Q: What is Kriya Yoga?
Today, let us contemplate on Kriya Yoga. Kriya means action. What is this action about? We have four aspects of our being. They are head, heart, hands and energy. Head represents intellect, the heart represents emotions, hands represent actions, and these are all powered by energy.
Yoga is the union with higher Consciousness, utilizing one or many of these aspects. If you use the intellect, then, it is called buddhi yoga or jnana yoga for the union. If you use the heart or emotion or devotion, then it is called bhakti-yoga. If you use the hands which is the action, then it is called karma yoga. If you use the energy system for higher Consciousness, then it is called kriya yoga.
All these yoga’s are required for everybody. It is not that I only practice Jnana yoga or I only practice bhakti-yoga or I only practice karma yoga. So, all these are required to make a balanced personality and overall spiritual development. Imagine a person who has a big head but a weak body or a person with strong arms but a weak body. So, like that, if you focus overemphasis on only the yoga system, then another aspect of personality may not be fully developed.
So, in general, all four yoga’s are important for a person’s Self-realization. So, let us look at kriya yoga. We have our body which has five layers. There are multiple layers. Annamaya kosha, Pranamaya kosha, Manomaya kosha, Vijnanamaya kosha and anandamaya kosha. These are the five layers in the body.
Physical body what you see is controlled by the energy body called Pranamaya kosha. Manomaya kosha or mental body controls the Pranamaya kosha. The intellectual body or the Vijnanamaya kosha controls the Manomaya kosha. The causal body or anandamaya kosha controls the intellectual body. So, these are the layers that we have.
In kriya yoga, the focus is on the energy body. It is called Pranamaya kosha. The cosmic energy gets stepped down into the human body and then gets distributed throughout the body. The stepping down requires transformers. These transformers are called chakras or energy centres.
From the top of the head to the bottom base of the spine, there are chakras or energy centres. You can visualize them as energy transformers. For example, Electricity gets generated someplace. It is high voltage energy. It gets distributed from that place, it comes down, and at various city levels and house levels, there are transformers, which will transform and distribute the energy to the houses.
Similarly, cosmic energy gets transformed and distributed to the body, through these energy centres. The various organs of the body are controlled by these chakras. The mind, being the driver of the body, controls the body, through these chakras or energy systems. For example, I want to lift my hand like this (shows the hand being lifted). Mind says, “I have to lift”. So, the energy has to flow, and the body will move. The mind directs the energy, and through that process controls the body.
But the human mind, as you know, is a very complex phenomenon. People can go through various states of mind like depression, elation, anger, fear etc. When these states are there, the energy system of the body also gets affected. It gets blocked. Through the process of kriya yoga, we release these blockages. Both mental and energy blockages are released so that it becomes free. That is the purpose of kriya yoga.
How energy and mind are related? Mind and energy are related like a blind man and a lame man. A lame man cannot walk, and a blind man cannot see. The lame man here is nothing but the mind. The blind man is prana. Together, they can move in one direction. So, the lame man sits on the back of the blind man and directs him to go this way and that way. So, the mind and prana act together. If you stop one of them, the other one is also stopped. The pranic energy is stopped, the mind is also stopped and vice versa.
The human body has 72000 energy channels, distributing energy throughout the body, through the chakras. Now, these 72000 energy channels take the prana and connect every part of the body for distribution of the energy, energising and controlled by the mind.
Out of these 72000 channels, three are the main and important channels. They go through the spinal cord of human beings. They are called Ida, Pingala and Sushumna. Ida means Moon. Pingala means Sun. Sushumna means higher Consciousness. Ida takes the mind inwards. Pingala takes the mind outwards. Sushumna takes the mind beyond the mind and to Consciousness.
So, the purpose of kriya yoga sadhana is to balance the energy system and purify your chakras. Thereby purify your mental blocks and help energy rise in the spinal cord, in the Sushumna channel, so that you can transcend the mind. This is what you call a kriya yoga practice. It is done through a set of breathing or postures.
Pranams,
Prabhuji
References:
Self Knoledge Talks Talk 29 Kriya Yoga 10th May, 2016
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BybdYqxCzTdmT3R4ZWhDd216QW8/view?usp=sharing