Babaji
Lahiri Mahasaya
Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri
Paramhansa Yogananda
Kriya Yoga is described by its practitioners as the ancient Yoga system revived in modern times by Mahavatar Babaji through his disciple Lahiri Mahasaya, c 1861, and brought into widespread public awareness through Paramhansa Yogananda's book Autobiography of a Yogi. The system consists of a number of levels of Pranayama based techniques that are intended to rapidly accelerate spiritual development and engender a profound state of tranquility and God-communion.
Kriya Yoga Practice
Kriya Yoga as taught by Lahiri Mahasaya is traditionally learned via the Guru-disciple relationship. He recounted that after his initiation into Kriya Yoga, "Babaji instructed me in the ancient rigid rules which govern the transmission of the yogic art from Guru to disciple."
As Yogananda describes Kriya Yoga, "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."
In Kriya Quotes from Swami Satyananda, it is written, "Kriya sadhana may be thought of as the sadhana of the "practice of being in Atman"
History
According to Yogananda, Kriya Yoga was well-known in ancient India, but was eventually lost, due to "priestly secrecy and man’s indifference". Yogananda says that Krishna refers to Kriya Yoga in 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.
Yogananda also stated that Krishna was referring to Kriya Yoga when "Lord Krishna … relates 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. He, in turn, instructed Ikshwaku, the father of India’s solar warrior dynasty." Yogananda says that Patanjali was referring to Kriya Yoga when he wrote "Kriya Yoga consists of body discipline, mental control, and meditating on Aum." And again when he says,"Liberation can be accomplished by that pranayama which is attained by disjoining the course of inspiration and expiration." A direct disciple of Sri Yukteswar Giri, Sri Sailendra Bejoy Dasgupta has written that, "Kriya entails several acts that have evidently been adapted from the Gita, the Yoga Sutras, Tantra shastras and from conceptions on the Yugas."
Recent history
The story of Lahiri Mahasaya receiving initiation into Kriya Yoga by the yogi Mahavatar Babaji in 1861 is recounted in Autobiography of a Yogi. Yogananda wrote that at that meeting, Mahavatar Babaji told Lahiri Mahasaya, "The Kriya Yoga that I am giving to the world through you in this nineteenth century, is a revival of the same science that Krishna gave millenniums ago to Arjuna; and was later known to Patanjali, and to Christ, St. John, St. Paul, and other disciples." Yogananda also wrote that Babaji and Christ were in continual communion and together, "have planned the spiritual technique of salvation for this age."
Through Lahiri Mahasaya, Kriya Yoga soon spread throughout India. Yogananda, a disciple of Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri who was himself a disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya, then brought Kriya Yoga to the United States and Europe during the 20th century.
Lahiri Mahasaya's disciples included his oldest son, Sri Tincori Lahiri, Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri, Sri Panchanon Bhattacharya, Swami Pranabananda, Swami Kebalananda, Swami Keshabananda, and Bhupendranath Sanyal (Sanyal Mahasaya).
-wikipedia
6 comments:
You are one confused person. You cant embrace every world religion, they cantradict each other, before you know it you are arguing with yourself. I've been to the ashram in Encinitas CA. Those people have a picture of Christ next to a hindu diety named Krishna. How do hinduism and Christ go together? If you really studied "Yeshua's" teachings you know that Yahweh said thou shalt put no other God before me. Why are you promoting false gods and confusion?
Maybe your just a tad bit confused? In the interest of dispelling confusion (laughs) and in the spirit of love, I will answer your question, even though I don't usually publish anonymous remarks. First, I can do whatever I want, and embrace or not embrace whatever I want because I am a free spirit, or a free thinker. I often present (not promote) different views, techniques and beliefs, for consideration. Kriya is a yoga technique of meditation. "Those people" you refer to I assume are "The Self Realization fellowship." My understanding is that they believe that Krishna (the Hindu Christ) and Yeshua the Jewish Christ (Christ meaning messiah)are of the same spirit so to speak, as are other enlightened ones, such as Buddha. I don't know if you would call them a religion, maybe so. The say they are here to dispense the teaching or practice of Kriya Yoga taught to Gandhi and others. Didn't Jesus say Judge not lest ye be judged? Furthermore I never met a nicer group of people and have nothing but praise for their behavior. They don't judge other's beliefs or religions. That simply was not Paramahansa's teachings. He accepted and revered Christ. As far as The statement from the Bible about what Yeshua said or didn't say, this is up for question, since anyone who has looked into the scholarship of the codices known as the new testament, knows that there is much ambiguity and doubt about where, when and who wrote what! That being said. Yahweh is a Jewish name for god, there are many names for god, such as great spirit, Wakan Tanka, The tao, The universal mind the creator, Allah, the list is endless. The Taoists say it can't be named, it is to awesome and to much of a mystery. I am not a Religious type person, but a spiritual one. I call it "the spirit that moves in all things." All God's are false in a sense because you can't personify something beyond our conception. So all concepts of god are almost futile. Back to the statement about embracing all worlds religions. Maybe that's exactly what we need to do. Accept everyone for whatever path they take and love them for who they are! By the way Christ or Yeshua was an advocate for meditation from what I understand.
Peace, or as the Hindus would say "Shanti"
Thunder
Yes Thunder, yes, yes, and of course, yes! Hinduism is often misunderstood as a polytheistic religion. It is not at all polytheistic. It is henotheistic. That means ONE GOD (called Brahma or Vishnu). All other names are merely forms of the ONE GOD. Siva, Krishna, and even Kali are all aspects of Vishnu ONE GOD. In Christianity God, the Father is made manifest through God, the Son and God, the Holy Spirit. Three Gods? No, ONE GOD, three aspects. Nothing is not Great Spirit/One God/Over Soul/Universal Spirit etc., etc. etc. As dear Wakiya is saying with precision and accuracy is that naming the Ineffable is never enough for us humans to truly clarify the Ineffable and I must say, though it may seem harsh, I must support Wakiya's understanding wholeheartedly because it is arrogant to assume that anyone can make that which is truly Unknown something that is known. I can experience faith, but I cannot know God except as I know myself, Wakiya, and other human souls. Faith is the humble side of spiritual reverence and reverence is the manifestation of faith in our lives. To know God is not to know God as one may know a human friend (and even there, there is a lot delicious mystery!). Faith is not knowing--that's why we call it faith. If I know something, then I don't need faith because my way of "knowing" in faith is not the same as my way of knowing facts. I can't make that clear enough to people. Faith is not knowing. Faith is knowing that we don't know and to assume we do, is akin to committing the Sin of Pride. There is way to much "I know" in the world. It is imperative that we seek an epiphany of Truth that will reveal the wisdom in admitting gracious and humbly that we don't know. Ask a wise teacher, who is God? He or she will probably say, "Life,Tao,Being,Creation...." That's all.
With deep gratitude to anonymous and of course to Wakiya for the inspiration I received via your posts about confusion in religion.
Confusion is truly not necessarily the challenge we face. Compassion is much more necessary along with acceptance, curiosity, and deconstruction of dogmatic assumptions that feed the fuel of Pride that ignites the hot hells of hate.
I am a Jew. I used to be a Catholic. I'm still a Jew, just as I was when I was a Catholic. I never denounced my Judaism and couldn't denounce my Jewishness anyway. I can love Christ and Buddha. Why? Because no system, religion, belief tradition and so on has the only means and ways to Truth--and Truth like the Tao is never so obvious as any prideful people assume. I promise that mindfulness, meditation, and attention with a free spirit and enough trust to feel vulnerable yet truly desirous of the Unknown enhances and makes the mysteries of Life all the more fascinating, miraculous and awe-inspiring.
Arrow
That comment was simply refreshing and Beautiful! Your beautiful! Thank you Arrow for being the compassionate, wise, and understanding person you obviously are. The arrow has hit the bulls-eye.
Wakiya
Why does a Hindu embrace Christ, but a Christian does not embrace Krishna? Why do some people embrace God but ignore Buddha because they have been dogmatically taught that Buddha is an idol--and any divinity school student or scholar of religion and belief traditions knows Buddha--the one who is responsible for Buddhism--an off-shoot of Hinduism--was a visionary man, not a god. Please let Faith Be free of dogma, careful with indoctrination, and never short on thinking that "every time we think we're right, think again," which was said by the law professor to his law students on The Paper Chase. It's a tall order, but if we can keep it in front of us when we feel the urge to compete against each other through religions, traditions, systems, ideologies and so on, perhaps we could re-discover what it really means to be a Jew, a Christian, a Buddhist, a Taoist, and so on. May I spell it out for anyone who needs to see it to believe it? Okay, here: L O V E
What is Love? Universal and unconditional. Easy, huh? LOL
Love, Arrow
And always thank you Wakiya--as deep as a heart can ever feel your grace and wisdom--thank you deeply really always, Arrow (Am I gushing? Cool!)
Oh, and there are two kinds (at least) of spiritual/religious people: Those in the majority who believe in God or Holy One primarily because they're afraid of Hell or something like Hell so they rely on their churches, temples, etc., along with their clergy-persons to tell them what's what within their religions; conversely, there are those in the minority known as religious intellectuals who study religion, spirituality, faith, belief and so on. We study dogma and doctrine. We dare to challenge the status quo of religions, theology, cults, sects and so on by engaging in critical thinking, critical conversations, questioning, and curiosity. No, we are not educated atheists, and there are a lot of "uneducated" atheists, too. Anyway, Anonymous, the choice is yours, but please, whatever you choose, choose humanely, wisely, and with a tool-box brimming with facts. Honestly, facts--separating them from assumptions within religious and spiritual faith and belief systems isn't just a good idea, it's the Essence of Understanding within the intellects of souls who don't need to be right, but do need to love and be loved. Okay, I've nagged enough on this string of posts. I go shut up for a while or go dwell on something else.
Blessings, bliss, and beauty, Arrow
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