Yoga has different branches, each of which helps us to achieve peace and health. One of these branches is called Kriya Yoga, which emphasizes spiritual growth, awakening, and self-knowledge. Stay with us until the end of the article to learn more about this branch of yoga and its teachings.
How can we fall in love with life?
Life may search for happiness in different forms, such as pleasure, security, success, satisfaction, and happiness. However, many of us lose it after searching for happiness and finding it again. Sometimes we get tired of it after a while and want more.
At some point, we ask ourselves, what this deep desire for happiness is? Is there a way to make my feeling of happiness last forever and never lose it again? What do I want? Can I get rid of grief? Is such a thing possible? With these questions in mind, our journey to spiritual awakening begins. Kriya Yoga is a universal and tested philosophy and approach to living with a spiritual awakening that illuminates the path ahead.
What is Kriya Yoga?
Kriya Yoga is an integrated physical, mental, and spiritual method for spiritual awakening. Self-discipline, self-study, and self-surrender remove the obstacles to direct knowledge of our inherent spiritual nature and lead to the natural experience of self-realization.
It can be said that Kriya Yoga is a path for spiritual awakening, A way to discover your inner and inherent nature and live a more conscious and fulfilling life. Kriya Yoga is a way to purify life through 4 basic principles of thinking, meditation, cultivating virtues, and abandoning the feeling of separate existence.
“Kriya” means “action,” and “yoga” means the conscious union of body, mind, soul, and Creator. Yoga, in its highest sense, means realizing that we are one with the Creator and have an integral connection with existence. With Kriya Yoga, we find out what we need to do to get closer to realizing this inner perfection.
Practically speaking, Kriya Yoga is an ancient meditation technique with energy control and breath or pranayama. Kriya Yoga is part of a holistic spiritual path that includes meditative practices and the right living. Kriya technique was hidden for centuries until, in 1861, the great yogi Mahavatar Babaji taught this technique to his disciple Lahiri Mahasaya and Kriya was revived. Lahiri also taught this technique to his disciple Swami Sri Yukteswar, who taught it to his disciples, including Paramahansa Yogananda.
How does Kriya Yoga work?
According to Yogananda, Kriya Yoga is the most effective technique available to man today to achieve the goal of yoga, which is to become one with the Creator. Kriya Yoga is very effective because it works directly with the source of growth, the spiritual energy that lies deep in the spine.
All yoga techniques usually work indirectly with this energy. For example, yoga movements can help open the spinal canals and balance the point in the spine. Yoga or Pranayama breathing exercises can also help to awaken this energy. But Kriya Yoga works more directly, and with its help, a person can control the life force by mentally pulling this life force up and down the spine, with awareness and will. According to Yogananda, one Kriya practice lasting about half a minute is equivalent to 1 year of natural spiritual growth.
In terms of effectiveness, Kriya works very well. Kriya Yogis find that Kriya increases their ability to focus, makes them more efficient in their business and family life, and makes them better people in every field.
Kriya Yoga is a tool that can be used to accelerate human evolution. Ancient yogis discovered that cosmic awareness is closely related to breath mastery. By using a method to calm our constant need to breathe, life force is freed up for higher activities.
“A thousand kriya practices performed in eight hours in one day give the yogi the equivalent of a thousand years of natural evolution; This means 365 thousand years of evolution in one year.
Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda
8 Limbs of Yoga
The eight members or tools of yoga to achieve the cessation of thought activity and experience pure consciousness are:
- Yama: Harmlessness, truthfulness, non-stealing, correct use of life force, and non-attachment.
- Niyama: Purity, contentment, self-discipline, investigation of the nature of consciousness, and relinquishing the feeling of separateness.
- Asana: body position.
- Pranayama: control of life force.
- Pratyahara: Introspection.
- Dharana (dharana): Concentration.
- Dhyana: Meditation.
- Samadhi: Oneness.
By using these eight organs or tools, you can combine the practice of meditation and the cultivation of moral virtues. This systematic approach to self and knowing the Creator creates an inner experience that increases one’s ability to make real change. The experience of understanding the truth of who we are creates a lasting motivation for life change. Combining meditation and cultivating virtues brings stability because we wake up and transform our lives.
Components of Kriya Yoga
These actions help spiritual analysis to achieve unity:
- By meditating, we experience the essence of our being.
- We search for the nature of reality by thinking and reflecting.
- We reflect on how to live with wisdom and compassion.
- We explore, engage in spiritual practices, and discover what works for us.
Enlightenment is a natural revelation of truth and occurs when mental obstacles are removed. When the mind becomes calm and quiet, the radiance of one’s being and self illuminates it. Then the truth of what we are is revealed naturally. This is something that is directly experienced. This experience changes us because it changes our attitude. We no longer identify with his body and mind and imagine he may also have a soul. We now know we are divine spirits expressed through body and mind.
How to do Kriya Yoga
Kriya Yoga is a whole school that includes an orderly and healthy lifestyle, investigation of the nature of reality, adherence to moral precepts, regular practice of superconscious meditation, committed discipleship, living with a higher purpose while contributing to the well-being of all, and giving up. It becomes a separate existence from the illusion.
Kriya is a dynamic form of pranayama. Of course, the comprehensive enlightenment path of Kriya is not just a technique but something more than that. The word Kriya in Sanskrit means action or effort. This term can refer to actions we take to cleanse the body and mind and spontaneous cleansing actions that begin with the awakened kundalini (primordial cosmic energy). Kriya and Yoga (Kriya Yoga) refer to a philosophy and comprehensive methods for understanding and spiritual realization.
The Kriya Yoga school brings together the most effective elements of all yoga systems, including:
- A step-by-step Raja Yoga meditation method with eight limbs or parts of its practice;
- Surrender and surrender Bhakti Yoga (Bhakti Yoga);
- focused self-inquiry, Jnana Yoga;
- The importance of selfless service is Karma Yoga.
Kriya Yoga emphasizes a healthy, purposeful, and conscious life made possible by practicing superconscious meditation. Kriya is a deliberate and comprehensive approach to achieving self-realization and spiritual enlightenment. Enlightenment is a person’s goal and his inevitable and definite destiny. We are spiritual beings by nature, and enlightenment only reveals this truth to us; Enlightenment awakens us and causes us to understand and live by it daily.
Expanding the teachings of Kriya Yoga
The Kriya Yoga system reflects the importance of the unique teachings and practices of the Kriya Yoga tradition that Paramahansa Yogananda brought to the West. Yogananda came to America in 1920 with the blessings of his guru or teacher, Swami Sri Yukteswar, to spread the liberating teachings of Kriya Yoga in the West. He initiated thousands into the spiritual school of Kriya Yoga. He inspired seekers worldwide to discover the liberating truth of their spiritual nature and their relationship with the Creator. Today, his essential book, “Autobiography of a Yogi,” is still a bestseller and guides seekers to this path.
Kriya Yoga is a spiritual path, not a religion. Therefore, Kriya is a way of life open to all who seek to live a healthy and spiritually balanced life. Practitioners of Kriya Yoga from different religions, ethnicities, cultures, economic conditions, or professions are united by the common goal that lies in the heart of every seeker of truth, the purpose of awakening.
Ready to start
Before starting Kriya Yoga, you must go through a preparation process that includes studying the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda and practicing other meditation techniques. Over the years, Yogananda has helped thousands of truth seekers worldwide prepare for initiation into Kriya Yoga. Kriya exercises are much more effective after properly preparing and studying Kriya’s teachings.
How long does it take to learn Kriya?
This process takes about one year. Of course, this issue also depends on the individual. The path of Kriya Yoga involves learning and practicing spiritual techniques that bring about inner transformation. Each method must be integrated into one’s life before moving on to the next steps. How fast a person can progress using educational materials depends on karma and inner realities.
final word
Lives being transformed, hearts blossoming with compassion, and minds enlightened with inner wisdom, and watching people discover lasting happiness and inner peace not destroyed by life’s circumstances, bring so much hope to our world. A sustainable way of living in harmony with nature and each other can only come from an awakened heart and mind that understands our oneness, humanity, and shared divinity. The awakening of the whole world is possible if one person at a time awakens.
Warning! This article is only for educational purposes; to use it, it is necessary to consult a doctor or specialist.
