Welcome to the January 2020 edition of the Yogoda Satsanga Society of India eNewsletter. This month we share inspiring thoughts from Paramahansa Yogananda on Kriya Yoga, the ancient science of meditation that, at the behest of his lineage of gurus, he carried to the West one hundred years ago in 1920.
Paramahansa Yogananda on Kriya Yoga
It is through the instance and blessings of Mahavatar Babaji...and of Christ and my Guru and Paramguru that I was sent to the West and undertook the task of founding Self-Realization Fellowship to serve as the instrumentality for the preservation and dissemination worldwide of the Kriya Yoga science. In bestowing his blessings on me before I came to America in 1920, Mahavatar Babaji told me that I had been chosen for this sacred mission....Babaji then predicted: “Kriya Yoga, the scientific technique of God-realization, will ultimately spread in all lands, and aid in harmonizing the nations through man’s personal, transcendental perception of the Infinite Father.”
Kriya Yoga not only points out a universal highway of ascending the soul to the Spirit, but gives mankind a daily usable technique through whose practice the devotee, with the help of a guru, may reenter the kingdom of God. One theoretical teaching leads only to another, but any true practitioner of Kriya Yoga finds it to be the shortest way and quickest conveyance to the kingdom of Spirit.
Kriya Yoga is no ordinary breathing exercise: It is the highest known technique of pranayama, by which you can consciously control the life force in the body and thereby attain cosmic consciousness.
The aftereffects of Kriya bring with them the utmost peace and bliss. The joy that comes with Kriya is greater than the joys of all pleasurable physical sensations put together. “Unattracted to the sensory world, the yogi experiences the ever new joy inherent in the Self. Engaged in divine union of the soul with Spirit, he attains bliss indestructible” (Bhagavad Gita).
Read more about the Kriya Yoga teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda, which are presented with step-by-step instructions in his comprehensive Yogoda Satsanga Lessons — a home-study course available to interested seekers.
