What is Kriya Yoga? Kriya (from the Sanskrit, "action, deed, effort")
Kriya Yoga is a system of Yoga that was revived in modern times by Lahiri Mahasaya, c 1861. Paramahansa Yogananda brought it into widespread public awareness through his book Autobiography of a Yogi. The system consists of a number of yogic techniques that hasten the practitioner's spiritual development.
Yogananda writes that, "The Kriya Yogi mentally directs his life energy to revolve, upward and downward, around the six spinal centers (medullary, cervical, dorsal, lumbar, sacral, and coccygeal plexuses) which correspond to the twelve astral signs of the zodiac, the symbolic Cosmic Man.
Kriya yoga includes a type of spinal breathing.
AYP doesn't recommend singling out chakras because the nervous system will balance them automatically while we follow simple daily practices.
We make a distinction in AYP between awakening ecstatic conductivity and cultivating inner silence -- pure bliss consciousness. For the latter, we use deep meditation, which does not come from kriya yoga, but from mantra yoga. This is a huge difference between AYP and kriya yoga.
While traditional kriya yoga uses mantras in spinal breathing, AYP
does not, switching the meditation process to be with a single mantra ("I AM") in a separate practice done right after spinal breathing. In this way ecstatic conductivity and inner silence are cultivated separately, which is appropriate because it is not possible to fully cultivate both at the same time!
Click on "Main Lessons" above to learn meditation and spinal breathing.
or read more here on Kriya Yoga:
Cultivating Inner SilenceExpectations and our Time LineVarieties of Spinal Breathingand more reference to Kriya Yoga in the
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