Babaji’s Kriya Yoga: Deepening Your Practice

Action with awareness is both the vehicle and the destination in all phases of Babaji’s Kriya Yoga. Through it we become aware of That which is aware;” which is the one constant underlying all of our thoughts and experiences. Babaji’s Kriya Yoga is means of Self-Knowledge, of knowing ourselves and the truth of our being. It brings “action with awareness” and a devotional spirit into our practice of asanas, pranayama, meditation, mantras and also into all our thoughts, words, dreams and desires and actions. This sadhana has enormous potential to make us more conscious human beings. It requires the perfection.

This Book provides detailed instructions, diagrams and photographs in the practice of a particular set of 18 Yoga asanas or postures, known as “ Babaji’s Kriya Hatha Yoga.” The essays and instructions herein enable the practitioner to go beyond the development and health of the physical body, and to transform the practice of yoga asana into a spiritual practice, inducing a higher state of consciousness. Unlike earlier publications related to Hatha Yoga, this volume will show you how to transform your Hatha Yoga practice into a means for Self-Realization. It introduces students to the Five-fold Path of Babaji's Kriya Yoga. This book is dedicated to Yoga students new to Kriya Yoga and also to Initiated students looking to deepen their own practice.

Durga Jan Ahlund has been praCticmg and studying Yoga since 1967, and teaching Yoga regularly, since 1990. She teaches Hatha Yoga, Kundalini Yoga, Kriya Yoga and also practices as a Yoga therapist. She created a two year self-study course on Yoga and Meditation and wrote, acted and produced the video, "Kriya Hatha Yoga: Self-realization through Action with Awareness." She has written a book on Kriya Yoga, "Insight Along the Path," with Marshall Govindan. She developed and has been teaching since 1998, a 200-hour Hatha Yoga Teacher Training Course (Yoga Alliance certified) at the Kriya Yoga Ashram in Quebec, and in India, Brazil and Europe. She has been involved in the editing of many Yoga books for Kriya Yoga Order of Acharyas and Kriya Yoga Publications. She was inducted into the teaching Order of Acharyas of Babaji's Kriya Yoga in Bangalore, India in January 2003 and gives Initiations into Babaji's Kriya Yoga in Canada and the U.S.A. She is married to Marshall Govindan Satchidananda and has two grown sons. She can be reached at: durga@babajiskriyayoga.net

Marshall Govindan Satchidananda has practiced Babaji's Kriya Yoga intensively since 1969. He studied and practiced Kriya Yoga in India for five years with Yogi S.A.A. Ramaiah, assisting him in the establishment of 23 yoga centers around the world during an 18 year period as a dedicated. During this period he practiced Kriya Yoga for eight hours per day on average, and as a result attained Self-realization.

While in India he studied the Tamil language and the works of the Tamil Yoga Siddhas. In 1980 he assisted in the collection and publication of the complete writings of Siddhar Boganathar in Tamil. In 1988 he was asked by Babaji Nagaraj, the founder of Kriya Yoga to begin teaching. In 1991, he wrote the bestselling book, "Babaji and the 18 Siddha Kriya Yoga Traditions", now published in 11 languages. In 1992 he founded Babaji's Kriya Yoga Ashram on a beautiful 80 acre mountain top site in St. Etienne de Bolton, Quebec. He offers classes, seminars and retreats there year round. In 1993, he edited and published the first international English translation of "Tirumandiram: a Classic of Yoga and Tantra."

In 1995 he retired from a 25 year career as an economist and later a systems auditor to devote himself full time to teaching and publishing in the field of Yoga. Since 1992, he has travelled extensively throughout the world guiding about many Kriya Yoga study groups in over 20 countries, ashrams in Canada and Bangalore, India, and a lay order of teachers of Kriya Yoga: Babaji's Kriya Yoga Order of Acharyas, a non-profit educational charity, incorporated in the USA, Canada and India. Since 1989 he has personally initiated over 7,500 persons in Babaji's Kriya Yoga in a series of intensive sessions and retreats.

From 2000 to 2001, he completed the writing of, and publication of "Kriya Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and the Siddhas," in several European languages. Since 2000, he has co-sponsored with Dr. Georg Feuerstein, Ph.D., a team of scholars in a large scale research project engaged in the preservation, transcription, translation and publication of the whole of the literature related to the Yoga of the 18 Siddhas.

The tradition of Babaji's Kriya Yoga is a classical form of Yoga. It flows directly from the ancient Kriya tradition of South India, from perfected masters of Siva Yoga, known as the Eighteen Siddhas. However, Babaji's Kriya Yoga also has Himalayan Siddha roots, as the techniques can be traced back to the Maha Siddha Kriya Babaji, the legendary Satguru of Paramahamsa Yogananda and written about in his masterpiece, .Autobiograpby of a Yogi. The number of South Indian Siddhas (eighteen) might be considered merely symbolic of the teachings or of the eighteen mystical states of consciousness. The book, The Yoga of tbe Eighteen Siddbas: An Anthology (2004), does however provide us with a glimpse of the teachings of the eighteen Siddhas in verse, and reveals some details about the early life of two great Siddhas, Agastyar and Boganathar, who were said to have been the principle gurus of Kriya Babaji. (See Babaji and the Eighteen Siddha Kriya Yoga Tradition).

Three books of teachings on Kriya Yoga were dictated by Siddha Babaji in 1952 and 1953, to a disciple, V.T eelakantan, and have been reprinted and published with the title The Babaji: Triology on Kriya Yoga (2003). These writings along with one additional book, Man, Life, Death and After (1954), reveal the early years of a new mission, which Babaji started through his disciples V.T Neelakatan and S.A.A. Ramaiah. Babaji taught to Yogi Ramaiah a synthesis of what he learned from his gurus, in a progressive system of techniques, 144 kriyas, which they referred to as Babaji's Kriya Yoga. There is a certain authority and genuineness in these techniques of Kriya Yoga~ a sense of sacredness, superbness and purity, which makes them feel "untouched by human hand."

Babaji's Kriya Yoga is an authentic and complete system of 144 techniques, which bring about awareness and Self-realization. It is a system of Raja Yoga (royal path) based on directing the prana (life force) to purify and balance the mind and emotions. The system is a five-fold path:

1) Kriya Hatha Yoga - physical postures that produce relaxation and stability;
2)Kriya Kundalini Pranayama - breathing techniques to awaken and circulate one's potential power and consciousness throughout the chakras, or psycho-energetic centers;
3) Kriya Dhyana Yoga - the scientific art of mastering the mind through various concentration and meditation techniques to cleanse the subconscious and to develop inner senses and the power to visualize and manifest what one is seeking in life;
4) Kriya Mantra Yoga - the silent, mental repetition of particular sounds to awaken the intellect to higher levels of consciousness and creative intelligence and to purify the subconscious of its habits, or samskaras;
5) Kriya Bhakti Yoga - the cultivation of divine love and spiritual aspiration for the True, the Good, the Beautiful the surrender of the ego bound consciousness to that of one's highest Self. When the soul sincerely calls for liberation from the ego's desires and aversions, Grace responds in the form of spiritual experiences.

In addition to these five Yogas, both Raja Yoga and Babaji's Kriya Yoga describe other necessary steps:yamas, nryamas,praryahara and Samadhi. Theyamas can be defined as restraints or the ethical practices of non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, sensual restraint and greedlessness. Niyamas are the principles of personal behavior or self-discipline. These consist of the observances of contentment (santosha), purity (shaucha), self-study (svadf?ycrya), intense practice (tapas), and surrender to the Lord (Ishvara pranidhana). These are lifestyle principles necessary to establish a personal yogic practice in life. Pratyahara is a withdrawal of consciousness from the senses, from the sensations of sound, sight, touch, taste, and smell. It is a withdrawal of the sensory impressions, which limit the mind. It is the ability to be undisturbed by noise and turmoil in your environment, so that you can meditate. It also includes withdrawal from the wrong foods and the wrong associations or relationships in life. Pratyabara comes naturally in all five of the Kriya Yogas. Samadhi, the breathless state of awareness or cognitive is the deepest meditation in which you are absorbed in the object of your awareness. While there are various levels of Samadhi, you ultimately become "aware of that which is aware." There is direct perception of the ultimate reality. It may result from an intense practice of meditation. Kriya Yoga trains one in specific S amadhi techniques.

Babaji's Kriya Yoga is a proven system that develops one's capacity rn all five planes of existence: physical, vital (emotional), mental, intellectual and spiritual. These Kriya Yoga techniques function in an integral manner to secure for the practitioner vibrant health and vitality, cheerfulness, mental clarity and compassion. Sense perceptions become keen and clear, and the mind and the intellect are wonderfully sharpened. Latent faculties are developed and personal power is increased. However, these are not developed for purposes of limited self interest, but as a means of serving the expanded sense of self, found in others. Compassion and intuition grow, along with the capacity to serve. And as one's consciousness expands, the needs of others are recognized as one's own.

Kriya Yoga is a practical art and science of realizing your full potential here in this world. It requires no adherence to any religious belief system. It does not matter if you are a Christian, a Buddhist, or a Hindu, an agnostic or an atheist. Anyone can benefit from its practice. Kriya Yoga is "action with awareness," and through it, you will experience awareness and learn to take that awareness actively into everyday living. In addition, you can attain significantly improved and robust physical health, increased vital energy, mental clarity, heightened intuitive faculties, Self awareness, and spiritual joy, peace and well being.