Kriya Yoga Mega-Thread

[GromHellScream]

10 hours ago, herghly said:

@Mada_ He's teaching yoga for the masses. You need to keep in mind the yoga he teaches is not strong.

Define strong, you speaking from experience? 

 

[MountainCactus]

Sadhguru's techniques are not necessarily weak... they just serve a different purpose. Isha's yoga is tuned specifically for the average person to realize an increase in general health, wellness, and happiness in their lives. The Kriya Yoga of Lahiri Mahasaya was tuned specifically to make achievement of Nirvikalpa Samdhi possible for a householder in this lifetime. Two totally different goals for two totally different people. I recommend Isha to more people than I recommend Kriya, because most people are not looking for enlightenment and as such Sadhguru's techniques are better for them specifically. I only recommend Kriya for true seekers that will stop at nothing to achieve Nirvikalpa Samadhi.

That being said, receiving initiation and having a one on one relationship with a true guru/teacher is a priceless thing. I've said this time and time again here, but the techniques in the book are not proper, and even if they were Kriya is too subtle of a process to learn from a book. It takes years to master Kriya, even when working with a teacher one on one. Can someone generate some intense kundalini mystical experience with the false techniques in the books and have a fun pleasurable ride in the process? Absolutely. Can people achieve Nirvikalpa Samadhi from the books, with no initiation and no relationship with a teacher.... I don't think so. I have an ongoing relationship with my teacher, we are in regular contact, and his guidance has been nothing short of a blessing. He has brought my practice of Kriya alive to a degree that the books alone are wholly inadequate and incapable of doing... and I started my Kriya journey years ago with Stephens book so I am speaking from experience here. These authors are not authorized teachers, they are not masters, and all of their claims of knowledge are self proclaimed. I think one needs to really dig deep into who they can trust as a teacher. "Judge the tree by the fruit it bears". I see more people getting lost than found with these books, so is this fruit really worthy of mass consumption? Is someone who has betrayed every oath they took to every teacher they have had someone that should be admired and trusted? Should someone be placed on a pedestal and treated as an expert simply because they claim they are and can operate a word processor or a video camera? Are we going to keep throwing money at and making every person that claims to have "secret" or "exposed" Kriya knowledge rich without actually researching their claims and examining their fruits? One should really do their due diligence before trusting any spiritual teacher. There are far more false teachers out there than there are real ones. What happens is the general public throws money and praise at the charismatic false ones that are leading people astray and totally miss the real ones that are legitimately and quietly helping to change people's lives deep down in the trenches. Many of these true teachers are literally hiding in plain sight. There is no greater blessing than finding a true teacher, one that puts your needs above their own. Finding a true teacher is not something that should be frowned upon, it is something that should be encouraged. These people are indeed hard to find though, but "when the student is ready the teacher will appear" was indeed true for me, so maybe it will be for you all as well?

Edited December 10, 2019 by MountainCactus

[GromHellScream]

How does an average householder find a teacher?

[MountainCactus]

11 hours ago, GromHellScream said:

How does an average householder find a teacher?

Same way anyone else does, you have to look. The easiest and quickest way is through one of the organizations, you should have to kind of get to know the different monks and find one that you resonate with and then start communicating with them one on one on a regular basis. The more difficult route is to search for a teacher that is not affiliated with any of the organizations. This is the route I took. You can see a list on this page that has the websites for all of the teachers and organizations that have a web presence: https://www.reddit.com/r/kriyayoga/comments/9gchvy/kriya_yoga_sources/. Mind you though, there are a ton of Kriya teachers that shun the spotlight altogether and have no web presence at all, simply relying on the fact that the students meant for them will find their way to them even without advertising their presence.

Also, don't be afraid to network by PM'ing people here, on other forums, and the teachers you are aware of (there are some prominent YouTubers, bloggers, and even the teachers in the list above that may be able to introduce you to someone you otherwise would not have found). This was how I found my teacher, a private discussion that led to a recommendation and introduction. I had a few phone calls with the teacher, and a long email exchange back and forth over the course of a few weeks before I ultimately decided he was my teacher and decided to travel out to him for initiation. I think this is the most important part no matter what route you choose, you must spend some time getting to know the teacher to make sure that is your teacher prior to initiation. Don't just accept the first person who comes along offering initiation. There is no need to rush. If you're going to accept energy transmission from someone, make sure they have the energetic seed you want planted inside of you. You wouldn't want to have a child with the first person you go on a date with, same should be the case with energy transmission and a teacher. It should ideally be a lifetime commitment. You must feel a devotion to that teacher and their path, one that will allow you to choose that path exclusively and not be tempted to bounce around from guru to guru collecting initiations like they are Pokemon. Yogananda was surrounded by self realized Kriya gurus his entire life, but it took him years to find his guru. Generally speaking, taking the SRF lessons is a good way to fill the time while you search. There is no need to be in a rush. Impatience is the root of all spiritual mistakes. If your heart is true, you will find your teacher when the time is right and not a moment sooner.

Edited December 13, 2019 by MountainCactus

[Esoteric]

On 12/10/2019 at 7:12 PM, MountainCactus said:

Sadhguru's techniques are not necessarily weak... they just serve a different purpose. Isha's yoga is tuned specifically for the average person to realize an increase in general health, wellness, and happiness in their lives. The Kriya Yoga of Lahiri Mahasaya was tuned specifically to make achievement of Nirvikalpa Samdhi possible for a householder in this lifetime. Two totally different goals for two totally different people. I recommend Isha to more people than I recommend Kriya, because most people are not looking for enlightenment and as such Sadhguru's techniques are better for them specifically. I only recommend Kriya for true seekers that will stop at nothing to achieve Nirvikalpa Samadhi.

That being said, receiving initiation and having a one on one relationship with a true guru/teacher is a priceless thing. I've said this time and time again here, but the techniques in the book are not proper, and even if they were Kriya is too subtle of a process to learn from a book. It takes years to master Kriya, even when working with a teacher one on one. Can someone generate some intense kundalini mystical experience with the false techniques in the books and have a fun pleasurable ride in the process? Absolutely. Can people achieve Nirvikalpa Samadhi from the books, with no initiation and no relationship with a teacher.... I don't think so. I have an ongoing relationship with my teacher, we are in regular contact, and his guidance has been nothing short of a blessing. He has brought my practice of Kriya alive to a degree that the books alone are wholly inadequate and incapable of doing... and I started my Kriya journey years ago with Stephens book so I am speaking from experience here. These authors are not authorized teachers, they are not masters, and all of their claims of knowledge are self proclaimed. I think one needs to really dig deep into who they can trust as a teacher. "Judge the tree by the fruit it bears". I see more people getting lost than found with these books, so is this fruit really worthy of mass consumption? Is someone who has betrayed every oath they took to every teacher they have had someone that should be admired and trusted? Should someone be placed on a pedestal and treated as an expert simply because they claim they are and can operate a word processor or a video camera? Are we going to keep throwing money at and making every person that claims to have "secret" or "exposed" Kriya knowledge rich without actually researching their claims and examining their fruits? One should really do their due diligence before trusting any spiritual teacher. There are far more false teachers out there than there are real ones. What happens is the general public throws money and praise at the charismatic false ones that are leading people astray and totally miss the real ones that are legitimately and quietly helping to change people's lives deep down in the trenches. Many of these true teachers are literally hiding in plain sight. There is no greater blessing than finding a true teacher, one that puts your needs above their own. Finding a true teacher is not something that should be frowned upon, it is something that should be encouraged. These people are indeed hard to find though, but "when the student is ready the teacher will appear" was indeed true for me, so maybe it will be for you all as well?

@MountainCactus Of course it is possible to achieve Nirvikalpa Samadhi without submitting to a personal guru. Just because it wasn't working out for you without a personal teacher doesn't mean it is the same for everyone. There are endless paths to the divine and it sounds like you have some limiting beliefs. My situation = everyone else's situation

You make fair points and it's great you found a teacher and that it's working out for you, but I also get the impression you are on a crusade for your completely correct and uncorrupted system. You can actually read a lot of books on Kriya (and other systems) and don't make it a big deal out of it, or argue over who is more correct. You can try shit out and take what really works for you and if you are sincere and dedicated you can develop a wonderful system for yourself. Who cares who made the technique or if it is REAL Kriya as long as the technique works for you (might be shit for someone else). Sure you hit some road blocks here and there, but that's part of learning. People are able to take responsibility for their lives, and personally if I experiment with a technique and find out it is not resonating or sense it might be potentially dangerous. Guess what? I quit doing that and try something else. 

[MountainCactus]

1 hour ago, Esoteric said:

@MountainCactus Of course it is possible to achieve Nirvikalpa Samadhi without submitting to a personal guru. Just because it wasn't working out for you without a personal teacher doesn't mean it is the same for everyone. There are endless paths to the divine and it sounds like you have some limiting beliefs. My situation = everyone else's situation

You make fair points and it's great you found a teacher and that it's working out for you, but I also get the impression you are on a crusade for your completely correct and uncorrupted system. You can actually read a lot of books on Kriya (and other systems) and don't make it a big deal out of it, or argue over who is more correct. You can try shit out and take what really works for you and if you are sincere and dedicated you can develop a wonderful system for yourself. Who cares who made the technique or if it is REAL Kriya as long as the technique works for you (might be shit for someone else). Sure you hit some road blocks here and there, but that's part of learning. People are able to take responsibility for their lives, and personally if I experiment with a technique and find out it is not resonating or sense it might be potentially dangerous. Guess what? I quit doing that and try something else. 

I never said it is impossible to achieve Nirvikalpa Samadhi without a personal guru... obviously Ramana Maharshi proves it is possible if you sit in a cave for 15 years meditating non-stop until the bugs are eating through your legs. Obviously, it is much more difficult without a teacher. There are more paths than Kriya, some involve a personal teacher and some do not. Kriya however is a path for finding a personal teacher/guru. All of my comments are only geared towards someone specifically committed to the Kriya path (which is what this thread is after all, right?) If someone wants to truly follow the Kriya path to the end of the road, they should find a teacher/guru. If someone wants to just take a tourist trip through Kriya land, then the books are fine. If someone wants to follow a completely different path, cool. These are not the people I am speaking to here. I have a lot of knowledge on Kriya, but I do acknowledge the fact that there are multiple roads to Rome. All of my comments here are within the context of Kriya specifically. Anyone not on this path can feel free to ignore them.

Reading through this thread I read a whole lot of lost people that are floundering and going nowhere, getting negative side effects, etc. It broke my heart to see this. In this thread I also saw a pure case of the blind leading the blind, so these people that needed help could not find help or even get pointed into a direction to get help in order to fix the issue. There simply was not anyone here that had enough knowledge to help them beyond just regurgitating the info that the authors had said in the books. It is to these people mainly that I signed up on this forum to share my knowledge. And I've already helped quite a few people. I've had numerous people PM me over the last few weeks. It has been wonderful seeing some people start to find their way. Those that are meant to hear my message will hear it, those that are not meant to hear it won't. It's all good. We all need different things at different times. The important thing to me is that this message is now here for those that do need it.

Also, if you read what I have said I have not argued for anyone being correct. I've simply made two claims:

1) that the techniques in the books are not proper, that they are tamasic and that they can cause negative effects. Also that the nature of these techniques will prevent someone from getting into a state of samadhi (you can scroll back if you want to see the full technical reasoning behind this, I'm not going to type it all out again). These techniques lead people away from union as opposed to towards union. I have shared quotes from Lahiri himself to back this up, and listed the sources so anyone could go and read it for themselves. So I challenge you to go and read the source material, then look at what you've learned in the books, you will clearly see that something doesn't quite add up.

2) that Kriya is a path for a teacher/guru, and that if people want to follow Kriya they should find a teacher/guru. I have made no public recommendations for teachers or organizations. I have told people to use their devotion, mind, and most importantly their heart to find the right path for them. I have told people to keep a skeptical eye towards any teacher/guru and to "judge the tree by the fruit it bears". So no, I am not "on a crusade for your completely correct and uncorrupted system" as I have made no formal recommendations. I am not a teacher, and I have no agenda other than to help people find their way onto whatever is the best path for them. So no, I'm absolutely not saying that "My situation = everyone else's situation".

You're placing many words in my mouth that I have not said and would not say.

Edited December 13, 2019 by MountainCactus

[Esoteric]

23 minutes ago, MountainCactus said:

I never said it is impossible to achieve Nirvikalpa Samadhi without a personal guru...

@MountainCactus "Can people achieve Nirvikalpa Samadhi from the books, with no initiation and no relationship with a teacher.... I don't think so."

What am I not getting? That's what I got out of your words anyway, sorry if I misintepreted.

[MountainCactus]

1 minute ago, Esoteric said:

@MountainCactus "Can people achieve Nirvikalpa Samadhi from the books, with no initiation and no relationship with a teacher.... I don't think so."

What am I not getting? That's what I got out of your words anyway, sorry if I misintepreted.

You're missing the "from the books" part of it. Specifically referring to the Stephens, Ennio, and Gamana books. One will not be able to achieve Nirvikalpa Samadhi from these books. True Nirvikalpa Samadhi is one of the most rare things in the entire world. The authors themselves have not even come close, so how can one expect to follow their teachings and achieve something they have not yet come close to achieving? It's also a "judge the tree by the fruit it bears" kind of situation. Go re-read this thread all over from page one... you will see the fruit that these books bear clear as day.

Kriya is also a lot more subtle and complex than I think the people here realize. There are many layers to the onion that get peeled back in the practices over time. Especially so when someone starts getting into the more complex higher Kriyas. Even for someone like me, where my teacher said I've progressed faster than most people he has seen, I have needed my teacher at various points to help me break through to the next level. Even having that natural inclination for yoga, I'm not sure I could have made it as far as I have on my own without decades of wandering in the dark. Even reaching a light stage of Savikalpa Samadhi is extremely difficult... most people will meditate their entire lives and never get a taste of this. Hell, it's not uncommon for people to meditate for decades and never even got into a state of Dhyana. Kriya is as scientific of a meditation system as it gets for being able to reach Samadhi. But an inseparable part of that system is getting an energy transmission from a guru/teacher, and having an ongoing relationship with that teacher/guru to help you to keep peeling the layers of the onion back until there is nothing left but sweet, sweet Samadhi. Also, while Lahiri said it is possible to achieve everything with first Kriya alone, and I do not disagree with him on that, it is a very slow process that way. The average person I've seen needs at least get close to mastering both Thokar (second) and Omkar (third) Kriyas to truly get there. There is something magical about that third Kriya especially... it just rockets you into another dimension. It's very easy and natural to become absorbed from this new "dimension".

[Esoteric]

@MountainCactus Right, thanks for clarifying. Also, honestly something in me triggers and irritation arises whenever I hear of guru/disciple relationships. That you need to be dependent on an "external" figure to get liberated and get shaktipat from them personally, it makes me a little uneasy. You seem to have done good, and have find a good way, so not a critique on you. And hey, maybe I will get initiated at some point, but right now I feel I can find all the help I need from within as long as I try my best to be sincere, honest with myself and want nothing else but freedom.

[MountainCactus]

1 hour ago, Esoteric said:

@MountainCactus Right, thanks for clarifying. Also, honestly something in me triggers and irritation arises whenever I hear of guru/disciple relationships. That you need to be dependent on an "external" figure to get liberated and get shaktipat from them personally, it makes me a little uneasy. You seem to have done good, and have find a good way, so not a critique on you. And hey, maybe I will get initiated at some point, but right now I feel I can find all the help I need from within as long as I try my best to be sincere, honest with myself and want nothing else but freedom.

I hear you. I was weary and skeptical of a guru as well... with good reason. There are a lot of fake guru's out there, and a lot that have done a lot of harm to people. This is why I say people need to listen to their heart and "judge the tree by the fruit it bears". One must do their due diligence and not just accept any teacher. You may not realize this, but by choosing the books, you are really choosing those authors as your guru and in turn assuming all their karmas. Is that really what you want?

A guru is also not something one should be "dependent" on. A guru's one and only job is to show you the path to find the True Guru. If they are setting themself up as a point of worship, they are doing it wrong. Their goal should be to make themselves obsolete. Once you're in union with the true non-dual Guru in the Kutashta, what need do you have of a guru that lives in a body? The guru/teacher's only job is to get you into a Samadhi union with the Kutashta, and that is all. Lahiri was pretty adamant about not worshipping a guru. He would not let people worship him. When people would try to bow down to him he would stop them and bow down to them. He would not even let people take a photo of him until near the very end of his life because he was afraid people would hang it on a wall and worship it instead of practicing Kriya sadhana. Lahiri's Kriya was originally meant to be a non-dual practice. He said Kriya was the ultimate Bhakti, the ultimate Jnana, the ultimate Karma, the ultimate renunciation, etc. Don't get me wrong, until someone actually merges with the non-dual doing some of those external practices can certainly help (especially Self-Enquiry on the Jnana side, imo). But they are not necessary. All one needs to do is practice Kriya sadhana. You do not need to worship a guru/teacher to get there. And a guru requiring that you worship them is definitely a red flag to watch out for should you ever decide to get initiated, imo. Once again, look back to the source of Lahiri's teachings. If it's not inline with Lahiri's teachings, I personally reject it. These teachings we have of his in his diaries and letters to students are pure gold, as it helps us to separate the real from the fake.  The fake ones are always doing something that is in opposition to Lahiri's words written from his own hand that are published and available to all.

Also, there is no such thing as wasted time. You're right where you are meant to be now. Maybe you're not meant to get initiated yet? Maybe Kriya is not even the path for you? Maybe your karma is more in tune to something else entirely? I don't know, I'm just listing some possibilities here. If Kriya is the path for you, your heart will tell you. No matter how hard you try to get away from it, you will keep getting drawn back. Heck, before I got initiated into Kriya I even went and got initiated into Sadhguru's Shambhavi Mahamundra to test that out, and within a month I had abandoned that and was back to Kriya. Yogananda came from a family of Kriyabans, yet he spent years searching for his guru, and when he accepted his guru Sriyukteswar he wasn't even aware that Sriyukteswar was a Kriya guru until he walked into the door for initiation and saw the picture of Lahiri on the mantle. So please, do keep being "sincere, honest with myself and want nothing else but freedom". If you keep doing that your heart will eventually guide you true, whether that is this path or another.

Edited December 13, 2019 by MountainCactus

[herghly]

@Leo Gura Still figuring it out. 

[Esoteric]

@MountainCactus Yeah, I actually haven't done Kriya for months, as I was starting to feel energetically unbalanced. My body couldn't keep up with the energy. I moved on to other energy practices that has completely blown me away in a very short time. Now, I am not completely sure it is just that my body has adapted and can handle the energy now or if my new practice is more healthy in balancing it out. I suspect it is the latter since a lot changed when I started doing them, but I will go back to the Kriya I did and see at some point probably. But I still do nadi-sodhana and om japa in the chakras as preliminary exercises on occation. They are wonderful techniques. 

"You may not realize this, but by choosing the books, you are really choosing those authors as your guru and in turn assuming all their karmas. Is that really what you want?"

Ok, please elaborate on this. Who taught you this? How can you prove this and how do you know for a fact this is true? Are you saying simply reading the theory will make you take on their karma?  Or simply reading and using their techniques? Have you assumed the authors karma by previously reading their books? If I came up with some techniques and some theoretical stuff in a forum post and people used it, would it mean people chose me as their guru and they now have taken on my karma? 

[Leo Gura]

Way too much confusion in this thread. Just do the practices. They are so simple.

It's like you're being asked to read a book on how to tie your shoelaces and then spend 90% of your time debating and doubting the simple instructions.

Pull prana up the spine, then down. Do this over and over again. The end. The rest is minutia.

[How to be wise]

@Leo Gura I noticed something interesting about taking in a drug rectally and why it works so well. It's because it enters through the lowest chakra and goes up through all of the chakras until the crown chakra. I'm assuming there's something about this that makes it very powerful. 

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, How to be wise said:

@Leo Gura I noticed something interesting about taking in a drug rectally and why it works so well. It's because it enters through the lowest chakra and goes up through all of the chakras until the crown chakra. I'm assuming there's something about this that makes it very powerful. 

I don't know about that. Might just be coincidence.

It's even more powerful if you inject it stright in your veins. So I wouldn't place too much importance in that.

[MountainCactus]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Way too much confusion in this thread. Just do the practices. They are so simple.

It's like you're being asked to read a book on how to tie your shoelaces and then spend 90% of your time debating and doubting the simple instructions.

Pull prana up the spine, then down. Do this over and over again. The end. The rest is minutia.

Except pulling Prana up and down the spine is not Kriya... You can do this practice, yes. But it is not the Kriya taught by Lahiri Mahasaya. And no, the techniques are not "simple". If they were, then there wouldn't be all the confusion, lack of progress, and negative side effects that are so common on this forum. Talking down to people and trying to invalidate their concerns, questions, and issues does not fix anything, and is actually quite harmful, imo.

Edited December 14, 2019 by MountainCactus

[MountainCactus]

3 hours ago, Esoteric said:

@MountainCactus Yeah, I actually haven't done Kriya for months, as I was starting to feel energetically unbalanced. My body couldn't keep up with the energy. I moved on to other energy practices that has completely blown me away in a very short time. Now, I am not completely sure it is just that my body has adapted and can handle the energy now or if my new practice is more healthy in balancing it out. I suspect it is the latter since a lot changed when I started doing them, but I will go back to the Kriya I did and see at some point probably. But I still do nadi-sodhana and om japa in the chakras as preliminary exercises on occation. They are wonderful techniques. 

This was my experience as well when I first learned the techniques from the Stephens book. The energy was just too much. The Kriya I've learned through my teacher is not one of increasing and controlling energy through the spine. It's a technique of calming and slowly unraveling the knots in the chakras, and letting the breath itself move the energy without any intervention, visualizations, or control of any kind. This is key, because it keeps the energy in the subtle body, it does not spill over into the physical body where it can create negative overload issues. Also, because you're not physically energizing the body/mind/chakras, it leads to a much more blissful, tranquil, and deep state of meditation. I am very sensitive to energy practices that use any force. The Kriya Lahiri taught was the polar opposite of Kundalini Yoga. The techniques in the books try to shoehorn Kundalini Yoga into Kriya, and it creates a bastardized version of Kriya that loses most of the strengths of Kriya, and assumes all the weaknesses of Kundalini Yoga. If someone really wants to hit the gas pedal on the energy side of things, they would be better off just going full on Kundalini Yoga, imo. If someone is suffering overload or any other negative kundalini side effect in Kriya, they are not practicing the techniques properly. Kriya is supposed to be a path for a very slow, gentle, and easy kundalini awakening. 

3 hours ago, Esoteric said:

"You may not realize this, but by choosing the books, you are really choosing those authors as your guru and in turn assuming all their karmas. Is that really what you want?"

Ok, please elaborate on this. Who taught you this? How can you prove this and how do you know for a fact this is true? Are you saying simply reading the theory will make you take on their karma?  Or simply reading and using their techniques? Have you assumed the authors karma by previously reading their books? If I came up with some techniques and some theoretical stuff in a forum post and people used it, would it mean people chose me as their guru and they now have taken on my karma? 

Karma is simply cause and effect. If you accept teachings and choose to believe the words of anyone, and especially if you decide to practice their techniques on a daily basis, you are assuming the effects or karma of their teachings. This is why I keep saying it is so important to do your due diligence on researching any teacher. Meditation itself is technically classified under the umbrella of Karma Yoga in the scriptures. Anyone that you accept spiritual teachings of is your guru/teacher, even if it is through a book. And, if someone breaks the oath they've made to every single teacher that they've ever had, what does that say about their character? What type of person steals another persons teaching and tries to profit from it? How do you know you can trust them if they have such a public history of betrayal and deceit? And yes, if you created techniques and posted them on a forum, and people practiced them, you would be their guru. Any effect they got, good or bad, would be effects of your cause... or them assuming the karma of your practices. Moreover, if they had negative effects, would there not be a negative feedback loop into your own karma? It turns cyclical at this point, bad karma out from the teacher, becomes bad karma in on the student, becomes bad karma back out from the student and the wheel just keeps on spinning.

Edited December 14, 2019 by MountainCactus

[Leo Gura]

27 minutes ago, MountainCactus said:

Except pulling Prana up and down the spine is not Kriya... You can do this practice, yes. But it is not the Kriya taught by Lahiri Mahasaya. And no, the techniques are not "simple". If they were, then there wouldn't be all the confusion, lack of progress, and negative side effects that are so common on this forum. Talking down to people and trying to invalidate their concerns, questions, and issues does not fix anything, and is actually quite harmful, imo.

It is the Kriya Yoganada taught and which works for many people. You are mudding the waters.

There are hundreds of different yogic systems. So to claim one true one is silly. Pick a system and go with it, rather than debating about which is the true one. There is no true one. They are all imaginary inventions of the mind, with various pros and cons. You can invent your own yoga if you want, just as all yogas have been invented by someone before you.

[MountainCactus]

14 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

It is the Kriya Yoganada taught amd which works for many people. You are mudding the waters.

There are hundreds of different yogic systems. So to claim one true one is silly. Pick a system and go with it, rather than debating about which is the true one. There is no true one. They are all imaginary inventions of the mind.

Yes Yogananda taught this, but does that mean it was what he was taught? Also, Yogananda did include a lot of other things that helped to bridge the gap and also chose to closely monitor and move students along at a snails pace to avoid the negatives. The books do not have these safeguards in place.

I mentioned yesterday that I'm not debating other systems, that all of my comments are in regards to Kriya exclusively. There are indeed multiple roads to Rome. If someone wants to follow another path, that's great. I have no issues with that. But in the realm of Kriya, the techniques taught in the book are tamasic, and this is the reason why so many people in this thread have been having so many issues. These negative issues they have been having are real, they are not "imaginary inventions of the mind". As long as the body is on the dual plane there will always be cause and effect. There is no getting around this. I'm very grateful that you have generated a lot of public interest in Kriya. You are an expert on many things, but you are not an expert on Kriya. You are still learning, just like everyone else in this thread is. Therefore, your opinion on the matter really is not the end all on the matter. Neither is mine, and that's really the point I'm getting at. I keep telling people they need to do their research, they need to read the source material from Lahiri, they need to do their due diligence on any teacher they assume (including the authors of the books), and then draw their own conclusions from that. I've made no recommendations. I've simply told people to be careful and do their homework. I'm not sure why you would disagree with that and tell people that they should instead blindly accept the authors and their techniques/teachings?

Edited December 14, 2019 by MountainCactus

[Esoteric]

35 minutes ago, MountainCactus said:

This was my experience as well when I first learned the techniques from the Stephens book. The energy was just too much. The Kriya I've learned through my teacher is not one of increasing and controlling energy through the spine. It's a technique of calming and slowly unraveling the knots in the chakras, and letting the breath itself move the energy without any intervention, visualizations, or control of any kind. This is key, because it keeps the energy in the subtle body, it does not spill over into the physical body where it can create negative overload issues. Also, because you're not physically energizing the body/mind/chakras, it leads to a much more blissful, tranquil, and deep state of meditation. I am very sensitive to energy practices that use any force. The Kriya Lahiri taught was the polar opposite of Kundalini Yoga. The techniques in the books try to shoehorn Kundalini Yoga into Kriya, and it creates a bastardized version of Kriya that loses most of the strengths of Kriya, and assumes all the weaknesses of Kundalini Yoga. If someone really wants to hit the gas pedal on the energy side of things, they would be better off just going full on Kundalini Yoga, imo. If someone is suffering overload or any other negative kundalini side effect in Kriya, they are not practicing the techniques properly. Kriya is supposed to be a path for a very slow, gentle, and easy kundalini awakening. 

Karma is simply cause and effect. If you accept teachings and choose to believe the words of anyone, and especially if you decide to practice their techniques on a daily basis, you are assuming the effects or karma of their teachings. This is why I keep saying it is so important to do your due diligence on researching any teacher. Meditation itself is technically classified under the umbrella of Karma Yoga in the scriptures. Anyone that you accept spiritual teachings of is your guru/teacher, even if it is through a book. And, if someone breaks the oath they've made to every single teacher that they've ever had, what does that say about their character? What type of person steals another persons teaching and tries to profit from it? How do you know you can trust them if they have such a public history of betrayal and deceit? And yes, if you created techniques and posted them on a forum, and people practiced them, you would be their guru. Any effect they got, good or bad, would be effects of your cause... or them assuming the karma of your practices. Moreover, if they had negative effects, would there not be a negative feedback loop into your own karma? It turns cyclical at this point, bad karma out from the teacher, becomes bad karma in on the student, becomes bad karma back out from the student and the wheel just keeps on spinning.

@MountainCactus How do you KNOW this? To me it sounds like a belief and spiritual dogma.

Edited December 14, 2019 by Esoteric