Is Kriya Yoga a valid path without Initiation?

[The Blind Sage]

I've just read 'Inner Engineering' by Sadhguru in which he touches upon the different kinds of Yogas. 

First of all he mentions that you need a guru to guide you in the path of kriya as it is a path that emphasizes on the mastery of your body energies and its mechanics, hence you need someone to show you as opposed to gnana yoga for example.

Second of all he mentions that you need to be initiated into the kriya, otherwise they will not 'work' when you practice and may take you many lives to get 'liberated'. He specifically mentions not to learn it from a book as we do here on actualized.org.

 

Although Sadhguru is the real deal Gurus are renowned for being biased towards their traditions.

I've been seeing tangible results with kriya and will continue as its the best tool I have so far but I'd like to know if it's viable for awakening.

[The Blind Sage]

@Leo Gura

Do you know of any individuals that have awakened through Kriya without being initiatiated or handheld by someone else?

[Salvijus]

I don't know but I don't think a guru is biased. If he's biased then he can't be a guru.

But I don't know. Maybe it is possible to achieve somethings without initiation but by observing other people I get a feeling that without grace they just don't get anywhere. Like you see somebody meditating for 20-30 years and they're just standing still no improvement at all. I think grace is super important. In my experience with sadhguru, he just becomes a part of your life in a huge way. And It's not a small thing. I think it makes an ocean of difference.

Second thing is and I feel It's extremely true in my experience is - where do you get your practice from?  what source are you using makes absolute difference. Like to learn a simple self-inquiry question "who's watching the thoughts". If it's coming from someone who has zero experience with self-inquiry and starts teaching his friends about this. It will have zero effect. And if a sage gives you this practice it could become your way to liberation. I think It's impossible to get liberated if you learn self-inquiry from just a practitioner or someone who read one book about advaita vedanta. Tho it sounds illogical, by logic it should have no difference, It's just simple questions to look within and yet if they are not coming from the right source it will seem to have no effect at all. It will not have the same effect if it was coming from an enlightened master face to face. 

I think It's the same with sadhguru and his initiations. People who have zero experience with meditation just get blown away by it, full of grattitude and they become super motivated to do the practices everyday twice a day. These things do not happen just by instructions. 

In conclusion, sadhguru is not biased, he's one huge black hole of truth and only truth. 

Source is important, Tho I know how to do Shambhavi Mahamudra, If I write it down for you, it will have zero effect on you. Because It's much much more then an instruction. Instructions are just 1% of what is happening. Sadhguru's programs are always very soul touching.

This video is very relevant to this topic

 

Edited July 16, 2019 by Salvijus

[The Blind Sage]

@Salvijus Thanks for the info, I'll check it out

 

@Salvijus I understand what you mean. I learned Kriya from the books in the book list.

 

I would like to visit Sadhguru's ashram someday and test it out for myself, just curious to know peoples experiences and opinions.

[Ry4n]

I wouldn't say it's an absolute requirement but if you can find a legit one then abso-fucken-lutely 

[Rinne]

4 hours ago, The Blind Sage said:

I've just read 'Inner Engineering' by Sadhguru in which he touches upon the different kinds of Yogas. 

First of all he mentions that you need a guru to guide you in the path of kriya as it is a path that emphasizes on the mastery of your body energies and its mechanics, hence you need someone to show you as opposed to gnana yoga for example.

Second of all he mentions that you need to be initiated into the kriya, otherwise they will not 'work' when you practice and may take you many lives to get 'liberated'. He specifically mentions not to learn it from a book as we do here on actualized.org.

 

Although Sadhguru is the real deal Gurus are renowned for being biased towards their traditions.

I've been seeing tangible results with kriya and will continue as its the best tool I have so far but I'd like to know if it's viable for awakening.

i wonder this too man

[xbcc]

Very legit question. I myself am afraid to start doing Kriya Yoga on my own because of this.

If you look at the Kriya Yoga megathread, you see many people having bad side effects and have no guru to cure them or have prevented in the first place.

I would love to be convinced that it is something that can be done safely by your own. 

[ahmad ibdah]

yeah @Leo Gura can you share your experience with kriya yoga with us.

 

[Sev]

My personal experience with kriya from books was quite bad. Side effects was too strong, I had to take breaks because energetic phenomena was way too strong in the body. I also had the worst anxiety attacks in my life during that time when I practiced kriya from leo's book list. Then I got episode when I was totally exhausted during the days, I couldn't do any physical activity. So my experience trying learn kriya from books was quite horrible but it is hard to say that all bad things what I experienced was caused by kriya practice. I'm also battling lots of mental issues(depression, anxiety), so for me it didnt suit and made more harm than good for sure. 

After that I've learned Sadhguru's shambhavi mahamudra and results have been quite promising, I've practiced it only a little 40 days though. It's much better practice for people who struggles mental problems. 

What I want to say that these practices are really powerful and it is common sense imo to learn these things from the right source and atmosphere. If you want to practice Lahiris kriyas, get the real initiation, it is worth it long run. You dont want to half ass these practices. Definitely dont recommend learn these things from books anymore.

[Ry4n]

Kriya yoga definitely seems more advanced so a healthy mind is best for it, maybe just mindfulness in the mean time would be better. 

[The Blind Sage]

1 hour ago, xbcc said:

Very legit question. I myself am afraid to start doing Kriya Yoga on my own because of this.

If you look at the Kriya Yoga megathread, you see many people having bad side effects and have no guru to cure them or have prevented in the first place.

I would love to be convinced that it is something that can be done safely by your own. 

Modalities such as reiki seem to balance it out just fine in my experience. Not that I would like to have them of course, the issue is just if it will awaken you or if we're better off doing one of the advanced courses from the Isha foundation.

If it does awaken you, the negative side effects are without doubt worth every bit of suffering.

[The Blind Sage]

@Sev I see, thank you for sharing.

[SoonHei]

@The Blind Sage

8 hours ago, The Blind Sage said:

@Leo Gura

Do you know of any individuals that have awakened through Kriya without being initiatiated or handheld by someone else?

what i can tell you... there are NO requirements or prerequisites for awakening. it can happen without an ounce of an effort and sometimes it may not happen after all the effort in the world

in truth, it does not happen by "doing" anything in particular.

to say you can do X to cause awakening is not correct.

it's like saying you can talk to a character in the movie via your tv screen. 

[Apparition of Jack]

I can't speak for sure, since there may be more to it than this, but perhaps the reason Sadhguru and Leo disagree is because they're talking to different audiences.

Sadhguru obviously has a huge Indian following, and Indian society is very conducive to taking up yoga, finding a genuine guru, and so on. It makes sense for him to tell his followers to find a guru, since their life situation makes it that much easier to do so. Sadhguru himself has also initiated hundreds or possibly thousands of qualified teachers around the world through his Isha foundation, so it makes sense for him to promote that as a path to enlightenment.

Leo's audience on the other hand are mostly young Westerners who are caught in the thick of toxic materialist capitalism. Starting any sort of legitimate, long-term spiritual practice here (whether that's yoga, mindfulness, etc.) has a lot more hurdles to it than it does in the East (skeptical family/friends, ruthless financial demands, over-consumerist culture, etc.) We in some sense are spiritually "isolated", and have to take a more pro-active role in teaching ourselves. There are spiritual communities here, but they tend to be a lot more watered down than in the East or, even worse, a cult. To that end, I imagine Leo feels that for the genuine seekers here, teaching yourself Kriya Yoga is beneficial for self-actualization, in lieu of making the (drastically difficult) lifestyle change of taking up full-time study under a certified guru. Is it the most optimal situation we find ourselves in? No, but we've got to make do with what we've got.

Edited July 17, 2019 by Apparation of Jack

[The Blind Sage]

15 hours ago, SoonHei said:

@The Blind Sage

what i can tell you... there are NO requirements or prerequisites for awakening. it can happen without an ounce of an effort and sometimes it may not happen after all the effort in the world

in truth, it does not happen by "doing" anything in particular.

to say you can do X to cause awakening is not correct.

it's like saying you can talk to a character in the movie via your tv screen. 

By this logic we should just forget all about doing the practices

 

Of course there's nothing you can 'do' to awaken. You misunderstand what I'm asking

[passerby]

I keep wanting to go with sadhguru, but I keep reading shit like he's just giving you some cool states while secretly snatching your soul(?) like, gurus are supposed to be happy sitting in a small cave away from the world, but sadhguru is a blood billionare,  and why does he talk so much about politics? and he's even been accused of murdering his wife! don't take this as anything, I hope people can prove me wrong (but how could you know if such a powerful person has cast a soul snare on you?).  also, lately he seems to talk a lot about things he obviously has little knowledge about (eg, buddhism), and he talks about shiva being an actual person who lived 15k years ago, when shiva is (as all hindu gods) supposed to be a cosmic allegory.

also, there is sexual allegations made a lot towards the isha group, and at the very least there is people saying that the 'higher ups' are very cultish. I know its not sadhguru himself, but surely if these people have obviously been very involved with sadhgurus programs, then how could they behave in such a way. are they not getting the claimed benefits from his programs?

 

its all so confusing for me. Again, i'm not dogging on sadhguru. at least every few weeks I end up wanting to do his courses (but keep coming back to the issues I stated) and changing my mind.

Edited July 17, 2019 by passerby

[The Blind Sage]

1 hour ago, Apparation of Jack said:

Sadhguru obviously has a huge Indian following, and Indian society is very conducive to taking up yoga, finding a genuine guru, and so on. It makes sense for him to tell his followers to find a guru, since their life situation makes it that much easier to do so. Sadhguru himself has also initiated hundreds or possibly thousands of qualified teachers around the world through his Isha foundation, so it makes sense for him to promote that as a path to enlightenment.

Leo's audience on the other hand are mostly young Westerners who are caught in the thick of toxic materialist capitalism. Starting any sort of legitimate, long-term spiritual practice here (whether that's yoga, mindfulness, etc.) has a lot more hurdles to it than it does in the East (skeptical family/friends, ruthless financial demands, over-consumerist culture, etc.) We in some sense are spiritually "isolated", and have to take a more pro-active role in teaching ourselves. There are spiritual communities here, but they tend to be a lot more watered down than in the East or, even worse, a cult. 

Makes sense

1 hour ago, Apparation of Jack said:

To that end, I imagine Leo feels that for the genuine seekers here, teaching yourself Kriya Yoga is beneficial for self-actualization, in lieu of making the (drastically difficult) lifestyle change of taking up full-time study under a certified guru. Is it the most optimal situation we find ourselves in? No, but we've got to make do with what we've got.

Agreed, it is the best tool we have so far. But at the same time, if there is a better way of doing things we should not sit idle. 

[inFlow]

Disclaimer - I have no idea if this is true or not.

The initiation is mainly you going to a guru which has some kind of power to activate your kundalini energy (which is dormant for most people) to move up to your 3rd eye chakra and to move it back to your root chakra (also the energy activated is very weak, because full force of kundalini might kill you). Then you can do your yoga with activated kundalini. I heard that some people can't access kundalini until they get the guru to activate it for you. I have no idea how does it work, but im following a guru in youtube who talks about that stuff alot so it kinda makes sense why you would need a initiation.

But some people are able to activate the kundalini by themselves somehow, via psychedelics/cannabis etc. or just naturally. You can't dig deep into reality without having strong kundalini going through your body. A lot of people do throw the idea of kundalini being real. But I had some interesting kundalini energy awakening moments in the body, so I do believe in it and would like to research this stuff further.

Edited July 17, 2019 by inFlow
additional sentences

[cetus]

@The Blind Sage You should have posted this in the Kriya Yoga Mega Thread where it belongs. That way all information on K-Y can be found at one location.

[Nahm]

@cetus56 That’s what she said.

 

@The Blind Sage The guru is your dream, you are the ‘real deal’. Careful projecting, scrutinize your direct experience above all else. Focus on breathing calms the mind, and it’s effect is cumulative. Introspection of self inquiry penetrates and a lot of mental baggage comes out - when it does, thought stories try to hijack the emotions. Being able to focus on breathing helps with not getting sucked into the thought stories and mixing the thought stories with the sensations. Separated, there is a massive ‘here now’ actuality / realization. Sensations begin to be realized as the Truth, or “always telling you the Truth / guiding you”. Each thought is like a train leaving you (grand central station), notice how you “get on” the trains, and end up mixing thought stories with direct experience - as if they were anymore than thoughts. You, as grand central, never actually get on a boat. You never move, and are never moved. Without “taking the rides”, the generalities of life; success, wonderful relationships, creativity, etc, all become incredibly easy without what becomes revealed as having been an incredible amount of overthinking - specifically trains about yourself, others, the past and the future. They are thoughts (trains), you never actually get on the trains. You most assuredly can ‘wake yourself up’, you are the only one involved in that. Never believe the thought derived from the sound (voice) about you can’t - it’s a sound, only a sound. it is not a “lightening” situation, though it can “strike” anyone anytime too. Try yogas, meditations, self inquiry, psychedelics, retreats (solo & group), reiki, etc - try all of it. See what works best for you. Godspeed??

Of course, I’m suggesting “not believing” what is heard, and what I’m saying (typing) is similarly, a sound (reading it). So, start right now. What do your sensations tell you is True?

You can do anything and everything, and you still might not awaken...

You can awaken, on your own accord, via your own sincerity in dedication to awakening.