![]() Kriya Yoga consists of three elements: tapas, swadhyaya, and Ishwarapranidhana. And Kriya Yoga as: “The Yoga of Purification: ‘Austerity (tapasya), self-study (swadhyaya), and offering of the life to God (Ishwara pranidhana) are Kriya Yoga’ (Yoga Sutras 2:1).” It is this process that Patanjali is speaking about in this and the next sutra. Kriyas purify the body and nervous system as well as the subtle bodies to enable the yogi to reach and hold on to higher levels of consciousness and being. As my friend Durgaprasad Sahai, a disciple of Swami Keshabananda written about in Autobiography of a Yogi, told me: “I practiced that yoga for twenty-five years before I ever heard it called ‘Kriya Yoga’–in Yogananda’s autobiography.”)Ī Brief Sanskrit Glossary defines “kriya” as: “Purificatory action, practice, exercise, or rite movement function skill. For if they were really in the traditional line of Indian teachers they would not call it “Kriya Yoga” at all. (By the way: Since this is so, those Indian teachers who denounce Yogananda as having altered the practice, claiming that they teach “the original Kriya Yoga,” are proved by simple historical fact to be false. Since the main effect of all pranayama is purification, he reasonably decided on Kriya Yoga. The yoga methods which Yogananda taught in America were never called “Kriya Yoga” before that time, but were always referred to as “the Yoga of Shyama Charan Lahiri” or simply “pranayama.” Because the first was awkward to keep saying (or writing) and the second was too general, Yogananda realized the need to give the practice a distinctive name. ![]() Because many have read Yogananda’s autobiography they assume Patanjali means the method Yogananda named “Kriya Yoga,” but this is not at all so. ![]() Austerity, self-study and resignation to Ishwara constitute Kriya Yoga.įirst let us define Kriya Yoga as Patanjali means it. ![]() Sutra 1 of Book Two of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali ![]()
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