Kriya Study 6

• Kriya Yoga Tenets
• Kriya sayings by Lahiri Baba

Kriya Yoga Tenets

"The ultimate Self [...] is in everybody in [...] complete Form". - Lahiri Baba's Abadhuta Gita version, ch.1, v. 1

How to deal with yogi sayings? First be a yogi yourself.

Note

Kriya tenets

Fair truths of plots seem to be unmentionable.

There is much falseness in the world, in other words.
      Did Adam and Eve really live without the fall from the garden of Eden?
      This suggests it can be painful to think.
      To study books well is normally a fruit of reading. It gives pain to some, but alternatives to fair study may not be mentionable.

2. Practicing kriya is the study of the Vedas. kriya is jagya [performance of Vedic rituals]. All should perform this jagya.

To perform rituals is through ceremonies involving muscles, limbs, gestures movements and so on.
      And yet, unless and until you master solid cramming and elegant learning, you might mar your fare if you just sit gasping and hope for the rest to come your way some day. There are two extremes and a fit balance in between can be sought.
      It's more often sound and likeable to build stepwise from bottom. And a sensible thing is to blend at least three ways:

1. A way of relaxing (kriya can be included);
2. A way of coping (includes much more than ceremonies and pastimes);
3. A way of sound cognitive development. It involves maturing and learning.

3. All devatas, [Indian] gods, practice these kriyas [i.e. kriya rounds] One who practices kriya is a devata [it corresponds to an angel].

Look at this: "One who gasps cleverly, artfully and masterfully, is a Hindu angel."
      You have a right to ask:
      "But isn't there anything better in store than that? After all, Jesus said "you are gods" and asked us to do even greater works than he did (John 14:12). Thus there may not be a fixed upper limit?"
      Too small thinking is a hallmark of figurative frogs. They are unrealised, grossly stated. Why not assert the Bible-looking "I am who I am, I am what I will be - I am myself, no matter what.
      That outlook could work well, and it could also work bad in the wrong hands - there is that risk. The ability to come across and perhaps also see what is truly helpful is in part a consequence of natural assertiveness (which often is good and serves us well); in part a fruit of cognitive development against being undermined by verbiage, slogans and bad ones.
      How far could gasping in set ways (pranayama) improve yourself, your inner being included? There is more than one opinion in the matter. Maybe you should note that.

4. One should practice pranayam very seriously and sincerely.

Lahiri Baba's kriya yoga is a form of pranayama. It's attuned to gasping measuredly, composedly etc.

5. Kriya practice opens the eye of wisdom.

A good thing may be turned into a bad thing, according to Jean-Jacque Rousseau's "Everything degenerates in the hands of men." (Emile, 1st page]
      Then there is Murphy's Law: "If anything can go wrong, someone will see to that it happens - sooner or later."
      Learn to prepare in advance to lessen future's bad happenings, nip them in the bud, take the sting out of them, and bulwark thoroughly so that the bad thing never happens anyhow. In some cases it can be done. Try it.
      What is meant by the 'eye of wisdom'? It's part of an insider's teaching. Hint: As you train yourself in the kriya way you may not keep your blue eye* perfectly intact and open for long in the start. That would be all right.

* The circle of golden light surrounds it; much as in the left image above. Find much more on the light and of the single eye here: [LINK]

6. The knowledge of Brahma, the ultimate Self, is attained by the practice of pranayam. [By special breathing, in other words]

'Self' is a word with many meanings. In Sanskrit there are more than one understanding of the so-called higher, more integrative states of consciousness as well. You should be aware of that. Brahma in Lahiri Baba's tenets is Father of Kali and is the ultimate self (Sayings 43, 81). Brahma is told of as formless and pure void, a great voidness which is a void inside a void [as if that were possible] (76, 78, 83,105).
      When you experience a void, you are someone experiencing it. Judged from that, the void is not truly void: Don't overlook yourself; that is the hint here. Some call it mystery, and some the Self.
      The Brahma Self may be seen between the eyebrows and in the sun (Sayings 51, 46) - it depends. It's beyond a point inside, that point is called bindu (a yogi term). (Saying 76) One should merge into oneness with the pure, formless void, which is called Brahma (77) and how? By dissolving the mind into it. (78)
      Through this channel, really clever gasping is spoken of as one of the best ways to get to godhood, as explained in handed-over teachings. We just render and reiterate main lines in a development.

7. Ignorance is removed automatically when the kriya practice is perfect.

What is meant by "ignorance" here could include relevant, fair and good customs and lots of other things too. Check a tale here: [LINK]
      Or think about Wild Bill Hitchcock as you like: One day he sat down to play poker in a Wild West saloon, with his back facing the door, contrary to his customs. A man came in through the door and shot Wild Bill in the back. Then Wild Bill died, much contrary to his customs.
      One point is, in higher states of awareness one may cease thinking -
      It is reported that Ramakrishna came out of such states without being able to count full well for a little while. [Cf Gra]
      And this is not to lessen anyone of them.

8. By the practice of pranayam, ignorance is dispelled and knowledge of the Self reveals.

Overdoing it has its price. Neglect another. In some cases it happens that by the practice of some forms of pranayama sanity is dispelled and knowledge is shamed. Psychiatrists in the USA estimate that thousands of Americans have gone crazy by pranayam only in California. Conclusion so far: There is a right and fit way of doing it and other ways. A savoury balance that is fairly profitable and in-bringing, can be difficult to arrive at and may be had a price.
      Kriya is slow gasping. In some cases paying the price of doing kriya yoga perfectly involves something akin to dying - not only sitting with unblinking eyes and making sense.
      Paramhansa Yogananda: "Master of his body and mind, the Kriya Yogi ultimately achieves victory over the "last enemy," Death. [Cf. I Corinthians 15:26] [Ha 241]
      Do all who kriya-die come back? The famous Yogananda didn't die normally. His body didn't rot for three weeks after death, but a brown spot developed on the tip of his nose. [Ha 478] What if anything went wrong behind that point?
      Not a few of those who live may tell.

9. One who does not see kutastha [the inner Self between the eyebrows] with the help of one's own guru's advice in this physical body is a blind one.

It is held that normal vision is blindness - contrary to appearances. What happens in Plato's cave is quite like it - one sees shadows on a wall.
      Yet, did you consider that offhand-looking definitions of this and that outside the normal repertoire, often suggest rare enterprises, and that those who deviate may be mobbed if they are not extra careful?
      More on kutastha:

"He was explaining the meaning of Kutastha Chaitanya or the Christ Consciousness in all vibratory creation, Lahiri Mahasaya suddenly gasped and cried out:
      "I am drowning ...!" (...)
      Many distant disciples of Lahiri Mahasaya were aware of his enfolding presence. "I am ever with those who practice Kriya," he would say consolingly to chelas (close friends) who could not remain near him. "I will guide you to the Cosmic Home through your ever enlarging spiritual perceptions." [Ha 323]

Lahiri Baba had often written to those of his disciples who were over-anxious to see him: "Why come to view my flesh and bones, when I am ever within range of you kutastha (spiritual sight)? [Ha 9]

There are many other definitions. This is to explain a little:
      Mantras are letters that go together in syllables and words. The principal mantra in Buddhism is om mani padme hum. Initiation into many Hindu sects involves the whispering of a secret mantra to the initiate by the great preceptor. In the Indian tradition, mantras are thought to be truly efficacious only when they are got verbally from one's mentor in that way.
      Tantra involves secretive practices and fosters candour by and large. Tantric yoga is thought to tie in with Rikvedic penances. In tantra works that deal with yoga, certain practices may get focused on a certain root energy (lust), awakening it and making careful use of it for various purposes. Copulation can become one of these so-called "left-hand" practices.
      There are many stories in Hindu circles that illustrate such parts of 'the dance', and we are the dancers.

11. The transcendence of inhaling and exhaling is called kebala kumbhaka.

There are other definitions too. The gist: By gentle panting (careful!) in specific ways that we don't hand out here today, the mind and body may be calmed, resting slowed down, and that is the beginning of a process that in some on some days or for some time may increase the non-breathing phases of breath between exhaling and inhaling, for example.

12. The practice of khecharimudra [bowing your head in a specified way] brings victory over the senses.

Does it seem too good to be true? It is to be remembered that these practices are integral facets of kriya training.

13. When the tongue is raised, the senses are subdued.

If you try it out, you're almost sure it won't work anyhow. If that little test of yours is not crowned with success, you could eventually gain a negative conviction: "These kriya teachings are bogus (etc)." They do have potential, and so do you.
      The potential for greater things than lifting your tongue firmly may lead some to building houses and dams, and others to playing well. These outputs drain more than just the little tongue. And telephone linemen at work that try out various combinations of this and that, they get their successes as well: Builders, players and hard-working persons fall asleep eventually. Then their senses are subdued more or less automatically. Much work over years make others drop dead. Then the senses are 'disconnected' strictly and firmly.
      The question is to some; "What have you learnt?" To others, "What should you have learnt?" Lifting the tongue in regulated ways is spoken of as a short-cut into a drowsy-looking state of higher awareness where insights come unhindered. So they say.
      The thing not to do in encountering teachings like this one, is being over-serious and next obscured by the fact that it doesn't work anyhow. For there is more to it. Those who lift their tongues and state that they didn't subdue all their senses, they have at least experimented, and maybe prematurely. The question is whether lifting the tongue in particular ways have the potential of subduing the senses in combination with other elements. And there is the question of practice -
      Those who play, next become involved in life's play. It happens easily that way, both for good and bad. Increase the boons, lessen the bad sides - that filtering helps in some ways. What about the short-cut to the drowsy-looking states?
      Life as a play may lead one to greater knowledge of what works and what hardly does. In not a few cases some things don't seem to work at all, and then - with not a few modifications and adjustments - they work too. To learn from errors is not as rewarding as learning from the errors of many others. Let good schooling take care of that. In yoga training there are cryptic teachings and not cryptical teachings. If the teachings are not easy to understand and carry out, they may be cryptical or pocus.
      Those who learn from errors have a potential for greater things. They should try acupuncture. A good treatment session is often marked by falling more or less asleep (subduing the senses). If so, it might just hint at a successful treatment in progress.
      If you haven't learnt the basic procedures involved in breathing or panting in the regulated ways that is basic kriya, just lifting your tongue is not furthering much. There is more that goes into it and is implied. If you now feel something has to be done in order to experiment with these teachings, maybe you have become too serious, too involved in life's play (lila) as well.
      Standard counsel: Connect for greater things. Connecting the tongue with the soft palate and uvula is a form of connection that doesn't seem to lead to outward connections in the first place, but then, how can anyone tell who hasn't tried these facets of kriya training? And long and well enough as a part of the integral, wider scheme implied? As in life in general, sound development fairly often takes time. There are also short-cuts many a time. At times help has to be called on for good things to be manifested.

14. If one attains the stabilized state in khecharimudra [fixed tongue-lifting], then he attains the state of samadhi [yogic trance].

The baba tells that in yoga there are those who get helped into states that seem like swoons, and that lifting the tongue is a part of that practice.
      Remember it is not your fault if you feel other needs in your life. And why not think "Regressions don't measure up"?
      However, if that sound strategy of approach meets with massive resistance, ostracism and even danger, it is not your fault in that case either! But you may have to take on and carry the consequences all the same. That could be too bad. The strong point to consider is what beliefs govern those in charge of you, or prominent persons in control. Beliefs control others greatly, and achievements often meet with envy and resistance and more than that. Adjust to your profit. We realise it's not easy being alive, not healthily so either. But healthy interests may help. And being handy often helps a lot.
      It can be honourable to be interested in old memories, for they may contain valuable instructions that otherwise might be lost sight of.
      Interest in what you are doing is often a sign that others try to measure up with you, nest try to advance in front of you at times. And if you don't pay careful attention you may not be able to keep the advancement tricks of some others under control. Old folks know that. Young folks don't tell.
      Thus, find out who you like to help - for no reasons at all, if needs be, and try to stick to her or him. Marry well. In many forms of yoga interests lead young ones into the hands of older or more experienced father figures - and then they 'marry' their spiritual parts through one or more initiations. Thus a bond is set up - it started with interest. The bond may grow into a win-win cooperation, but it may fail too. The question may then be who becomes the winning part too.
      The bond of union between guru and disciple is more than a regular marriage bond, they say. This leads up to an old problem: Of finding out whether the Old Boy you have married loves you and have united with you for that reason, or have done to do you a prank to profit from himself and maybe entertain himself on your behalf in more or less severe ways. In yoga both approaches are possible, and the second more than the first. If they insist that you should sacrifice and yoga is sacrifice, you are likely to succumb to regressive endeavours.

15. One whose khechari [regular tongue-lifting] is successful is fortunate.

Lift your tongue and become masterly successful, says the guru. The teaching is to be understood inside its context: a well regulated training program with much else implied, it should be fair to say. If ripped out of their all-congenial context, these tenets about lifting your tongue turn into rather obscene guarantees, which were not their intentions.

16. Om is radiant light. When this light is spread throughout the body, all is seen; then, there is no desire to speak and to look.

The radiant light is outside the blue iris - it stands to reason in more than one way.

17. Air [breath] is lord.

M-hm! Someone wrote us the other day and argued that "breath" in this passage is a bad translation of "prana".
      To this: yes, it has often happened that "prana" is translated as or rendered into "vital energy", "breath", "air" and things like that. Vital energy or vital force, that makes zestful, or is zest itself.
      So it happens that "prana" goes for "breath". Can we deduce safely the other way round? Can we be sure that "breath" in Lahiri's writing here means "prana"? We haven't seen the passage in Lahiri Baba's original writing; but we do have the English presentation on the Internet, which is as stated. [Link below]
      It is also true that in old Indian literature the vital concept of prana is thought of in a medley of both confusing and divergent ways (there were many schools of thinking in ancient India too, cf. So.)

I understand that breath is Brahman [God] . . . Khandogya Upanishad 4.10.

Breath is the life of beings, therefore it is called sarvayusha (all-enlivening).' Taittiriyaka Upanishad 2.3

try a little search: [Ctrl + f] should open the search box on the screen, and then you type in "breath" [without quotation marks] and other concepts and even phrases as you like it.

      Could you puff and gasp yourself into a higher being? That is a question, and isn't meant as any trick question either.
      Instead of racking your brain, getting adequate background information often helps. Good knowhow could help you to measure up and measure out some of your responses better, presumably, and allows the old wisdom pieces to flow more unhampered - or aid fairly different understanding at times too.
      Observations of "staircase matters" (subtle phenomena) depend on one's deep inner character. That's in the teachings too, as shown in the case of Naichiketas who visited death and was taught tactfully. It's in an Upanishad.
      Old Indo-Aryans were able to observe. They had ways to quieten their thoughts and that surely aids observing things more easily. They observed own thoughts and happenings in their bodies and in nature, and then searched into self-worth itself. They tried to know the self from the non-self too.
      You may have observed that Jacob's ladder up into heaven is a helpful image in trying to make out what yoga mystics talk of. On the low rungs of the ladder we are plain materialists, and say that air is physical, a mixture of gases, that is, elements in gas forms. According to that literal-minded view, the barometer is a fine thing to have. Much air gives rising air pressure, much "Lord" over you. Through the sensitivity of the instrument you may observe air pressures at any rate ...
      On a more inward-turned rungs of the ladder into heaven you may translate 'air' into "life energy" or prana. That would be allowed. This way of thinking is in the ancient Upanishads, where Brahman (God) is talked of in many ways that are adapted to levels of understanding - in other words, to what rungs of the ladder one tries to express on. It's roughly like that.
      The term prana is translated into 'breath' and 'air', but it is not as easy as that. In the organism prana covers many pranas, many sorts of vital energies. That's in the teachings. We won't go into it here.

18. When one continues to refine brown sugar, finally it becomes white. Similarly, continued kriya practice brings pranayam [mastering circulating, vital energies] to perfection.

Look to Babaji - it could happen to one or three in a century. Or the other saving experts are too unknown.

19. If one moves the breath [practices pranayam] always, breath ceases and becomes tranquil, sthira.
20. The state of sthirattva, tranquility, is called yoga.

On finding your breath about to cease you could get halfway scared to death. Every little helps ... or is it clowning and too bad to enter the portals of death by non-breath all of a sudden?

21. Practice kriya as long as possible sitting in one asana [posture] at least once a day.

Practise the best of Soto Zen sitting, or harding sitting, in a lax yet firm posture with your spine non-bent. You pant with your tongue correctly lifted, all according to the candid instruction of the cosmic viking ...

22. If one strikes the door with the reverse air then it will open. This is called reverse japam.

[That is, tranquilizing apana, the restless breath of the lower centers, and bringing up at the dorsal center and then if one strikes (makes thokar) according to the advice, then the inner door will open].

Here is our mention: If you ever get a training and concomitant experiences that makes it likely that you firmly understand this somewhat sophisticated instruction - very valuable it should be if Christ is your door.

23. Having practiced kriya, one should hold onto the after-effect-poise of kriya.
24. You will receive results according to your kriya practice.
25. If you feel pain [during the kriya practice] in the body, then understand that the practice is not going well.

It says one after-effect could be pain. Another effect: to fly like a mass of light through the air. [See Pa] A third is not-correct thoughts that become canonised for no good reason at all. You'll find more of the kind as we move on in this not so rigidly canonical text. The possibly dwarfing influences just might include (a) unsavoury pain; (b) getting nastily foot-loose in unthought of ways; (c) seeming insane, perhaps clowning and toothless. Is that to be your lot?

34. May 13, 1873 - Whatever one wants to do, he can do.

45. Aug 13, 1873 - Today, I became mahapurusa, "the great man."

60. My form is everywhere; there is nobody except me, and that form is in void. There is no day and night there.

85. When one transcends basu, desires, he becomes dev, the Lord; that is, he becomes basu dev, or lord Krisna.

90. Knowledge of the ultimate Self is to know oneself by oneself.

108. All realization is possible by the practice of the first kriya [method]. One is required to practice strictly according to the instructions received from one's guru personally.

108 sayings by Lahiri Baba

2 A: Lahiri Baba dictums

1    In higher unions minds get blank. What if the supreme guy doesn't think at the time of death?

2    Thinking about the extraordinary but only fancied, do you end up like that - extraordinary, but just fancied?

3    "I assume human form to confuse and spread plots" - is that the hidden but real-life motto of the avatar?

Comment

1. Things are not always what they look like. It pays to be well aware. Kingly-looking sayings may contain the seeds of some nasty, long-run effects deep inside them. Also, the glory of mere sayings could turn sour before you know, for having a good life is a fruit of competing and going along, more often. Solid assets count more than most people imagine. What often matters is what you can master staunchly on top of good sayings that fit in locally, that are applicable. In those cases a phrase of Kurt Levin is appropriate: "There's nothing as practical as a good theory". [Psr 21]
2. Sexy or hit slogans from upper-class ranks may belong to very limited circles, and recall the Conservative British government if you like ... But most often, if solid evidence is lacking, it may pay to bid the tide, wait till the myth is cracked open by a formidable insight - one or three of them.
3. Interesting events that get well coupled with nice thinking often help by their "intermarriage". Learning and doing hand in hand - just as Chairman Mao said in his day. You may do better than him. How? One way is to stand of the shoulder of the collective efforts of others - Education is what I mean. We have to manage this sorting and linking mentally or skilfully, to stop being ridden like dumb foot-soldiers forever. All the dear ones of Krishna were drowned - Note such an avatar standard and note what happened to the people of the babe of Bethlehem to shiver well. What happened to the crucifying people could even be looked at as a base or basic Kali (Destructress) feat. In Tantric books Kali is aligned to Kala (Time per se). Kali dissolves marriages, makes decrepit, maims, kills - who can avoid it if not the mystic who has grasped just how to live on indefinitely - And feel free to think: "Do we want plots like the ones hinted at above, in our gardens and lives?" That could be the very tricky question.