Yoga an Overview

The purpose of this overview is to give the reader an opportunity to decide whether to embrace the Christian view on yoga or the actual teachings of yoga.

When making this comparison, please keep in mind that:

Christianity teaches that the only way to God is to repent of one’s imperfections (sins) and accepting Jesus Christ who died for our sins as one’s Lord and Savior.                                       

Jesus Christ provides a relationship with the Father and eternal life through His death on the cross and resurrection (Rom. 5:10).

Yoga claims that moksha or liberation can be obtained through self effort by performs the necessary steps that lead to Self or Soul realization. Paramahansa Yogananda’s  definition of Self realization: “Self-realization is the knowing in all parts of body, mind, and soul that you are now in possession of the kingdom of God; that you do not have to pray that it come to you: that God's omnipresence is your omnipresence; and that all that you need to do is improve your knowing.”

What is the real meaning of Yoga?

Yoga is a discipline to improve or develop one’s inherent power in a balanced manner. It offers the means to attain complete Self-Realization. The literal meaning of the Sanskrit word Yoga is ’Yoke’. Yoga can therefore be defined as a means of uniting the individual spirit with the universal spirit of God.

According to Patanjali, Yoga is the suppression of modifications of the mind.

Who was Patanjali?

Wikipedia - Patanjali was a sage in Hinduism, thought to be the author of a number of Sanskrit works. The greatest of these are the Yoga Sutras, a classical yoga text. There is doubt as to whether the sage Patanjali is the author of all the works attributed to him as there are a number of known historical authors of the same name. A great deal of scholarship has been devoted over the last century to the issue of the historicity or identity of this author or these authors.

Patanjali’s definition of yoga:

Yogas chitta vritti nirodha, it means that yoga is for the purpose of removing the fluctuations which normally occur in the mind.

Yoga is of four primary types:

Karma Yoga, Yoga of Action,

Bhakti Yoga, the path of devotion and love for God and for the whole of creation - animals, as well as humans, and all of nature.

Jnana Yoga, the science of God Realization, a step by step means of reuniting the soul with Spirit, man with his Creator.

Rajas Yoga or eightfold path, the path of prayer and meditation, as described by the sage, Patanjali, in the Yoga Sutras as the eightfold path, or the eight limbs of yoga:

1.     Yama - Non-violence, truthfulness, chastity, non-stealing and detachment to worldly pleasures

2.     Niyama - Purity, contentment, austerity, self-study

3.     Asana - Yoga postures

4.     Pranayama - Breathing techniques, control of prana

5.     Pratyahara - Withdrawal of senses

6.     Dharana - Concentration

7.     Dhyana - Meditation

8.     Samadhi - Super conscious state, enlightenment.

History of Kriya Yoga

Wikipedia - Kriya Yoga is described by its practitioners as the ancient Yoga system revived in modern times by Mahavatar Babaji through his disciple Lahiri Mahasaya, c. 1861. Kriya Yoga was brought to international awareness by Paramahansa Yogananda's book Autobiography of a Yogi and through Yogananda's introductions of the practice to the west from 1920. Kriya Yoga is the "Yoga of Action".

According to Yogananda the ancient Yogic text the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, contains a description of Kriya Yoga in the second chapter II.49: "Liberation can be attained by that pranayama (breathing technique) which is accomplished by disjoining the course of inspiration and expiration."

The Kriya yoga system consists of a number of levels of pranayama, mantra, and mudra based on techniques intended to rapidly accelerate spiritual development and engender a profound state of tranquility and God-communion. Yogananda attributes his description of Kriya Yoga to his lineage of gurus, Sri Yukteswar Giri, Lahiri Mahasaya, and Mahavatar Babaji. The latter is reported to have introduced the concept as essentially identical to the Raja Yoga of Patanjali and the concept of Yoga as described in the Bhagavad Gita.

Kriya Yoga was introduced to the West by Paramahansa Yogananda. However it is claimed that, long before Yogananda was born, a saint named Babaji lived in the Himalayas. One day, Jesus appeared to him, and told him that although Jesus' followers still do good works, they have forgotten how to commune with him inwardly in meditation. Jesus told Babaji to send someone to the West to remind his people that the goal of life is to become one with God through inner communion. That person was to be Yogananda.

Kriya Yoga is a meditation technique that quickly accelerates one’s spiritual growth. It teaches “Self-realization “a knowing - in body, mind, and soul – that we are one with omnipresence of God. All we have to do is improve our knowing.

“Kriya,” he wrote, “is the easiest, most effective, and most scientific avenue of approach to the Infinite. In contrast to the slow, uncertain theological path to God,

Kriya can still be learned from Ananda Sangha   530-478-7560, Ananda Sangha
14618 Tyler Foote Rd. Nevada City, CA 95959 and other groups. Kriya Yoga and represents an entire way of life.

Yoga is the stilling of the mind until it rests in a state of total and utter tranquility, so that one experiences life as it is: as Reality.

Through the practice of Yoga, one experiences life through the clearest of lenses, lenses not colored by thoughts of good or bad, or mine or yours. When the fluctuations of the mind are totally removed, we are at one with everything and all that is.

St. Paul knew Kriya Yoga, or a technique very similar to it, by which he could switch life currents to and from the senses. He was therefore able to say: “Verily, I protest by our rejoicing which I have in Christ, I die daily.” 1 Corinthians 15:31,

By daily withdrawing his bodily life force, he united it by yoga union with the rejoicing (eternal bliss) of the Christ consciousness. In that felicitous state, he was consciously aware of being dead to the delusive sensory world of maya (the world is not what it appears to be, it is illusive).

“All the greatest and most important problems are fundamentally unsolvable. They can never be solved, but only outgrown. This out growing proves on further investigation to be a new level of consciousness. Some higher or wider interest appears on the horizon, and the unsolvable problem loses its urgency, fades out when confronted with a new and stronger life urge.” Carl Jung.

Yogananda's gospel, however, originated not in the Bible, but in Vedanta. Although he used the English word Bliss instead of the Sanskrit word ananda, he argued that Bliss was the goal of life (which, for him, was identical to the experience of God), that the search for Bliss could be achieved only by destroying desire and attachment, and that behavior is shaped by innate tendencies known as samskaras (fluctuations that ordinarily occur of the mind). Although he avoided use of the word prāna or pranayama, he prescribed specific techniques for “the control, regulation and turning back of the life-force to transcend the body and mind and know the ‘Self’ in its native State.

His use of Christian language reflected his effort to present a faith through which all other religions found their true meaning. He explicated the “one truth” underlying all religions, explaining “that unless we know our self as spirit, as the fountain-head of Bliss, separate from Body and mind, our existence is devoid of meaning; our life is akin to that of a brute. We can know God only by knowing ourselves, for our natures is similar to His. Man has been created after the image of God. If the methods suggested are correctly practiced, we will know ourselves to be Blissful spirit and in it one will feel God.