Ananda recently held its second International Kriya Yoga Retreat in Gurgaon, India. You can watch and listen to all the talks here. I would like to expand on something I mentioned in one of my classes there.

There is a great deal of talk in modern times about investing wisely for a hoped-for future retirement. Most people invest their most valuable resources—money, time, and energy—into feeding, clothing, and sheltering the body, stimulating the senses, and feeling comfortable. What people don’t understand is that they are investing everything in a “rapidly depreciating asset”—since the human body is guaranteed to decrease in value until it is “pushing up daisies” in the end.

On the other hand, when we put our time and energy into feeding the soul, spiritually changing ourselves, and dedicating to a practice such as Kriya Yoga, we are putting our resources into an asset that will continue to appreciate over time—even over many lifetimes.

What if you don’t believe in reincarnation? You can compare the end of life of a worldly person who has lived selfishly, to the lives of saints. Saints’ bodies have ‘depreciated’ just like everyone else’s, but they are living in a state of divine joy, and are able to share that joy with others.

I have seen this truth proven in the lives of many Kriya Yogis, even those who may not have yet reached the most exalted spiritual states. Compared to people who have lived selfish or worldly lives, I can say unequivocally that dedication to spiritual practices is the best investment of time and energy one can possibly make.

People sometimes think, “It’s too late. I should have begun practicing Kriya Yoga when I was young. Now my worldly life is all I have, so I guess I’ll just keep living like this.” This is called “throwing good money after the bad.” It is similar to a homeowner who keeps throwing more and more of his hard-earned money to put a new roof on a house with a completely rotten foundation.

It is never too late! Paramhansa Yogananda told the story of a woman who took up his teachings late in life:

I once met a lady in the state of Washington. She was 80 years old, and all her life she’d been an atheist. By God’s grace, at our meeting she became converted to this path. Thereafter she sought God intensely. For the better part of every day, whenever she wasn’t meditating, she would play a recording of my poem “God! God! God!” She lived only a few years longer, but in that short time she attained liberation.

It is never too soon or too late to dedicate yourself to living a spiritual life. It is the greatest investment we can make for our future, and in the end, it is the only thing we can take with us when we leave this world.

In these pages I aim to show how a spiritual mission, regardless of its name and tenets, can be made to relate to the whole world.

Paramhansa Yogananda prophesied that some day the purpose of all religions would be accepted as being one and the same: Self-realization. Included in that understanding would be a sense of the non-sectarian fellowship of all truth seekers. His own mission as he stated it was, above all, to teach “the original teachings of Jesus Christ, and the original yoga teachings of Krishna.” He stated that he had come, further, to unite all religions in an understanding of their higher purpose. His mission to show the underlying oneness of two great religions, particularly, may therefore be seen as symbolic also, being meant to demonstrate the underlying oneness of all religions, for humanity everywhere is seeking the same eventual fulfillment: bliss in God. Self-realization—the realization of God as the indwelling Self of all beings—is then, in the broadest sense, the true goal of all religions and the deepest desire in every human heart.

The great master, in his teachings, also drew to a focus countless truths that have been expressed diversely through the ages. He showed that the highest wisdom has always been the same essential truths, the first of which is that all men are rays of the one Divine Light, and the second, that man’s ultimate destiny is to merge back of his own free will into that Light.

For this reason, in my book Revelations of Christ, Proclaimed by Paramhansa Yogananda, I proposed that this highest truth be called “Sanaatan Dharma, the Eternal Religion,” for in all the universe this has to be the supreme truth: union with God as the final reality of all beings.

Yogananda presented a way of life that was unitive—one that would make spiritually relevant every aspect of human life: business and the art of self-support generally; marriage; education; the fine arts; self-expansion through service to others; and the supreme art of how to live happily in this world.

Finally, he proposed a life-style designed to enable people everywhere to incorporate their varied pursuits into a harmonious, God-centered existence. Through the years that he taught in the West, he urged his audiences to adopt this life-style by gathering together in what he called “world-brotherhood colonies.” I was blessed to be able to found the first Ananda World-Brotherhood community in 1968 on what are today some 1,000 acres near Nevada City, California. At present there are eight functioning examples of this ideal in various parts of the world.

The sheer breadth of the Master’s vision, and its practical relevance to the needs of our age, demonstrate that he was, in the fullest sense of the word, a World Teacher, and not the guru only of a particular group of disciples. In fact, he’d been sent to be the way-shower for a new age, and savior for the “many millions,” as he put it, who would tune into the divine ray he had brought. For mankind has arrived at the dawn of new awakening into a globally heightened spiritual awareness.

Swami Sri Yukteswar, the guru of Paramhansa Yogananda, stated in his book The Holy Science that the whole of mankind is now, scripturally speaking, in a new age. The earth itself entered this age in the year 1900 after an interim, or bridge (sandhya), of 200 years, during which time the new rays gradually grew in strength. The ancient teachings of India gave this age the name, Dwapara Yuga.

The first of four yugas, Kali (the dark) Yuga, was an age when most people perceived everything narrowly, both in material and in fixed terms. Men needed outer as well as inner forms. Outwardly, the more solid those forms the better; and inwardly they felt comfortable with carefully formulated dogmas and fixed ideas. Organizationally, they were comfortable with firm structures; they liked everything to be established and in its own place. They believed the universe to be geocentric, and God, to them, was a bearded old man seated “somewhere up there” on an eternal throne of judgment. The earth being conceived of as flat made it easier, of course, to visualize heaven as literally high up above them.

Dwapara Yuga is bringing greater fluidity to people’s consciousness. This is an age, above all, of energy-awareness. Many people, aware of some new awareness stirring within and around them, welcome it exuberantly as though it gave unbridled license to indulge to excess in everything they liked. In the fine arts (painting, sculpture, and music), traditional forms have been cast aside in favor of the grotesque, the trivial, and the blasphemous. In children’s education, certain experiments have brought more confusion than enlightenment. The same may be said of people’s understanding of morality, and in their social behavior.

Thus the term, “New Age,” is also viewed with anxiety by those who believe in the old traditions. In fact, what we are witnessing is a struggle between the old ways—ways that once seemed “carved in stone”—and a new, more flexible spirit that is struggling for clear self-expression.

This struggle between the old ways and the new, though still rather amorphous, is in evidence everywhere. We see it in religion also, in the struggle between those who adhere to the traditions of the past and those who reject all tradition as antiquated. To the religious traditionalist, the mere hint of a new age “sets his teeth agrinding.”

For Moslems, the cornerstone of whose religion is the saying, “There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is His prophet,” no other way is acceptable.

For Christians, time itself is measured from the year of Christ’s birth. Fundamentalists, especially, are convinced that the world is fast approaching the “end times” that were predicted by the Bible with the Second Coming of Christ. Among Moslems also, there are some who believe that something approximating those “end times” is approaching.

Naturally, a world view in which mankind, after centuries of relative darkness, is postulated as poised and ready to soar up into new realities is fiercely rejected by anyone who believes that the past two thousand years virtually defined the term, “Christian enlightenment.”

Much of the present antagonism on the part of orthodoxy toward the “new age” is due, I think, to the arrogance of some who have embraced it mainly for its novelty. For “new age,” as a concept, appeals especially to the young whose tendency in any case is to reject the old. Many scientists, too, have arrogated to themselves the role of “heralds of a new wisdom,” basing the claim not on any suggestion of being better human beings, themselves, nor on any but the thinnest hope that their discoveries will someday make anyone such a human being, but on the simple fact that a few scientists (the very few real pioneers) have discovered unexpected facts about the universe.

Writers since Einstein have had a hey-day with the theory that morality, far from being absolute (“all things being relative”), may even, with a little manipulation, be discarded altogether.

“Avant garde” artists of all kinds, again, having milked the “new age” concept for every ounce of its shock value, offer nothing to replace the rubble created by their iconoclasm, which still litters the countryside.

And self-styled trend-setters, finally, have no clear notion as to where, why, or how to direct people’s attention. They offer only trivia—or, worse still—blasphemy in place of the worthwhile and the meaningful. Indeed, I personally have reached the conclusion that anyone who follows the dictates of “style” shows himself to be without taste.

The public, quite naturally, finds itself bewildered. Nor is it surprising that many today gaze back for comfort to past traditions which, to them, are at least recognizable. The relativity of time which Einstein claimed, has not, after all, thrown any clocks out of kilter. Scientific discoveries have altered no fundamental human reality. Works of art may titillate or outrage a few people, but the meaninglessness they suggest neither inspires nor offers any hope of new insights. Indeed, the most that the dogma, “art for art’s sake,” will ever accomplish will be to inspire a certain smugness on the part of those who accept it, as they consider themselves favored with insights that are unavailable to the “canaille.”

What is most notable about the times we live in is that, in every field of endeavor, human perceptions are expanding and new windows opening onto the vastness and subtlety of the universe. The need is growing everywhere in human hearts to make sense of these insights. We cannot simply reject them. Nor can we merely embrace them, in the exuberant manner of adolescents, for their shock value. We must assess them and do our best to understand what their implications are for human life.

We must accept first, of course, the simple fact that these new waves of insight are, in fact, unprecedented. We must also transcend any fear we may harbor that eternal values are being threatened. Indeed, Truth cannot be a house divided. Self-proclaimed “wisdom,” moreover, that is rooted in neither Truth nor tradition, is almost always mere superstition.

In this essay I propose to explain at some length what Sri Yukteswar said and meant about the new age, and his reasons for claiming that we have entered it already. I will present facts that support his statement, and that he himself could not have presented back in 1894, when he wrote his book, for science had not yet made the discoveries that would justify his claims.

The first part of this paper will present the general basis for Sri Yukteswar’s predictions, and will explain at some length what is implied by the term, “new age.” The last part will focus more specifically on Paramhansa Yogananda’s mission in this age.

One of the results of the new energy that is now flooding our planet is that people are being challenged to assume more personal responsibility for their lives. In a sense, certainly, religious organizations may continue to obstruct the spread of true, inward religion. I shall also show, however, how religious organizations also can be beneficial and expansive, in the spirit of Dwapara Yuga, and how Paramhansa Yogananda himself set the tone for this new type of organization.

Copyright © 2008 Hansa Trust. All rights reserved.

The full text of the essay will appear in a book by Crystal Clarity Publishers later this year. Click here to pre-order.

Paramhansa Yogananda says, in an article written in 1923: “The week should be allotted to work, amusement, and spiritual culture—five days for money making, one day for rest and amusement, and one day for introspection and inner realization.”

There probably isn’t too much question about working: most of us don’t have much choice about it. Rest and amusement are often too easy for us to seek out. The third area is where we may lack experience and definition: introspection and inner realization.

Ah, sweet seclusion! If you’ve never tried it—well, you must and the sooner the better!

Most likely, you’ll find it so enjoyable that you’ll soon be trying to take a day of seclusion more often, perhaps even one day a week, once a month, or even longer seclusions once or twice a year. Here are some suggestions that might help you to have a better time of your seclusion.

Try to find a place, even if it’s just a room, where you can be completely alone all day. Your own home may be fine, but householders often have problems secluding at home. Try to get the rest of the family to leave or to at least agree to give you as much privacy as possible for the day. Better yet, get out of your familiar environment, where there may be a strong temptation to get back into old routines, habits, or thought patterns. Go somewhere away from home.

Ananda’s Meditation Retreat or The Expanding Light Retreat both a part of Ananda Village near Nevada City, California, certainly are two of the best places to consider.

Don’t eat a heavy meal the night before a seclusion day; this will help your next morning’s meditation immensely. Try to meditate deeply the night before, then go to sleep affirming: “Tomorrow is my day to be alone with God!”

Get up early! Sleeping late will make you sluggish all day—and, besides, you’ll miss the coming of the dawn, the loveliest and often quietest time of the day.

Energize—outside if at all possible. Go slowly and stay very conscious of how you are doing the exercises. Do some yoga postures. Take time to do them carefully, gracefully, meditatively, in the Ananda Yoga way. If you are not used to doing yoga on your own, use a guided Ananda Yoga routine on an audio or video tape. Be adventurous and pick out some postures from the Ananda Course in Self Realization (14 Steps) or Ananda Yoga for Higher Awareness, that you rarely or never practice and give them a try too. Here is your chance to really enjoy them; you’ve probably been too rushed to do them correctly—if at all—during your busy work week.

Now for a long, deep meditation with no time barriers whatever. How glorious to know you can meditate for as long as you can sustain the energy. Do the techniques longer than usual, with your mind deeply absorbed in what you are doing. Do more kriyas and/or higher kriyas than usual, too. End with healing prayers—sending healing vibrations to individuals, to the world, and to yourself, too. Try bridging the gap between meditation and the rest of your day by practicing an affirmation, reading one of Yogananda’s prayers or poem, listening to some of Swami Kriyananda’s inspiring music, going for a walking meditation in the beauties of nature, or having a little ceremony or ritual of some sort for yourself.

A seclusion day is perfect for fasting and keeping complete silence, or breaking your silence only for prayers or chanting (even then, try chanting softly, staying very inward). If total fasting is too much for you (drink plenty of water, please!), you might try fresh fruit and vegetables only or fresh juices all day. Whatever you eat, eat lightly, gratefully, slowly and consciously! Don’t forget the other kinds of diets and fasts that Yogananda recommends his article, “The Divine Magnetic Diet:” the wisdom diet, the courage diet, and of course, a worry fast.

Most people find it much easier to fast if they keep silence at the same time. While keeping silence try to avoid even eye contact with anyone—no note writing either. Just SILENCE. You’ll find your energy begins to build as the time goes by. All the energy that gushes out of your mouth and eyes all day, every day, hoard it up and direct it towards God and toward longer, deeper meditations. It truly works! As Yogananda says: “Silence is the altar of spirit.” After several days of complete silence, you will probably find a greater sense of inner peace and joy within you that you have ever known.

Perhaps your seclusion time can be a time of internal and external cleansing as well. Take a mild herbal laxative one evening or an enema in the morning. Have a long soak in your bathtub, or at least have a good long scrub in the shower. Take a swim if the weather’s nice and you happen to know of a fairly private place to swim. Take a sun bath, too, consciously pulling in those healing rays (be careful of going too long with this—perhaps avoiding the more dangerous times in the middle of the day). Do some of Yogananda’s heliotropic methods of self-healing.

Today may be the day to do all those yoga exercises or techniques that you keep intending to do, but just don’t take the time for: the special mudras, bandhas, or pranayams. Other things to do: practice your chants, letting God flow through your voice. Take one chant and chant it for a long, long time. Learn a new chant. Learn one of Swami’s songs. Sing along with a tape like “Some of My Favorites” or any of the Ananda music and chanting tapes. Chant AUM at each chakra, using the appropriate musical notes. Make music, chanting, japa, and the power of vibration an important part of a seclusion.

Write in your journal. If you don’t have one, use this time of seclusion to start one. If you only keep a brief daily spiritual diary, have another journal for expanding journal writing—and write, write, write! You’ll be amazed at how many problems you can solve by listing them and then asking Divine Mother to help you list all kinds of solutions. Subject such as Why are my meditations so blah? or why don’t I get along with so-and-so? Have a sort of intensive planning session with yourself, on paper.

Write letters of spiritual encouragement; there are surely many folks you know who are in great need of such a letter. Write poetry, but try to make it introspective and God-centered. Draw or paint, but only with a focus on God.

And study! this should be a part of every seclusion. For example, take one of the lessons from Raja Yoga (14 Steps) and read it slowly, reflecting on every sentence. Take notes. Make outlines. Pretend you’re going to have a pop quiz tomorrow, or that you have to teach a class in whatever you’ve chosen to study. Or listen to one of Swami Kriyananda’s talk tapes or perhaps even transcribe it word for word, or at least make some good notes.

Read other inspirational works, lives of saints or biographies of other Godly persons. But please, not light or trashy novels today, no sci-fi, detective or romance novels. And no People Magazine or the San Francisco Chronicle. Remember that this is your time to grow closer to God, and there’s plenty of material of higher consciousness to read and study without falling into those other traps. And, of course, no movies, TV, radio, or non-spiritual music. The idea is to keep the consciousness high; avoid these distractions like the plague!

Do you like to run? Fine! But try to find a place where you won’t see anybody, at least anybody who might want to talk to you. Take a long walk (ditto about the places you go while walking). In fact, do a walking meditation.

At twilight have another nice, long sadhana—perhaps outside, if the weather will allow. Try a three hour meditation with breaks every hour for chanting or stretching. Go even longer if you feel you can, or work up to longer meditations as you are able to take longer times of seclusion. End your day with a prayer of thanksgiving for the joy that comes from spending a day alone with the Friend of Friends.

Certainly your time of seclusion will seem to end too soon, all the better to whet your appetite for the next time. Sweet, sweet seclusion! “Solitude is the price of greatness,” Yogananda said. Seek it out and God bless you as you do.

P. S. I wrote this little article on one of my seclusion days in 1980, not too long after I had first started taking regular seclusions. Now 22 years later, I am still just as enthusiastic about them, if not more so. I now know, without any shadow of a doubt, that times of seclusion are essential to one’s ability to persevere on a lifetime spiritual quest to final freedom in God.

One of the great joys of my work with Kriya Yogis is the frequent emails I receive from them, describing the positive effects of Kriya practice. These testimonials come from long-time Kriyabans, and from people who have been practicing Kriya less than a year.

Many times the practice of Kriya brings what I call ‘unintended consequences’ — all of them positive! A recent email from a new Kriyaban described how they had stopped eating meat, were eating half as much as they used to (good in their case, apparently!) – all of this even though they weren’t trying to make these particular changes in their life.

Because Kriya changes one deeply from the inside, the changes can and do manifest outwardly in many ways. In a sense, the Kriya Yogi changes himself from the inside out, rather than in the typical modern approach of changing one’s looks, clothing, or personality.

Here are some of the comments I’ve received from Kriya Yogis:

“My heartfelt thanks to you for giving me the Kriya Technique earlier in the year. It was the greatest gift I have ever received. Words cannot describe the taste of the daily ‘kriya nectar.’”

“I found intense joy, happiness and peace in my life. Kriya and devotion light up my life, and best of all I have daily guidance from the Masters. Since I started my daily practice I became a vegetarian and celibate and living a quiet life, looking at the external world as an expression of God, with compassion and love. I am very happy to be spiritually awakening.”

“My inner and outer life have changed in ways I never thought possible.”

“Kriya is truly a sacred art that has a profound and life changing effect on one’s thought pattern, and a feeling of great joy and bliss.”

How can the practice of Kriya cause so many positive changes? In his Autobiography of a Yogi, Yogananda promised:

“One-half minute of revolution of energy around the sensitive spinal cord of man effects subtle progress in his evolution; that half-minute of Kriya equals one year of natural spiritual unfoldment.”

Yogananda went even further in a discussion with Swami Kriyananda, which he recounts in his book The Essence of Self-Realization:

“I can take a few young men of the most restless sort, and let them practice Kriya for two hours every day in the way I tell them, and, without question, in four or five years I can make saints out of them.

“I won’t preach a single sermon to them. I will simply tell them to practice Kriya for two hours a day, and they will see the difference in their lives. That is a good challenge.

“Of course, they must practice in the way that I tell them. That won’t be easy. But it is surely worth the effort.”

People often make resolutions to change their lives - typically at the start of the new year. Often, these resolutions have little effect, perhaps a little lost weight or a few better habits. Imagine making just one change that will have benefits for every aspect of your life!

Yogananda did not say that his “young men of the most restless sort” would have to change this bad habit or that. He didn’t say that they would have go to church every Sunday. All they would need to do is “practice Kriya for two hours every day in the way I tell them,” and they would become saints in 4 or 5 years.

I can honestly say, based on my own 30-year experience of daily Kriya practice, and on my interactions with hundreds of other Kriya Yogis, that Kriya effectively changes people’s lives out of all proportion to the self-effort required.

If you are interested in learning Kriya Yoga, feel free to email me. If you already practice Kriya, consider dedicating 2008 to a deeper and more devoted practice of it. You may well be surprised at the many “unintended” positive consequences resulting from your deep, sincere practice.
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Recently Swami Kriyananda gave two extraordinary talks on Kriya Yoga in Daily Life in Pune and Mumbai, India. You can listen to both talks on the Ananda website.

People who are interested in receiving initiation into Kriya are often interested in what Kriya will do to deepen their meditation, and what kind of spiritual experiences they can expect through Kriya practice. Meditation is typically made deeper through Kriya practice, and people do have various experiences as a result of Kriya.

But these experiences are different for each person, and don’t always come immediately. As Paramhansa Yogananda said:

“Do not be anxious if you don’t have meditative experiences. The path to God is not a circus! Don’t even be anxious about such fruits of meditation as inner joy and peace. Everything will come in God’s time.”

In thirty years of Kriya practice, and in observing thousands of Kriya Yogis, I’ve seen the most tangible result of Kriya practice to be the effect that it has on ‘Daily Life’. Long time practitioners of Kriya invariably become more bright, devotional, and clear-minded.

That is why Lahiri Mahasaya described Kriya “as a practical technique of liberation” — the technique itself is scientific and practical — and Kriya practice produces very real and practical results in people’s lives. I believe that much of the extraordinary success of Ananda communities all over the world is due to the practice of Kriya Yoga by Ananda members.

Kriya bears these practical ‘fruits’ because it gives one control over the life force, or pranayama. Daily finger exercises give the musician control over their fingers, so they can play complex and inspiring pieces of music. In the same way, daily Kriya practice gives the Kriya Yogi control over their inner life force, enabling them to deal with the complex world of business, relationships, emotions, etc.

Of course, Kriya does much more than that. Over time it gives the experience of bliss and divine realization. Those inner fruits, as Yogananda said, will come in God’s time.

As Yogananda promised in his Autobiography of a Yogi, regarding the state of samadhi, or cosmic consciousness:

“It comes with a natural inevitability to the sincere devotee.”

Listen to Swami Kriyananda speaking about Kriya Yoga in Daily Life.

A single bead for a single kriya.

Kriya Yoga is a scientific meditation technique which Paramhansa Yogananda said was the most effective route to God.

He also said that completing one round of practice, which takes less than 30 seconds, is equivalent to one year of natural spiritual progress.

However, Yogananda once told an advanced disciple, “You only have to do one kriya now.” So Kriya Yoga is not just about quantity, but depth – a meditation which focuses on the breath is the same way. Quantity is a good place to start, though!

Kriyas are often counted on a mala, or string of beads. The meditator uses the mala to keep track of how many he has done, up to a count of 108.

I’ve thought for a while that a one-bead mala, for doing just one kriya per meditation, would be a fun idea, mostly as a joke.

A friend of mine, a long-time disciple who I respect deeply, had his birthday a recently. So I gave him a one-bead mala as a present, partly in humor, and partly as a symbol.

He unwrapped it and laughed. A friend nearby asked him what it was. I was surprised by the depth and sincerity of his answer. He replied, “A reminder that every kriya can take us to God if we do it deeply enough.”

In a way, this is true of everything that we do. The more devotion we bring to any activity, the closer it will bring us to God.

Related Links

• How to learn Kriya Yoga at Ananda 
• The Power of Kriya Yoga

Last week, Thursday, July 12, the statues of the Kriya Masters were blessed with a wonderful ceremony at Hansa Mandir where we hold Sunday services and daily morning meditations.

Swami Kriyananda conducted the dedication ceremony for the statues at Hansa Mandir, Ananda’s community temple. He spoke simply and devotionally about how Divine Grace can be drawn from the objects of worship by the power of our love and how our devotion will further activate this energy within these objects. I spoke at length with the sculptors during their visit here and they told me about the ceremonies performed to bless and energize these statues prior to shipping them to us. That was why many of us could immediately experience deeper meditations from the first day they appeared in the Hansa Mandir.

A slide show was placed on the ananda website which beautifully portrays the statues and this blessing ceremony. you can view it here.

While the smaller 24 inch statues each weighed close to 200 pounds and were easy to move, the larger 42 inch statues required some heavy lifting. Fortunately our crew was creative and borrowed an half ton engine hoist which allowed us to lift it up 18 inches very easily. Stop by next time you visit Ananda Village to spend some time in meditation with these beautiful works of art. They will bless us all for centuries to come.

Previous posts on this: Chapter 1, Chapter 2. Email me if you want more photos.