Kriya Yoga Mega-Thread

[DMM710]

Nvm

Edited May 31, 2018 by DMM710

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Mart said:

But would you perform the Kriya Pranayama 1, 2 or 3  as the J.C. Stevens book discribes ?

I do a mix of Pranayama 2 + the Pranayama described in Gamana's book.

You can play around with different versions, the essence is the same. I like to visualize energy flowing up the spine to the very top of the head through all the charkas. I think the more precise your visualization gets, the better.

Gamana says not to visualize the energy flowing up each chakra, but I feel it's more powerful to visualize it. I find that doing a detailed visualization also helps stabilize and focus the monkey mind.

Experiment around and see what works best for you.

[Lynnel]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

I do a mix of Pranayama 2 + the Pranayama described in Gamana's book.

You can play around with different versions, the essence is the same. I like to visualize energy flowing up the spine to the very top of the head through all the charkas. I think the more precise your visualization gets, the better.

Gamana says not to visualize the energy flowing up each chakra, but I feel it's more powerful to visualize it. I find that doing a detailed visualization also helps stabilize and focus the monkey mind.

Experiment around and see what works best for you.

But you basically told us in the don't half-ass yoga video that experimenting isn't quite an option because those techniques were designed by spiritual geniuses.

I understand that there is on the other side the whole intuition aspect and you should practice and "feel" what works for you but the balance between both is very tricky.

I don't feel like innovating spiritual yoga techniques is exactly clever if you don't have a LOT of experience, like yoga training and studied a lot of different yogic schools. Which maybe you did

Just curious about how you handled this balance/paradox thingy.

[Mirror of Confusion]

Yes. An update version of how to do real Yoga would benefit many of us I guess.

[Leo Gura]

4 hours ago, Lynnel said:

But you basically told us in the don't half-ass yoga video that experimenting isn't quite an option because those techniques were designed by spiritual geniuses.

I understand that there is on the other side the whole intuition aspect and you should practice and "feel" what works for you but the balance between both is very tricky.

I don't feel like innovating spiritual yoga techniques is exactly clever if you don't have a LOT of experience, like yoga training and studied a lot of different yogic schools. Which maybe you did

Just curious about how you handled this balance/paradox thingy.

Yes, it's a bit paradoxical.

I like to experiment and tinker with stuff and do things my way. I accept the risks.

For newbies I suggest you pick a book/school and stick with it.

I don't think the differences between the two books is as great as it might seem. It's variations on the same basic thing. There are dozens of schools of yoga because in practice, people end up making tweaks and variations to suit themselves.

Because most yoga is taught dogmatically, many schools sorta lie to their students that "You must do it perfectly the way I teach it, or it will not work". But this seems obviously false since there are many different masters from many different schools. So there's clearly some degree of leeway. The question is, when have you taken it too far? And that cannot be easily answered. You will only know by trail and error.

[herghly]

I went to an imitation was interesting . They don't teach many techniques , but rather say to master the basics for 1-2 years then progress 

They taught three exercises 

1 , an exercise similar to om japa , locating the chakras

kriya pranayama 

mah mudra

They first want mastery over these. The teacher stressed less is more 

 

they also told us to not worry about any of the crown chakras and only focus on chakras 1-5. The teacher suggested this for the first six months

Edited June 1, 2018 by herghly

[Leo Gura]

@herghly Yes, that's usually what they do. I don't like that cause it's too drawn out and beating around the bush.

I don't like watered down yoga. But hey, that's just me.

[herghly]

@Leo Gura  Same!  The books you have mentioned are much better. I was  just curious to experience the initiation to see what they teach.

[herghly]

@Leo Gura Do you know of anywhere that does not teach watered down yoga?

 

I was looking to sadhguru inner engineering events, but i think that will also be watered down yoga

[Salvijus]

@herghly

39 minutes ago, herghly said:

@Leo GuraI was  just curious to experience the initiation to see what they teach.

Do that but you know initiation is not a teaching, it's a proccess of dismantling your fundamental energies, distance you from the genetic memory and then rewire you into something new. Also they open by passing their energy certain chakra points through witch then you do the kriya that was given to you.

It's really uncompareble to any other practice of meditation. 

If you think that by doing most complex 1h long kriyas from book gives you more benefit then.., I must tell you this, once I tried to go off the guidelines of 21min kriya practice I am initiatiated. I wanted to sit for longer period of time because it feels very good. What happened is that I started to feel pain in my hearth because of too intense energy that was in me. My system was not ready. But I can sit for 3h doing book kriya and only my ass would hurt from sitting. You get what I mean ?

Really initiation is best thing you can do to yourself. Getting masters life energy inside of you..... That's the greatest benediction one can have.

This a nice video to understand what initiation is.

 

 

[Leo Gura]

12 hours ago, herghly said:

@Leo Gura Do you know of anywhere that does not teach watered down yoga?

The books we're talking about.

Quote

I was looking to sadhguru inner engineering events, but i think that will also be watered down yoga

I think they can be life-changing, although personally, to me, I found his yoga not as potent as the Kriya we're discussing here. It probably gets more potent as you go to his advanced programs, but his introductory program didn't seem potent enough for my liking. It would make sense to me that he, being very responsible, would save the most potent techniques only for his most advanced students. And I don't like jumping through all those hoops to get the most potent techniques. I want something I can learn at home on my own. Hence I prefer Kriya. But this not to say you shouldn't do his programs or that his teachings are bad. He's knows what he's doing. He has to be very careful about taking his yoga to millions of people. At those scales, a lot of things can go wrong, so you have to teach very responsibly and focus on safety.

Generally speaking, the more mainstream a teaching gets, the more watered down it gets.

[onacloudynight]

On 5/30/2018 at 6:01 PM, Leo Gura said:

For those of you into Kriya, I would highly recommend that in addition to reading the original Kriya book I suggested, you also read the books of Santata Gamana. I now prefer his more simplified techniques. It's a much more streamlined version of Kriya which I think will be even more effective. I found too much needless complexity and variety in the other way.

Right now my technique stack is very simple:

1. Mahamudra x3
2. Kriya Pranayama x24
3. Kriya Supreme Fire x3
4. One-pointed Concentration for 5 mins

Eventually, with lots of practice, you should aim for something like the following stack:

1. Mahamudra x3
2. Kriya Pranayama x36-x72
3. Kriya Supreme Fire for 10-20 mins
4. One-pointed Concentration for 10-20 mins
5. (Bonus: Yoni Mudra x3)
6. (Bonus: Kechari mudra)

EDIT: ideally, do this stack twice per day. But if you don't have that much time, at least once per day.

Don't attempt to do this second stack right off the bat. It will not be sustainable. You need to gradually build up to it, like with heavy weightlifting.

I think the original book I recommended is still very good as an introduction and foundation because Gamana's books are so short and thin that they do not provide enough information about Kriya to a total newbie. They are aimed at people who have already been initiated in one school or another.

If you are strictly following the original book, that is okay. You can keep doing that if you want. Or you could switch to this more streamlined version like I decided to do. I don't like learning too many complicated techniques. But that's just me. Both ways should work in the end. It's mostly a matter of style. Although I actually think the streamlined version will end up to be more effective because it concentrates your limited time on the most powerful techniques, and less time is wasted on learning new complex techniques.

Are you referring to the book: "Kriya Yoga Exposed" Or all of his books?

Edited June 1, 2018 by onacloudynight

[Salvijus]

@Leo Gura Well what you say makes perfect sense and I'm not surprized you're thinking like that. That's the way I was thinking too. I also thought for a long time that his introductory programs are for newbies or smth. But still it's just a theory. You don't know how potent they actually are. And Yes, your doubts are very very reasonable.

It's just that when I say that nothing is capable of bringing such dramatic changes and incredible spiritual growth like sadhguru's yoga I say that from firsthand experience. I did self-enquiry for 3years and it was amazing and I still do that sometimes, but it's not compared even close to what I'm experiencing now.

The only problem is I can't say that sadhguru's kriya yoga is better then the kriyas from the books because well I never tried kriya from books. So I'm not eligible to say anything. But I can really really honestly vouch for that even simple practice like shambhavi for example is something to die for... Before I felt very strongly that there's nothing better then self-enquiry. I was doing that everyday for like 3-4-5-6hours some days I would just contemplate whole day nonstop. But I realized tho my awareness was getting sharper and sharper, I didn't really get any social benefits, my anxiety and inseciurities we're pretty much as they were when I wasn't meditating. So I descided to do something about it. I thought let's try a simplest yoga there is from sadhguru witch is Suriya kriya, just like an additional practice to self-enquiry, to have some psychological benefits to be more social and smth like that. And what do you know. First day I did Suriya kriya, that's it. I dropped self-enquiry away completly. The effect that Surya kriya had on me was too incredible.... Just too much. And know this that I was determened to that path of self-enquiry to the very end and get enlightened and it only took once of taste of real simple Yoga and bam.. I forgot everything. Sadhguru became my god. And this just a simple Surya practice.. When I got initiated into shambhavi Oh man....... Sadhguru is literally inside me, like a source of blissfulness. And the impact it has on my spiritual development..... Nothing I ever witnessed. Untill that day, I always thought path to meditation is very brutal, hard, determened, hearth-breaking sadhana. But now I constantly wondering how something so simple have so insanely lot of benefit. The only way to explain this is that this is because of initiation. And that is why I feel confident to say that no book yoga/kriya can compere to real life yoga/kriya from a real guru.

 

 

[Leo Gura]

@onacloudynight All his books are good.

[Leo Gura]

@Salvijus I've done his initiation.

Then I replaced most of his techniques with Pranayama.

Different strokes for different folks I guess.

Yes, the question is not whether his yoga is good, but whether Kriya is better. I cannot say definitively, but I had to make a choice. I like Kriya more. But I have not done Sadhguru's advanced trainings, so I cannot speak to that. Maybe he has some killer advanced techniques? I dunno.

Also, I interviewed one of his advanced students and when I asked him about enlightenment, he said, "I don't know what enlightenment is", which was a big red flag for me. I highly doubt most of his advanced students are enlightened. But I could be wrong.

There is a big difference between doing yoga and being enlightened.

[Salvijus]

@Leo Gura whaaaat if you did his initiation then I have nothing to say You should know witch is better

Wow I really didn't except that. You mean you got initiated into shambhavi?

[Leo Gura]

4 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

@Leo Gura You mean you got initiated into shambhavi?

Yup, in San Diego.

It was a growth experience for sure.

But I still don't know which is better. I just know that I like spinal breathing, pulling prana up my spine. Sadhguru aparently doesn't teach that.

[Salvijus]

@Leo Gura remarkable well good luck to you finding the best kriya Yoga there is then You sure know much more then me then

[Salvijus]

6 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Yup, in San Diego.

It was a growth experience for sure.

But I still don't know which is better. I just know that I like spinal breathing, pulling prana up my spine. Sadhguru aparently doesn't teach that.

Why don't you do both then?

[Leo Gura]

23 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

Why don't you do both then?

Time is limited. And following too many various techniques becomes confusing.