Kriya Yoga Mega-Thread

[Shakazulu]

@Cocolove yea I started Kriya yoga 5 years ago and I stayed consistent ? 

[Shakazulu]

Is the study of Kriya yoga about perfection or practice? Is it more important to worry about perfecting each technique or understanding how each technique fits into the big picture? 

[Yimpa]

3 hours ago, Shakazulu said:

yea I started Kriya yoga 5 years ago and I stayed consistent ? 

What has Kriya yoga taught you, and what would you recommend to beginners?

[Shakazulu]

@Yimpa 
 

1. Our body has energetic blockages 

2. Breathing is the bridge to our spirit 

3. Chakras are a real phenomena 

my advice to beginners is: follow the process and take a step forward each week. There’s no rush. I’ve had mystical experiences from the first 7 lessons of Kriya yoga. 

Edited August 1, 2023 by Shakazulu

[martins name]

@Shakazulu Can you share some of your most profound mystical experiences from kriya?

[Shakazulu]

@martins name never really told anyone this story but since you are curious:

one day I was practicing Kriya yoga in my basement with the lights off and I went into a very concentrated level of breathing, a breath so effortless that I seen a path of white light that is colourful similar to UV rays going across the room then centimetres away from me I see the face of some sort of entity looking at me then it shined a red light at my forehead and disappeared. 

[Cocolove]

Once on a meditation retreat while doing KP3 I left my body and went to an energetic dimension where I felt like a buzzing singularity. One buzz. Visually there were red fractals. Then I had an ego death and watched the ego reform over the course of a minute.

[Leo Gura]

On 7/28/2023 at 2:14 PM, Psychonaut said:

I scrolled through the book a bit and it seems like Kriya Yoga gets really complicated after some time. Seems like a classic case of heavy over-engineering that it would require a big time and energy investment. Not sure if maybe something simpler might get the majority of the results or just psychedelics.

Yes, it's way over-complicated. What I did was strip everything down to just 1 core technique: the spinal breathing and I just do that for 1 hr. I think this will produce 80% of the results and it's just so simple.

I suggest you pick 1-3 of the techniques you feel are most potent and focus on mastering those. Later you could always get more fancy but I don't think it's necessary, especially for the first year.

The very core of Kriya yoga is the up/down spinal breathing through the chakras. Everything else is just a fancy addition to that. As you do the techniques you can sorta feel into whether they are effctive or not. Try the spinal breathing for a solid month and just see how it makes you feel. If you feel it is quieting your monkey mind, that's good, so then just continue with it and perhaps add 1 more technique to your stack like mahamudra or breath of fire.

Slowly over a year or two can build up your own custom stack. I think this way is far superior to stricting following the book.

Edited August 4, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Leo Gura]

On 6/17/2023 at 9:40 AM, MAHAVATAR_-_BABAJI said:

@Leo GuraLeo, how far in the book have you reached. I currently am on Lesson 26 out of 33?

I never did the lessons in order.

I built my own custom stack and kept it very simple.

One of my greatest strengths and weaknesses is that I never blindly follow orders. I research ideas and invent my own way.

One of the biggest issues I had with yoga is that I was always expected to just do it blindly like a sheep but that kind of attitude is just antithetical to my values. Yoga is really well-suited for sheep-like people who just want to be told what to do.

I am not criticizing anything, I'm just saying that kind of approach has its pros and cons.

Edited August 4, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Anon212]

@Leo Gura I appreciate that but I learned kriya yoga from the Isha Foundation and it worked wonders particularly in terms of health. Lowered blood pressure, blood sugars, and helped me get over an eating disorder. I also reduced sleep from 9 hours to 7 hours consistently and more energy throughout the day. It just worked and I don't know how or why...

[Leo Gura]

8 minutes ago, Anon212 said:

@Leo Gura I appreciate that but I learned kriya yoga from the Isha Foundation and it worked wonders particularly in terms of health. Lowered blood pressure, blood sugars, and helped me get over an eating disorder. I also reduced sleep from 9 hours to 7 hours consistently and more energy throughout the day. It just worked and I don't know how or why...

Yes, that's how that tends to go.

But for me I was not interested in any of those benefits. I was only interested in understanding God. So for me that kind of method was an obstacle. So I had to get creative.

In this work your priorities and values play a central role. Most people in this work have very basic human priorities, not metaphysical ones. Again, neither is right or wrong but there are trade-offs.

Could my health be better if I rigorously did Sadhguru's yoga? Maybe. But I was interested in something else.

Edited August 4, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Anon212]

28 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Yes, that's how that tends to go.

But for me I was not interested in any of those benefits. I was only interested in understanding God. So for me that kind of method was an obstacle. So I had to get creative.

In this work your priorities and values play a central role. Most people in this work have very basic human priorities, not metaphysical ones. Again, neither is right or wrong but there are trade-offs.

Could my health be better if I rigorously did Sadhguru's yoga? Maybe. But I was interested in something else.

Sure, neither is right or wrong but I am also very interested in deep understanding and that is why I follow you very seriously.

But there's so much else involved. I was very sick for a 21 year old and I had to focus on health and I took kriya yoga seriously, I have done well over 1000 hours now and I am still only 23. 

There is another part of it that changes you're brain chemistry slowly making you a happier and more peaceful person. This has wide ranging benefits and especially when it comes to being productive and effective - being happier is better. Sad and depressed people don't get stuff done (well I think so anyways).

I think it helped me a lot with health, OCD, making me happier and so on... I think it is helpful for my life purpose and dealing with survival. I know you don't like hippie woo woo stuff. But in my experience, I have genuinely noticed it is easier for me to manifest stuff into my life. I mean this very sincerely and it is a living reality for me.

I think it has set a very powerful base for investigating reality, for example being healthy, less compulsive about food, sex, sleeping less, sharper mind, sharper senses and so on. As you say state matters as does meeting your survival needs which I find are easier to manifest.

I want to discover God, I want to discover alien consciousness (just a belief for me based on what you say) but doing something for basic health and wellbeing has been a very powerful starting point so maybe you could say it is a priority. I think you were just hell bent on truth lol.

Also man, you talk a lot about hard work and being very disciplined etc... to some extent I agree but I read a lot of your posts about hard work and I don't agree with them. I work half as much as I use to and I am much more successful now. I actually don't really believe in hard work especially when it comes to meeting survival needs and having a life purpose. My experience has been that these things can be crafted effortlessly but this again happend after doing a lot of yoga. I mean Sadhguru talks about making your life energies vibrant so you cam easily have what you want. I don't know what the fuck that means but usually I easily get what I want.

Edited August 4, 2023 by Anon212

[Leo Gura]

37 minutes ago, Anon212 said:

Sure, neither is right or wrong but I am also very interested in deep understanding and that is why I follow you very seriously.

But there's so much else involved. I was very sick for a 21 year old and I had to focus on health and I took kriya yoga seriously, I have done well over 1000 hours now and I am still only 23. 

There is another part of it that changes you're brain chemistry slowly making you a happier and more peaceful person. This has wide ranging benefits and especially when it comes to being productive and effective - being happier is better. Sad and depressed people don't get stuff done (well I think so anyways).

I think it helped me a lot with health, OCD, making me happier and so on... I think it is helpful for my life purpose and dealing with survival. I know you don't like hippie woo woo stuff. But in my experience, I have genuinely noticed it is easier for me to manifest stuff into my life. I mean this very sincerely and it is a living reality for me.

I think it has set a very powerful base for investigating reality, for example being healthy, less compulsive about food, sex, sleeping less, sharper mind, sharper senses and so on. As you say state matters as does meeting your survival needs which I find are easier to manifest.

I want to discover God, I want to discover alien consciousness (just a belief for me based on what you say) but doing something for basic health and wellbeing has been a very powerful starting point so maybe you could say it is a priority. I think you were just hell bent on truth lol.

Also man, you talk a lot about hard work and being very disciplined etc... to some extent I agree but I read a lot of your posts about hard work and I don't agree with them. I work half as much as I use to and I am much more successful now. I actually don't really believe in hard work especially when it comes to meeting survival needs and having a life purpose. My experience has been that these things can be crafted effortlessly but this again happend after doing a lot of yoga. I mean Sadhguru talks about making your life energies vibrant so you cam easily have what you want. I don't know what the fuck that means but usually I easily get what I want.

Well, I'm glad it's worked so well for you. Good work and carry on then.

[StarStruck]

8 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Yes, it's way over-complicated. What I did was strip everything down to just 1 core technique: the spinal breathing and I just do that for 1 hr. I think this will produce 80% of the results and it's just so simple.

I suggest you pick 1-3 of the techniques you feel are most potent and focus on mastering those. Later you could always get more fancy but I don't think it's necessary, especially for the first year.

The very core of Kriya yoga is the up/down spinal breathing through the chakras. Everything else is just a fancy addition to that. As you do the techniques you can sorta feel into whether they are effctive or not. Try the spinal breathing for a solid month and just see how it makes you feel. If you feel it is quieting your monkey mind, that's good, so then just continue with it and perhaps add 1 more technique to your stack like mahamudra or breath of fire.

Slowly over a year or two can build up your own custom stack. I think this way is far superior to stricting following the book.

So you don’t do that exercise where you put your tongue up your nose hole to tickle the pineal gland? When I read that exercise in the book I just stopped. It was too much of a hassle. ?

[Leo Gura]

32 minutes ago, StarStruck said:

So you don’t do that exercise where you put your tongue up your nose hole to tickle the pineal gland? When I read that exercise in the book I just stopped. It was too much of a hassle. ?

That one takes a lot of work to develop. It's pretty hardcore.

Look at it this way: if the spinal breathing works well for you after 6 months, you can add any other advanced techniques onto of it later. In fact you will be motivated to do so. But it's really hard to motivate yourself to learn all the advanced stuff if you are just starting off with zero results. That requires epic faith and self-discipline to pull off. Personally I never had that level of faith in yoga. So I babystepped it. 1hr of spinal breathing per day is a good starting point and will give you a taste for yoga.

It's very easy to get overwhemled by that book and quit.

Edited August 5, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Harikrishnan]

22 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

That one takes a lot of work to develop. It's pretty hardcore.

Look at it this way: if the spinal breathing works well for you after 6 months, you can add any other advanced techniques onto of it later. In fact you will be motivated to do so. But it's really hard to motivate yourself to learn all the advanced stuff if you are just starting off with zero results. That requires epic faith and self-discipline to pull off. Personally I never had that level of faith in yoga. So I babystepped it. 1hr of spinal breathing per day is a good starting point and will give you a taste for yoga.

It's very easy to get overwhemled by that book and quit.

@Leo Gura Do you still do any of yoga practice? And do you lift weight now?

[StarStruck]

27 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

That one takes a lot of work to develop. It's pretty hardcore.

Look at it this way: if the spinal breathing works well for you after 6 months, you can add any other advanced techniques onto of it later. In fact you will be motivated to do so. But it's really hard to motivate yourself to learn all the advanced stuff if you are just starting off with zero results. That requires epic faith and self-discipline to pull off. Personally I never had that level of faith in yoga. So I babystepped it. 1hr of spinal breathing per day is a good starting point and will give you a taste for yoga.

It's very easy to get overwhemled by that book and quit.

The thing is that you kriya yoga book that you recommended in your book list starts off with that tongue up the nose technique very early on in the book, it is one of the first exercises

[Leo Gura]

8 minutes ago, Harikrishnan said:

@Leo Gura Do you still do any of yoga practice? And do you lift weight now?

I have recently been restarting yoga. We'll see how it goes. I wanna give it another go.

Not lifting right now but I wanna get back into it.

Health problems made it difficult for me to maintain those habits in the past.

Edited August 5, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Leo Gura]

6 minutes ago, StarStruck said:

The thing is that you kriya yoga book that you recommended in your book list starts off with that tongue up the nose technique very early on in the book, it is one of the first exercises

Yes. Which is why we have this thread to offer better guidance than that book. Very few people will succeed in following that book because it's too hardcore. I made this thread to offer a more realistic path.

I also have mutliple Kriya books on the list. Don't overlook those.

Edited August 5, 2023 by Leo Gura

[bazera]

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0BHGBDT2D?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

This is a new book that I've found and ordered, haven't received yet but maybe you guys will find it useful.

The author also has a youtube chanel and a discord group, so he is pretty accessible I think, unlike JC Stevens.