Kriya Yoga

[native]

Do any of you practice it? I recently bought the book Kriya Secrets Revealed by J.C. Stevens. It's a cheesy title, but he sounds grounded and I appreciate his efforts in putting the information out there. I'm at a stage where I want to develop the energetic body to use as a tool, and experience tangible results. Kriya is said to create higher states of consciousness and transport you to different planes of existence.

I haven't gotten into the book yet, but I've been practicing pranayama breathing. In the past, if I catch myself in the state between being awake and dreaming, I can create a vibration throughout my body just by thinking it. I'm not sure if it's related to practicing pranayama, but this morning I found myself in that state, and there was a super intense energy at my root chakra..stonger than I've ever felt. Think of holding hair or beard clippers in your hand..but the vibration was much stronger. I moved the energy up my spine slightly but panicked, as it was new territory and I didn't want to fry my circuits lol. You're supposed to take your kriya practice slowly, as it's said that you can damage your nervous system if you don't allow it to adjust.

Does anyone have kundalini experiences to share?

For those who don't know the quote, working with such energy comes with a warning..link.

[Billy]

I've been thinking about trying kriya myself. There are some pretty good videos on youtube which show some, if not all, of the techniques. At the moment I'm just sticking to regular meditation, as I don't know if I am ready for such practises yet. Like you, frying my circuits doesn't sound particularly fun or pleasant.

[native]

I would make sure the videos are thorough with advice on when to move on between techniques. Your approach is probably a good one, as it's recommended that you come to kriya with meditation experience.

[Matt1]

I have studied Kriya Yoga through books and online material. It is basically the art of moving Prana or Vital Energy through the base of spine to the top of the head and back again through several different techniques. I haven't seen any teachers that have the same system as one another. The most famous teacher of Kriya Yoga was Yogananda who founded the Self realization Fellowship who received it through a linage going back to an immortal saint called Babaji.

However the problem with this after looking into the SRF there seems to have been an issue with different people going off in different directions or the splitting the linage as Yogananda said the teaching was the linage rather than a person, although many seem to claim this linage. Even the Babaji has different claims, a lot of people say he came in the 1980s and so on but it gets rather muddy rather quickly.

My gut feeling tells me that there isn't any true linage at least openly that teaches Kriya or Kundalini Yoga directly but simply through different eastern teachers and the offshoots of there Ashrams/Teachings. It does seem to be a decent system but i would recommend finding a good teacher in Yoga first because of the issue that raising kundalini can have. However truth be told i would say any True Yoga is Kriya Yoga and or Kundalini Yoga. The system of teachings gets a little lost in the west with people confusion Hatha Yoga as Yoga which is really just asanas or body postures, the true system of Yoga is always more or less universally the same from what i have studied. The raising of Shakti to meet Shiva through the chakras.

Hope that helps you out.

[Unbound]

I don't, but I have been working with qi gong more lately which I find is incredibly similar.

[native]

However the problem with this after looking into the SRF there seems to have been an issue with different people going off in different directions or the splitting the linage as Yogananda said the teaching was the linage rather than a person, although many seem to claim this linage. Even the Babaji has different claims, a lot of people say he came in the 1980s and so on but it gets rather muddy rather quickly.

The book I mentioned attempts to deal with those issues. He presents Yogananda's teaching and various other lineages.

Thanks for the advice. Any personal experiences you're willing to share?

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I don't, but I have been working with qi gong more lately which I find is incredibly similar.

What are you able to feel?

[Unbound]

Aha That's a somewhat vague question, feel in regards to what? Bodily sensations? 'Energy'? Emotions?

[native]

All three

[Unbound]

Aha Boy, well I am quite sensitive to "ki" or energy which I tend to see and feel as a sort of moving and shifting electrical pressure within my body. I can pretty clearly distinguish where energy is concentrated in my body, usually of course for the purpose of reaching an equilibrium of sorts. Places with excess or too little energy destabilize the structure which can be seen as similar to the way electricity will cause an object to stand "upright" I can feel where some parts of my body are more stable in regards to gravity.

Like right now I have some excess energy in my throat center and then using intent plus effortlessness (what they consider as relaxation in qi gong) I can even out the energy by a sort of mental formula. So, in this case to release the energy upwards I will say "open the throat and let the ki flow to the head (shen), and flow down to the base (jing)" and I can instantly feel pressure begin to release in my throat and it feels like water is flowing on the inside of my body downwards, and upwards it's like water has turned in to steam or vapour and is rising. (Qi is often compared to steam in qi gong.)

It's all pretty dynamic and a unified system so I will feel a lot of these sensations at once. My emotional state tends to shift as my consciousness changes based on the energetic balance in my body. My work with emotions is more focused on releasing and integrating emotional charges rather than dwelling on whatever particular emotion it is as I see emotions as the result of the "configuration" of the field.

After I have done some qi gong I usually feel rather light and kind of "see through" as well as feeling a pulsing field of energy around my whole body and flowing around it, which then usually also extends to the environment. My hearing opens up, my breathing opens, my sight improves and all sorts of things as I fill myself with energy and circulate it around and through all the channels and nerves of the body. Sometimes I'll also do exercises creating circulations on the outside of my body or between my hands and it's pretty easy to create a circulation and feel it as it flows around in the space between my hands or along my body. I consider myself very fortunate that I had the opportunity to spend a lot of time doing internal meditation just after high school which trained my energy sensitivity quite a bit.

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I would add that I don't use any exact traditional form of qi gong and I frequently make use of my Reiki (I am developing a sort of Reiki Qi Gong actually) during it, and sometimes magical invocations or mantras.

[native]

Very cool. By internal meditation, do you mean simply meditation and breathwork, or internal qi gong exercises?

[Unbound]

Aha Internal qi gong exercises are basically meditation and breathwork (often with visualization), but I've made use of both. In that context I meant particularly meditating upon the inner parts of myself and meditating on my inner body, especially "scanning" and exploring my body with my mind. I didn't come upon the 'Nei Dan' (Internal Alchemy) until later, as far as qi gong, but I have worked with Western alchemy since before then which is where a lot of my ideas of energy transmutation have come from. I remember in the first book I read on alchemy it saying, 'the life of the Alchemist is the Great Work, his greatest experiment' and I took from that the queue to begin doing deep work on and within myself.