Have people here been involved with Kriya via Yogananda or other Kriya teachers
Yes, I’ve been a member of SRF for years, but just started the
kriya recently.
Etherfish
Ether hi
How do you find the kriya in relation to AYP?
thanks
OK you asked, and it’s a long story. So being the first one to ask,
i get to dump the whole thing on you and get it off my chest.
AYP is a very good resource for enhancing what Yogananda teaches.
In fact, after being dedicated to SRF for years, and spending thousands of hours practicing what they teach, i am favoring Yogani’s methods because they are bringing me quicker results.
Not to derate Yogananda’s teaching at all, because I was very slow in requesting the kriya information. I figured if the system was good as I believed, that it was good for me to just practice basic meditation and hong sau and om and “energization exercises” as they
prescribed.
The problem is they don’t give you much instruction on basic meditation; mostly just ‘do it’ and “go deeper” and be devoted and
spend hours and hours at it. So I got to the point where I felt I
needed a spiritual jump start. I requested the kriya but they took most of a year to reply, and do a phone interview, etc. because they consider it sensitive information.
I can’t fault them at all, because they operate on volunteer monk labor and have charged me barely enough money to cover postage on hundreds of lessons.
But I’m impatient. I’ve been through hell and back mentally over the years, and I wasn’t scared of mental illness, having lived on the
edge next to it for most of my life, and having figured out my own therapy for most of it, that worked just fine.
So I heard horror stories over the years about pranayama driving people crazy and premature kundalini rising, etc. I figured something that powerful must have something behind it, and if anyone could control it, I could. So I did searches for the information and tried different things a little at a time then waited and watched other people’s perception of me to make sure I wasn’t going crazy.
Then one day while doing “internet research” on kundalini, I found AYP, started experimenting with Yogani’s methods, and almost immediately noticed a profound effect. This is the kind of thing I was looking for. I felt I was ready for something bigger. Almost the same time, SRF sent me the first kriya lessons, which had some similarities, but are much more complicated, time consuming, and difficult.
So I try a little at a time of SRF kriya, but now my main focus is on AYP practices because they are easy, don’t take much time, and are very effective.
I believe as the spiritual energy increases in our age, it becomes easier to advance, and new methods are appearing that wouldn’t have worked when Yogananda was alive. The SRF lessons warn against mixing the practices with other systems, but i am taking responsibility for breaking the rules because I feel this is the path i am being guided on, and advances have been discovered since Yogananda was alive that make it safer and prevent premature K rising, like self pacing, not messing with the controls “under the hood”, balancing effect of spinal breathing, etc.
Etherfish
Thankyou for sharing and giving such an honest account,I wish you great success
In fairness to SRF and Yogananda I should say what’s good about them. the lessons have a lot of devotion (bhakti) material; poems, stories, etc. They have a lot of information on how the world is put together in relation to spiritual energy. And there are a lot of parallels shown between the bible and hindu texts. Of course what it shows me is that the bible was encrypted, and had to be decyphered to understand it. But Yogananda never mentions that as he was trying to get americans to practice hindu meditation in the early 20th century, and he had a good understanding of how to communicate that. He wanted people to believe they could still be good christians and meditate. so he did much to remove the ‘primitive and foreign’ beliefs about hinduism. Of course a lot of that has returned since then. on hearing I practice Hinduism, more than one christian has asked if we worship multiple gods and elephants!
So SRF lessons are valuable for other than practice reasons if you’re curious about how the world works, then later on (a year or so into it) the kriya lessons have more practice oriented stuff. It’s not an easy path though. People who like it are totally into bhakti and devoting their life to it, and spending many hours practicing.
Etherfish
Hello Snake,
I was involved a little with Hariharanda’s group.
I liked his group, but as regards practices, my take on it is that the Kriya schools tend to make the mistake of only introducing meditation very late in the game.
AYP has corrected this.
The other thing is that they held me back, made me go too slowly – I believe I was personally totally ready for some of the later Kriyas. I believe I was judged unready, not really because I was personally unready, but because I had not shown enough devotion and dedication to the school.
‘Secrecy’ in the old yoga school system has a purpose which is partly economic; the secrets are kept from you, not just until you are ready, but until you have given enough to the school. So secrecy is actually part of a secret economy that is going on in the background. It’s part of what keeps the schools going.
AYP has entirely departed from this old model.
AYP’s departure is causing a lot of grief in the schools that follow the secrecy system – because when the secrets are out, it’s harder to drive the secrecy-based economic system. This sense of grief is, I believe, partly what is driving those somewhat irrational diatribes against AYP that were on the board you showed us a short while ago.
Best regards,
-David
Agreed David,Although in SRF the practice of listening to the sound current is given before Kriya,which brings me to the Rhada Swami movement full of planes and Gods and total confusion amongst it’s practitioners if you read some of their forums.
in defense of SRF, they introduce meditation at the very beginning of the lessons, and emphasize it constantly, and more than anything. Also, they are not at all economically driven as their information is as close to free as possible. They only withhold Kriya until you have done a LOT of meditation. listening to the sound is only given in conjunction with lots of meditation.
I don’t know if SRF really knows when you’re ready for kriya. They do wait a minimum of six months of meditation to a year, which sounds like a good model to me.
Etherfish
BTW, I wasn’t actually talking about SRF, but Hariharananda’s organization. I don’t know SRF at all well.
Glad to hear SRF emphasized meditation from the start.
BTW, it really seems to me that the culture of SRF almost makes a god out of Yogananda; his word seems unquestionable.
I also wanted to say that I’m not at all saying that these Yoga schools tend to be ‘economically driven’, as if to say ‘they are in it for the money’. But rather that there is an inevitable economics in their working, and secrecy plays its part in that economics.
Just as a Catholic School may not be ‘in it for the money’ but must still charge fees.
I’m speaking of that secrecy-driven economic system with respect, though I think it has had its day. I think it is no longer adapted to the modern realities. I think AYP represents part of that necessary adaptation.
Yeah, SRF is secretive about the cost of their lessons, just saying it is a “nominal fee”. They probably don’t want people flocking to join just because it’s cheap. You end up paying for just postage and paper to get the lessons.
His followers do mostly follow his word closely, but that’s their path.
Yogananda says yoga is a science you can test for yourself, not just have blind faith. So I take that as permission to not follow every word.
i never go to social functions, so that might be different than mailed lessons.
Hello,
I am a member of SRF and familiar with Kriya and Yogananda. I attend services and read literature in relation to both but AYP is my primary focus. Simply because it works. I view Yogani’s method as the “yoga of our time”, a contemporary version of yoga if you will.
I was initiated into kriya yoga by Swami Prem and his Guru Master Daryl.
Master Daryl’s website is www.manoftheeast.com and he is the only person that I know of that initiates people into kriya yoga over the internet, after applying for it.
Kriya Pranayama and ayp spinal breathing are very similar except my kriya method seems to have a more deep, vigorous and pulling breathing than ayp. This vigourous type of breathing seems to make the pulling of prana from base to ajna and back more powerfull than just breathing slowly and normaly.
My kriya yoga lineage has a forum where all initiates can share and discuss just like in AYP, however the audience is not so broad.
Another diference is that in AYP people are encouraged to experiment with different mixes of techiques and there is no problem in trying new things… in kriya lineages the tendency is to follow strictly the prescribed sadhana.
Hi Friends,
I had posted a topic at http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1362 - about srf (the organisation founded by yogananda) and ayp, It is relevant to the discussion here,
Thanks,
Mufad.
Etherfish are you still practising Kriya or just AYP?
I’ve been a member of SRF for several years. I’m grateful to the organization for it’s publications, but I’m fed up with “true believers” who never question anything even when the obvious is staring them in the face, the ignorance among the monastics of true pranic and kundalini experiences etc. And the secrecy! Yoga should not be kept secrect! NO MORE SECRETS! The “my guru can beat up your guru” wars! For that reason I am very grateful to Yogani for freely publishing his knowledge for everyone to use and experiement with themselves.
Yes, I would agree. This approach is obviously an ‘evolution’.
i’ve been down wit SRF for 'bout 7yrs,and did hong-sau like a mad fool at every time i got. then the kriya of pulling&droping(open mouth). it seems the results are slow i guess. then i hooked up wit Babaji’s Kriya Yoga,this organization is doing very important work w/the 18 Siddhas. the results are happening faster here. i guess SRF was designed for a conservative westener during 1920-50. besides,Babaji of Nagaraj prophecy was fulfilled through Swami Paramahansa Yogananda Giriji. now,i’m new to AYP,it seems there is similarities to Kriya Yoga(Babaji,Lahiri) probably because there advanced techniques which is partly what KY is. anywhat,i’m thankfull 2b here. sorry 4 going off topic.
This could have been written by me, because I have had the exact same experience with SRF monastics. 
I am not grateful to Yogani for anything because I haven’t bothered to read any of his teachings. 
I do not understand how the AYP teachings are free. This site seem like an advertisement to market his books. However, I admire his guts for not pretending to be a Self-realised guru (I could be wrong about this, though), and I suppose he’s the only teacher who encourages everybody to listen to their inner voice.
Yogani, the guru is me bows to the guru in you.
(A very sceptical yogi)
About free teachings… All Yoganis lessons are free and available here on this site, on internet. You don’t have to buy a single book to get into AYP-practices. The main book is actually the internet lessons gathered in a paper copy! And the other books are just clarifications and additions to the main lessons, exept the story about Wilder…