the objective of achieving an aim, he is practising-sankalpa yoga. The objective of this yoga is to generate awareness for self-realisation. Kriya yoga can enlighten the path of the seeker. A keen yoga enthusiast should keep two things in mind, (i) human love should not be confused with divine love and (ii) and one should not feign goodness.

In spiritual life, the mind and body are forgotten. A man who succeeds in doing this is a soul imbued with sankalpa bhava (nature). Divine light and sound enable man to face all the challenges of a spiritual path. They also bring to light hidden energies. Through this medium, one can study all the vrittis (fluctuations) of the mind. Yoga education teaches us how to detach man from his body and mind. The unravelling and awakening of this dormant mystery enables him to cognise his past and rebirth. All the material achievements of the physical world are created with the help of light and sound. Light and sound play an even more powerful role in the cognition of the inner self.

It becomes imperative that a man should first know himself. For dharma (religion), yoga and khema are beneficial.

The attainment of an unattainable is yoga. And preserving the attainment is called khem. Both are human karmas. The attainments of both the practical and spiritual jagat (world) are contained in both.

The mind has infinite vrittis or tendencies. They can be broadly divided into two categories - klista (difficult) and aklista (non-difficult). Klista tendencies are non-beneficial and aklista are beneficial.

Chitta (awareness) is like the waters of the ocean. The waves of raga (love), dwesh (enmity), kama (desire) and krodh (anger) - rise in this ocean of awareness. Chitta is lured by external events and behaves accordingly. Consequently man becomes attached to worldly things. This further entangles him in man made problems. He some how manages to compromise with difficult circumstances, and eventually falls prey to unnatural qualities. These unnatural qualities take him away from his natural temperament. He crumbles under the pressure of complications. And driven by helplessness he turns for help, to invisible powers. But, by that stage, it is too late.

Yoga can quieten the mind and help in the experience of indescribable ananda (bliss). In ignorance man considers worldliness as the 'be all' and 'end all' of life. But ananda rises from within and is beyond the indriyas (senses). Due to raga and dwesh man is confined to his gross body. He lives under constant fear of losing his body. And this fear, which covers the chitta can be lifted by Kriya Yoga. Kriya purges the chitta through sampragnata samadhi (conscious ecstasy) and helps it to move ahead. In this technique chitta's seeds become red hot, like molten gold and reach the stage of Sankalpa Yoga samadhi. There upon chittas old role comes to an end and the samskaras disintegrate. This particular Laya stage of chitta is acquired through 'Kriya Yoga'.

The chitta dissolves in the Kaivalya (emancipated) state and enables the man to cognize its dissolution. The chitta's self dissolving condition is called Prati Prasav (self absorbed).

My experiences of Kriya.

In Kriya Yoga all worries cease, and the mind gets extremely focussed. The effects of Kriya yoga occur with great speed. Any man can obtain 'Murdhanga' state within thirty seconds to three minutes. Thereafter he can effectively control his mind. I have tried to explore most of the kriyas (activities) of yoga. And have done an in-depth study of Patanjali’s manuscript. I have the theoretical and practical knowledge of Hathyoga. Maharishi Patanjali's yoga demands strict discipline. But his procedures are not at all complicated. In a simple, easy way any man can detach himself from the physical world and obtain the knowledge of the sukshma (the subtle realm).

Through yama, niyam and other relevant rules, Patanjali has in a lucid and intelligible style shown how a man can obstruct the vrittis (fluctuations) of his chitta (awareness), realize his self, investigate the Tantu Chakras of the body and thereby awaken his physical, astral and causal potential. He can also acquire all the siddhis (spiritual powers). Baba Gorakhnath has delineated this procedure in a different but effective manner and has propounded many new methods. He has made use of Hathyoga to unwind the body, open one of the doors of the body to find entry, cognize the sukshma through the gross body, and thereafter explore the entire cosmos.

There are plenty of methods. I owe my success to Baba Gorakhnath’s methods. The medium of all yoga practices is the human body. The union of external and internal kriya (activities) is called yoga. Yoga unites the external man with the internal man. It takes man from the physical to astral, adds subtle velocity to the materialised thoughts, and propels the sukshma to the causal.

I have come across many Mahatamas who practised different yogic techniques. I accepted their diverse yogic approaches without undue curiosity. Whatever I received from my masters was enough and self-confidence and firm determination always helped me. The Himalayas played the role of a teacher and philosopher. I closely observed 'nature' and learnt from it. But when I came out of my cloister and mingled with the world, I found yoga in a different light. I regularly tour overseas and wherever I went I found man thirsty for knowledge. All over the world human nature is the same. Human beings want to attain even the most impossible and unnatural things.

Yoga is very useful and beneficial to human kind. Yoga evokes the difference between human body and soul. Through the knowledge of soul, a man can have the cognition of the entire jagat (cosmos). After realizing his 'self' man can understand his true potential. The tangible reality of gunas can only be perceived through the way of yoga. Yoga helps in the cognition of chitta (awareness). The restlessness of chitta can be controlled by yoga.