Kriya Yoga: synthesis of a personal experience
Author: Ennio Nimis
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CONTENTS
Contents i i
PART I
SEARCH FOR KRIYA
1. Self-Teacher 3
2. A Kriya Organization 19
3. Difficulties with the Correspondence Course 29
4. The Breathless State 43
5. Search of the Original Kriya 55
6. Insight into the True Nature of Kriya 70
7. The End of an Epoch 85
PART II
SHARING THE KRIYA TECHNIQUES
1. Basic Form of the First Kriya 106
2. Higher Kriyas 122
3. Different Kriya Schools 132
PART III
NOTES FOR INSTRUCTION ON KRIYA IN SIX PHASES
1. Beginning 151
2. A Theoretical Vision of Kriya Yoga 164
3. Towards a Full Experience of Kriya 176
4. Kriya of the Cells 193
Glossary 216
Bibliography 237
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FIRST PART: SEARCH FOR KRIYA
CHAPTER I/01 SELF-TEACHER
My spiritual search began when I bought an introductory book on classical
Yoga. My interest for Yoga had been fueled by a certain expectation toward
the oriental forms of meditation that had slowly consolidated through the
years of my infancy and early adolescence.
During my primary schools, unlike my contemporaries, I loved the esoteric
readings I borrowed from adult friends of my family. I remember that the first
book I read from page to page was a book of occultism. Being aware that the
book was unsuited for my age, I was proud to bring forth a total freedom of
choice in my readings -- I and was not keen on receiving any persuasive
advice. I wasted a lot of time on poor readings. In those books with tantalizing
titles and in that great heap of esoteric specialized magazines it was
impossible to distinguish in advance between the material which could have
some semblance of reliability and tall stories, those impossible chimeras
designed essentially to stun people. I came into contact with the main themes
of occidental esotericism with short excursions in phenomenons like
hypnosis, spiritualism... In the end I felt I had traveled through an indistinct
chaos. The most precious secrets were perhaps hidden in some other books,
which I had not been lucky enough to find.
I saw for the first time the name Yoga in a postal catalog of esoteric books
among my father's correspondence. Entranced, inexplicably spellbound, I
stared at a person featured on the cover sitting in the "lotus position". I didn't
succeed in persuading my father to procure that book for me.
Growing up, I began loving some core curriculum subjects and the esoteric
interest took second place. The first book I acquired at about ten years was a
book of poems dealing with bucolic themes towards which I was deeply
attracted.
I was fifteen years old and a high school student, when a school friend told
me he possessed a detailed text containing different Pranayama techniques,
adding: "these exercises can change a person inside...". I remained deeply
allured by his words: what internal change was he talking about? Surely my
friend didn't mean the attainment of particular conditions of relaxation or
concentration and probably didn't hint at integrating the oriental vision of life
with our life stile. He was surely referring to obtaining some intense
experiences that left their psychological mark, beyond the point of no return. I
had no doubts that Pranayama was something to learn as soon as possible,
setting aside all other interests. Since my friend would not make up his mind
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about lending me the book, after some days, a simple text on display at a rail
station’s news-stand diverted my sight: Yoga in 20 lessons. I bought it without
further delay. I read it entirely in order to get the picture of it.
An introduction to Yoga Philosophy could in no way convey anything
impressive or thought challenging to me (Jiva, Prakriti, Purusha...). It was put
there just to give the reader the impression that the book was serious and
complete. Even those concepts like Reincarnation, Karma, Dharma and Maya
which in the future would have become a milestone in my life, remained
unfathomable, hidden in the tangle of Sanskrit terms.
Unfortunately the subject of Pranayama was only hinted by explaining
how to make the respiratory act complete -- dilating abdomen, chest and
upper chest during inhalation and contracting the same with the order reversed
during a calm exhalation. There was nothing more.
I started to try some position (Asana). In a corner of our school’s
gymnasium, during the physical education lessons, my teacher gave me
permission to separate from my schoolmates after the preliminary group
warm-up exercises. I was very bad at doing sporting activity even if I was
very well-built by long walks. Moreover, the ability to do something
significant without moving from my place and without the risks and dangers
of sports attracted me. So, while my schoolmates would amuse themselves
with team games, I would devote myself to mastering other positions or to
moving the abdominal muscles with the Nauli technique -- with the
amazement of my teacher who came closer and inquired about the secret to
obtain such interesting effect.
Objectively speaking, my Yoga reference text was not a mediocre one: for
each position (Asana) it offered the explanation of its name, a brief note on
the best mental attitude for the practice and several considerations on how
each exercise stimulated certain physiological functions (important endocrine
glands, etc.). It was taken for granted that these positions were not to be seen
as a simple "stretching work-out"; they were means to provide a global
stimulus to all the physical organs in order to increase their vitality. The
comfort I perceived at the end of a session spoke up for their utility.
There was an entire chapter devoted to the "Corpse Position", or Savasana,
the last position to be practiced in one's daily Asana routine. This instruction
proved that the author had added something he had learned in other contexts.
Structured with great care, that explanation was, in fact, a very good
meditation lesson.
To introduce the exercise, the author did not lose its focus in useless
philosophical embellishments but, through a typically western style, explained
that the purpose of the exercise was that of putting to rest the faculties of
thought in order to recharge the whole psychophysical system with fresh
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energy. I was attracted by the over-exaggerated promise that, by stopping all
mental functions -- without falling into the state of sleep -- and remaining for
some time in a state of pure awareness, one could obtain within a twentyminute
interval the mental rest of three hours of sleep.
The instruction is to lie down in the supine position with the arms extended
alongside the body; the eyes must be covered with a bandage to keep the light
out. After having stayed still for two or three minutes, the exercise begins with
the mental statement: "I am relaxed, I am calm, I am not thinking of
anything". Then, to enter the state of "mental void" it is necessary to perform
the following, unique action: giving the thoughts a visual form, pushing them
away one by one as if "an internal hand moved them gently from the center of
the mental screen toward its outskirts". All the thoughts, without exceptions,
must be moved aside; even the thought itself of being practicing a technique.
To perform correctly this delicate process, it is first essential "to see" each
thought, even if it has abstract qualities. One should never become annoyed
over continuous new thoughts but, visualizing them as objects, they should be
shifted aside into a stand-by state; in this way, an ulterior chain of thoughts is
prevented from coming out. After pushing a thought away, the awareness
returns to the center, the region between the eyebrows (Kutastha), and relax
therein, in that small spot which resembles a lake of peace. The power of
pushing away other thoughts, which are going to knock at the door of your
attention, will become easier and almost automatic.
When, on some occasions -- such as practicing immediately after a strong
emotional disturbance -- the mechanism does not seem to work, the
concentration must be converted into a small needle which constantly keeps
touching the region between the eyebrows -- just touching, without any care
of shifting thoughts aside. At a certain point, the effort of this act disappears
while any restless emotion subsides. The focus of consciousness is absorbed
in Kutastha, passively observing a process of creation of indefinite images.
Those thought seeds quivering at the outskirts of the awareness cannot disturb
the mental rest. Choosing one of the two ways, the exercise lasts about forty
minutes.
In my experience, I used such a practice in the afternoon to rest between
study sessions. I loved it and practiced it to the present day. The final state of
rest doesn't last more then 15 minutes and the exercise itself is never carried
on for more than 25-30 minutes altogether. The technique inevitably ends in a
peculiar way; the state of deep calmness is interrupted by the feeling that the
exercise had not been done yet; a wince and a faster heartbeat are my body’s
reactions. After a few seconds, the awareness that the exercise had been
perfectly executed appears -- as the elapsed time proves.
5
This form of meditation taught me more than what I learned from books.
It did not leave me cold. Applying that discipline I saw with lucidity the
difference between mind and awareness. The mental process can be
momentarily arrested and its apparent consistency fades away; a state of
perfect awareness arises, independent from any content and marked by a
steady continuity. I discovered thus, in this easy way, my truest essence and
had no doubts that the Cartesian "I think, therefore I am" was indefensible. I
reasoned in this way: since my thoughts, whatever they are, from endless
developments of my imaginations of the future events to reconsideration of
past happenings, are in essence ephemeral, it would be much more correct to
affirm: "Only in the silence of thoughts, I realize that I exist."
At that time I became familiar with Jung's thought. I read enthusiastically
Jolande Jacobi’s The Psychology of C.G. Jung, and Memories, Dreams,
Reflections by Jung, Jaffé. I believed that the pure awareness that I had
learned to experience was sustained by the mysterious, immense Self -- which
Jung hypothesized -- embracing and surpassing both the conscious and
unconscious sphere of our being. Actually, only when our awareness is
deprived of thoughts and this state lingers tranquil for some minutes -- our
mind is like a vast and clean sky -- we can have a glimpse of the luminous
presence of the Self.
I felt the compelling necessity of living without ever betraying this inner
Self. Rather, I felt the absolute necessity of choosing a profession which gave
me the opportunity of deepening each day such realization, without
concessions to the frantic modern style of life. I preferred a non lucrative job
rather than to accept a profession that occupied my whole day. I compared
this last prospect with death. Thus was my conviction while I was seriously
occupied in completing my secondary education.
That was a wonderful period. The intuition of the Self grew and touched
deeply my heart getting stronger especially when I experienced an intense,
challenging sentimental tie whose fulfillment seemed impossible. The more
my rash emotionalism prompted me to take steps which proved to be
destructive, the more its intensity increased.
It was at that time that I undertook the daily rite of listening to classical
music, above all Beethoven and having long walks in the midst of nature.
The sudden sight of a breathtaking landscape brought back to mind one
phrase of that music. It resounded in my mind clear and intense granting me a
perfect enjoyment. If petty limits created by human conventions and made
inviolable by fears and sense of guilt plotted for destroying my dawning
sincere and innocent affection, there, opening the eyes in the particular crystal
of a summer evening, music and memory joined together and gave me what
my soul craved. That was my first religious experience.
6
Beethoven became the most beloved figure. The study of his life had a
tremendous impact upon me. His is the story of the triumph of a frail human
creature over a stupid, nonsensical fate. (To say that Beethoven's destiny was
cruel means to perceive in it the semblance of preordained plan to limit a
musician of genius in his great enterprise. I cannot conceive that.)
The tragedy of being deaf hit him at his creative peak. Beethoven reacted
in a most honorable manner, deciding to carry on, in spite of his condition
which was almost impossible for a musician, the creation of those works
which he perceived already present in his heart. The Heiligenstadt Testament,
where he reveals his critical condition and states with pacific but total
resolution his choice, made him in my eyes a hero and a saint. He wrote to a
friend: "God is nearer to me than to others. I approach him without fear, I
have always known him. Neither am I anxious about my music, which no
adverse fate can overtake, and which will free him who understands it from
the misery which afflicts others." How could I remain indifferent to this? He
was drawing out from the depths of his being an incomparable music, and he
offered it to his brothers and to humanity entire.
During my first months at university I understood that a happy chapter of my
life was concluded and there was no time for distractions -- like studying
humanities besides the curriculum cores. I chose a scientific course of studies
(math) and all my attention was to consolidate an effective method of study. I
decided to use the technique of mental void not only to rest in the afternoon,
but to extend its dynamic to my study hours, making my reasoning clear and
undisturbed by distractions.
To further spare my energies, I planned to think in a disciplined way
during the idle moments too. A bad habit to conquer was the tendency to daydreaming
and jumping from one fragment of memory to another in order to
extract moments of pleasure. I had molded the unshakeable conviction that
when the thought becomes an uncontrollable vice -- for many persons it is an
utter addiction -- it constitutes not only a waste of energy but the primary
cause of man's misery. The frenzied whirl of the thought process,
accompanied by alternating moods and strong emotions, create at times
unreasonable fears hindering the decisive action that life requires; in other
occasions, it excessively fosters an optimistic imagination that unfortunately
pushes the person toward wretched enterprises. I was convinced that the most
precious thing that I could develop was a disciplined thought. I felt that it
would open all the doors towards any fruitful achievement.
My decision filled my with an enthusiasm that I could define euphoric. But
after breathing for some hours the limpid, sparkling, celestial state of thought
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restrain, I encountered a significant resistance. In the mirror of my
introspection, as soon as it became flawless and undistorted, I began to see
how other habits went to consolidate the tendency to waste my mental energy.
One of this, wrapped and unexpectedly dignified by the idea of socialization,
was that of daily falling into nerve-wreaking discussions with a group of
friends. My emotions seemed to conspire to fool me with an hypnotic charm
into perpetuating that daily injection of pleasure. I had no alternatives: unless
I decided to keep bringing forth all possible failures in my studies and life, I
should stop the agony of this situation, whose delusion I was seeing clearly
for the first time .
What I had to renounce to, represented to my friends the best part of life.
To them, squandering hours upon hours per day searching to show their
quick-wittedness in all imaginable issues meant to feel alive. They yielded to
this kind of "comfort" to perceive their student life less precarious. It was not
an unavoidable human necessity but only a tremendously wasting vice. I
began abruptly to renounce these friends' company -- it was like accepting an
internal death and dwelling in an icy void.
My subconscious reacted to what was perceived as a useless sacrifice,
suggesting me strange visualizations. One day, during a short afternoon walk,
people sitting lazily, talking in a bar, appeared to me like chickens corralled
up in a narrow space, completely governed by their instincts: eat, reproduce,
let themselves go during feasts, suffering.... Yes, at the end there was always
suffering, malady and death. What difference did it make, if now a man
suddenly appeared in the midst, get at another man at random and cut his head
off in front of all the others. This would cause havoc, complaint ... but then,
murmuring some circumstantial words such as: "Nothing will ever be the
same now", with a vitreous eye, they would turn back to their conversations,
like chickens after their feed. I saw all this as real. Life was that, no more than
that. This became an obsessive thought.
It was difficult to withstand the challenge of that gloomy and dejected
mood. I repeated within myself (and I would repeat it so many times during
those crucial months) a Beethoven's sentence from his Heiligenstadt
testament:
O Providence - grant me at least but one day of pure joy - it is so long since real joy
echoed in my heart - O when - O when, O Divine One - shall I find it again in the
temple of nature and of men - Never? no - O that would be too hard.
I was living a period of "night", but if I had withstood the temptation to turn
on useless lights to receive solace, the morning would have been more shining
-- this was my belief.
8
I will die so that I can live!
An event illuminated my life: a friend decided to introduce me to Mahler’s
Symphony NO.2 Resurrection and invited me to a representation of this work.
I followed the execution reading what was described in information leaflet.
Each part of the symphony had a precise meaning and Mahler himself had
explained it in a letter to the conductor Bruno Walter. It was intention of the
author to touch the theme of death as the inevitable end of all the human
enterprises. The music conveyed a sense of desolation which was sweet as if
death meant to drift off to a pacific sleep. The words put in mouth to the
contralto communicated a childish innocent vision. A voice lamented with
endless dignity:
O Röschen roth!
Der Mensch liegt in größter Noth!
Der Mensch liegt in größter Pein!
Je lieber möcht ich im Himmel sein.
O red rose!
Man lies in direst need!
Man lies in deepest pain!
Oh how I would rather be in heaven.
It was like being in the country while a light rain was falling. But it was
spring and a ray of sun pierced the clouds. Amid the vegetation there was a
beautiful red rose that filled my heart with its beauty. The song went on
dealing with the theme of the eternal life. The music wanted to communicate
the biblical suggestion of the universal judgment. Then the choir sang some
verses from a Klopstock's hymn:
Aufersteh'n, ja aufersteh'n
Wirst du, Mein Staub,
Nach kurzer Ruh'!
Unsterblich Leben! Unsterblich Leben
wird der dich rief dir geben!
Rise again, yes, rise again,
will you My dust,
after a brief rest!
Immortal life! Immortal life
will He who called you, give you.
Then Mahler's own verses were chanted: these ended with:
Mit Flügeln, die ich mir errungen,
In heißem Liebesstreben,
Werd'ich entschweben
Zum Licht, zu dem kein Aug'gedrungen!
Mit Flügeln, die ich mir errungen
Werde ich entschweben.
Sterben werd'ich, um zu leben!
Aufersteh'n, ja aufersteh'n
wirst du, mein Herz, in einem Nu!
Was du geschlagen
With wings that I have gained,
in love’s fierce striving,
shall I soar aloft
to the light to which no eye has pierced!
With wings that I have gained,
shall I soar aloft
I will die so that I can live!
Rise again, yes, rise again,
Will you, my heart, in an instant!
What you have earned yourself,
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zu Gott wird es dich tragen! shall lead you to God!
In the following days I tried to penetrate its meaning by reading everything I
could find about it. I would listen to it in the quietude of my room, entranced.
After many integral and enthusiastic listening sessions, the words: "Sterben
werd ich, um zu leben!" ("I will die so that I can live!") resound all day long
in my memory. They were like a thread around which my thought crystallized.
If I really died to myself, I would tear the illusory screen of the mind into
pieces and emerge in the sublime that I had perceived through music.
I was ready to whatever sacrifice and therefore to go ahead with my self
imposed discipline; I realized nevertheless that it could be not sufficient for
my task. In my view, an actual internal death followed by a resurrection was
not possible just by stopping the thought process. I could not spend all my life
staring at the wall of my silenced mind, waiting for something to happen
spontaneously. By no means, that was surely not my way. I needed a strong
push to go beyond it. The blaze of a sudden idea put silence and stillness in
my being. My new, strong and decisive discipline could be Pranayama -- a
Pranayama similar to B.K.S. Iyengar's description in his The Illustrated Light
on Yoga that I had purchased few weeks before. In the last part of that
practical manual of Yoga there were just a couple of introductory lines to the
bright power of Pranayama. That piece ended with a prudential warning:
"Pneumatic tools can cut through the hardest rock. In Pranayama the yogi
uses his lungs as pneumatic tools. If they are not used properly, they destroy
both the tool and the person using it. Faulty practice puts undue stress on the
lungs and diaphragm. The respiratory system suffers and the nervous system
is adversely affected. The very foundation of a healthy body and a sound
mind is shaken by a faulty practice of Pranayama."
The Pranayama which referred to was constituted not only by a complete
respiratory act (as I had already studied and experience through my first
manual), but by Nadi Sodhana and Ujjayi with Bandha, Mudra and
Kumbhaka... and other minor exercises that I would have been able to learn. I
had already tried to familiarize myself with that stuff and I had already felt
that they were very effective. That old school friend had told the truth --
"these exercises can change a person inside". It had to be so, I was certain of
that. Iyengar's sentence (particularly the hint to the danger of compromising
our mental health) turned on an immoderate will to practice it intensively to
the point of "dying" in it, figuratively speaking. What would have frightened
others, encouraged me instead. If it would provoke an authentic psychological
earthquake, this was right what I was seeking. My plan was to verify, through
diligent application, if Pranayama was really endowed with the
10
aforementioned potentiality of acting upon man's psyche. To practice it
intensively did not mean in excessive quantities, but with great care. To abide
by it was "the decision" of my life.
I began to practice Pranayama as described by Iyengar in an "absolute"
way, with a steadfast concentration, nearly as if it had been my only reason to
live. I remember this intensity with nostalgia, especially when, for some
reasons, I lack the initial spontaneity for my practice. (A description of that
routine is given at the end of this chapter.)
I would practice morning and evening with an empty stomach. I would
start with some stretching exercises -- also with some simple Asana when I
had more time. I practiced in the half-lotus position, sitting on the edge of a
pillow, keeping my back straight. I focused with zeal on applying the
instructions flawlessly and with a creative spirit. I concentrated keenly on the
alternate feelings of coolness and warmth produced by the air, sensations I
could feel on the hand that opened and closed the nostrils. The pressure, the
smooth flowing of the breath... every detail turned out to be very pleasant.
Becoming aware of each peculiarity of the exercise helped me maintain a
vigilant attention without getting stressed. Pranayama was to me the most
perfect of all arts, with no intrinsic limits. I did not have to spend money to
purchase a piano or a violin. The instrument was already with me, always
with me.
Sometimes, in the first sunny days after the winter, when the skies were
crystalline and as blue as they had never been, I would sit in the open air and
contemplate what was around. In a bushy ditch covered with ivy, the sun shed
its light upon some flowers. A few weeks before, they were blooming during
the cold winter days and now, heedless of the mildest days, they were still
lingering in their spell-binding glory. I was deeply inspired. But now I felt
that my perception of things had changed. I looked around for the most
intense colors. I was fascinated by them as if they were a material substance
that I could touch and take into myself. Panning my sight around, a landscape
would appear amongst the leaves and a group of distant houses surrounding a
bell-tower. I would close my eyes and rely on an inner radiance.
A quotation from the Bhagavad Gita inspired me beyond limits: "(The
yogi) knows the joy eternal which is beyond the pale of the senses which his
reason cannot grasp. He abides in this reality and moves not thence. He has
found the treasure above all others. There is nothing higher than this. He
that has achieved it shall not be moved by the greatest sorrow. This is the real
meaning of Yoga - a deliverance from contact with pain and sorrow". I was
really excited. Never had I heard something like that! I often repeated this
sentence to those friends of mine with whom I deemed fit to share my
enthusiasm. I repeated it because I tried to understand it myself. Pranayama
11
could destroy you, but it could bring you to the eternal joy: it was the perfect
way of learning "how to die in order to live!"
Since I had read that Pranayama would operate a cleansing process of my
subconscious, I assumed that it could potentially guide me along the path of
the actualization of the Self as described by Jung (defined also as
"Individuation Process"). In my adolescent heart I dreamed that I would face
the archetypes of the Collective Unconscious....
One who knows Jungian thought and has a minimum experience with
depth psychology, will find this idea an insanity. How could a young guy have
undertook such a perilous venture without the guide of a trained psychologist?
Anyway, this idea infused me with a further injection of enthusiasm, vigilance
and indomitable will of improving my performance of Pranayama to
perfection.
On a quiet afternoon just before sunset, I was walking amid some trees.
Now and then I would give a quick glance to a comment from one of the
Upanishads [ancient Sanskrit sacred texts] which I carried with me. I
glimpsed at a sentence which awakened an instantaneous realization: "Thou
art that"! I closed the book and started to repeat the words as if I had been
entranced. I do not know if my rational mind could grasp the
incommensurable implication of that statement, but yes: I was that light
filtering through the leaves which, bearing witness to the spring that brought
new life, were of an unbelievably delicate green. Back home, I did not even
try to put down on paper the numerous "moments of grace" I had experienced
- I would not have been able to do it. My only wish was to go further and
further into this new inner source of understanding and enlightenment.
I could have never imagined that Yoga could touch my heart in such a way
to become the springboard towards the deepest experience of the sublime. I
did not think indeed these two great dimension -- esoteric, oriental meditative
practices and artistic and poetical beauty -- could unify in my life through
Yoga. At least, I could guess that by the time an aesthetic stimulus came,
Yoga could grant me a lasting base of clarity, thus helping me maintain its
beautiful atmosphere during daily life. Never would I think that Yoga
combined the search after transcendental dimension with intense aesthetic
enjoyment.
12
Kundalini awakening
After having bought the works of Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Gopi Krishna
and Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras (a big volume with comments by I.K. Taimni), I
finally decided to buy also the autobiography of an Indian saint, whom I will
indicate by P.Y.1. It was a book I had already seen some years before without
buying it since, skimming through its pages, I had observed that it didn't
contain practical instructions. My hope now was that I would be able to find
out useful information such as the addresses of some good schools of Yoga.
Reading this autobiography enthralled me and originated a strong aspiration
toward the mystical path: in certain moments, I found myself almost burning
from an internal fever. This situation provided a fertile ground for the coming
of an event which was radically different than what I had experienced before.
It was a kind of "intimate" and spiritual experience; nonetheless, since I
listened to the description of similar events from the lips of many researchers
I have decided to share it. We can consider it a well-defined outcome,
achieved through the practice of Pranayama.
The premises happened when one night, immersed in the reading of P.Y.'s
autobiography, I had a shiver similar to an electric current that spread itself
throughout my whole body. The experience was insignificant in itself, but the
point was that it frightened me a lot. Knowing my temperament, my reaction
was rather strange. The thought had flashed upon my mind that a deeper
event was going to happen in short; that it was going to be strong, very strong
and I would not be able to stop it in any way. It was as if my memory had an
inexplicable familiarity with it and my instinct knew its inescapable power. I
made up my mind to let things happen unimpeded and go ahead with the
reading. Minutes passed by and I was not able to continue reading; my
restlessness turned into anxiety. Then it became fear, an intense fear of
something unknown to me which was threatening my existence. I had
certainly never experienced such a terror. Normally, in moments of danger I
1 The reader will understand why I am not mentioning the full name of P.Y. - it is not
difficult, however, to figure out his identity. There are many schools of Yoga spreading
his teachings according to a ‘specific legitimacy’. One of these, through its
representatives, made me realize that not only won’t they tolerate the smallest of the
Copyright violations, but they won’t even appreciate their beloved Teacher’s name to be
mixed into discussions on Kriya on the Internet. The reason is that, in the past, some
people used His name to mislead the search of a high number of practitioners who were
trying to receive His original teachings. Moreover, my desire is to inform the reader that
in the following pages I will only summarily linger upon my understanding of His
legacy, without any pretension to give an objective account of it. An interested reader
should not renounce the privilege of turning to the original texts!
13
would remain paralyzed, unable to think. Now the anxiety was of a different
quality: I perceived something was approaching which was alien to the
common experience. I felt the urgency of doing something - even though I
did not know what. My mind could not help envisioning the worst hypotheses
about what was going to happen. I set myself in the position of meditation and
waited. The anguish increased. I was sure I was close to madness – or death.
A part of me, maybe the totality of that entity I call "myself", seemed at the
point of melting away.
The worst thoughts hung over me without a clear reason.2 The spiritual
world appeared to me as a sorrowful and horrible nightmare, able to annihilate
and destroy whoever would imprudently approach it. Ordinary life, on the
contrary, seemed the dearest and healthiest reality. I was afraid I might not be
able to get back to that condition anymore. I was absolutely convinced that a
mental illness was tearing my inner self to pieces. The reason was that I had
opened a door looking out on a reality far more immense than I had ever
foreseen.
I decided to take a break and put off the fatal moment as long as possible.
I myself stood up and left the room, out to the open air. It was night and there
was nobody to whom I could communicate my panic! At the center of the
yard I was burdened, choked, almost crushed by a feeling of desperation,
envying all those people who had never practiced Yoga. I felt guilty and
ashamed for hurting through harsh words a friend who had been involved in a
part of my search. Like so many others, he had shunned any practice, forgot
lofty readings and engaged in working and enjoying life. Equipped with a
juvenile boldness, I had addressed him with a tone far from being
affectionate, which then started to thunder inside of my head. I felt sorry that I
had thrown unjustified cruelty at him without really knowing what was in his
mind and soul. I would have done anything to tell him how sorry I was to
have brutally violated his right to live the way that was best to him. I thought
2 In those days I had finished reading Gopi Krishna’s Kundalini: Path to Higher
Consciousness. Here the author described the splendid awakening experience he had
following an intense practice of concentration on the seventh Chakra, whereas –
because his body was probably unprepared – he later met serious physical and, as a
reflex, psychic problems as well. According to his description, inside of his body energy
was put in constant motion from the base of the backbone toward the brain. So strong
was that energy to force him in bed and to prevent the accomplishment of the normal
bodily functions. He literally felt as if he was burned by an inner fire, which he could
not put out. Weeks later, he intuitively discovered the way to check out the
phenomenon, which became a stout experience of internal realization.
As far as I am concerned, I was afraid to have come to the threshold of the same
experience but, since I did not live in India, I was scared the people around me might
not understand. The experience would have been terrible! Nobody could make sure that,
like for Gopi Krishna, my experience would be channeled toward a positive conclusion.
14
he preferred to protect his mental health rather than become unstable or insane
through practices he was not sure about.
Because of my great passion for classical music, I hoped that listening to
it might yield the positive effect of protecting me from the anguish and help
me to get back to my usual mood. Why not try, then? It was Beethoven’s
Concert for Violin and Orchestra I listened to with a pair of headphones in my
room that soothed my soul and, after half an hour, eased my sleep. The
following morning I woke up with the same fear in my mind.
Strange as it may seem, the two pivotal facts that today stir the most
intense emotions of my life - that there is a Divine Intelligence at the very
basis of everything existing and that man can practice a definite discipline in
order to attune to it - conveyed to me a feeling of horror! The sunlight poured
into the room through the chinks in the shutters. I had a whole day before me.
I went out to try and amuse myself joining other people. I met some friends
but did not talk about what I was experiencing. The afternoon was spent
cracking all sorts of jokes and behaving like the people I had always
considered lazy and dull. In this way, I succeeded in hiding my anguish. The
first day went by; my mind was totally worn out.
After two days, the fear diminished and I finally felt safe. Something had
changed anyway, since I actually did not succeed in thinking about Yoga: I
went around that idea!
A week later I began, calmly and detachedly, to ponder on the meaning of
what had happened. I understood the nature of my reaction to that episode: I
had cowardly run away from the experience I had pursued for such a long
time! In the depth of my soul my dignity led me to continue with my search
exactly from the point where I had quit. I was ready to accept all that was to
happen and let things follow their course, even if this process implied the loss
of my wholesomeness. I began the practice of Pranayama again, as intensely
as before. A few days went by without detecting any form of fear. Then, I
experienced something awfully beautiful. (Many readers will recognize, in the
following description, their similar experience.)
It was night. I was relaxed in Savasana when I had a pleasant sensation.
It was as if an electric wind was blowing in the external part of my body,
propagating itself quickly and with a wavy motion from my feet up to my
head. My body was so tired that I could not move, even if my mind imparted
the order to move. I had no fear. My composure was serene. The electric
wind was replaced by another feeling, comparable to an enormous strength
filling into the backbone and quickly climbing up to the brain. That
experience was characterized by an indescribable, and so far unknown, sense
of bliss. The perception of an intense brightness accompanied everything.
My memory of that moment was condensed into one expression, "a clear and
15
euphoric certainty of existing, like an unlimited ocean of awareness and
bliss".
In his God Exists: I Have Met Him, A. Frossard tries to give an idea of his
spiritual experience. For that purpose he creates the concept of the "inverse
avalanche". An avalanche collapses, runs downhill, first slowly, then faster
and violently at the same time. Frossard suggests that we should imagine an
"upside-down avalanche" which begins strengthening at the foot of the
mountain and climbs up pushed by an increasing power; then, suddenly, it
leaps up toward the sky. I do not know how long this experience lasted. Its
peak definitely held out only a few seconds. The strangest thing is that in the
very instant I had it, I found it familiar. When it ended, I turned on my side
and fell into a calm, uninterrupted sleep.
The following day, when I woke up, I did not think of it. It only came up
some hours later, during a walk. I was caught by the beauty of that experience
and, leaning against the trunk of a tree, for many minutes I was literally
enthralled by the reverberation of this memory upon my soul. My rational
mind tried to grasp and gain confidence over an experience which was beyond
it – an impossible task. All the things I had thought about Yoga until then did
not have any importance at all. To me, the experience was like being struck
by a bolt. I did not even have the chance to find out which parts of me were
still there and which ones had disappeared. I was not able to really understand
what had happened to me; rather, I was not sure that "something" had really
happened.
16
Appendix: Pranayama
It is no difficult task to understand that the breathing exercises are not aimed at training
the chest muscles, strengthening the diaphragm or creating some peculiar conditions of
blood oxygenation. In fact, they are to act on the energy - Prana - present in our
psychophysical system. During such a practice, one should try to perceive the flow of
energy along some subtle channels called Nadis. The principal Nadis are Ida, which
flows vertically along the left side of the spinal column and which is said to be of
feminine nature, and Pingala - of masculine nature - which flows parallel to the former
one. Sushumna Nadi flows in the middle, beyond the duality inherent to the two lateral
currents.
It is not difficult to imagine that the Nadis, just like the water-pipes in a house, might
be "rusty", "dirty" and "obstructed" and that the state of deterioration of these Nadis is
connected with the decrease of vitality in our body. The amount of "dirt" in the Nadis
can be related to disharmony and conflicts inside our disposition. Thus, cleaning these
channels through Pranayama brings about a transformation in our personality.
There are moments of the day when we feel more externalized; others when we are
more internalized. In a healthy person, this alternation is characterized by a balance
between a life of positive relationships and a serene contact with one’s own depths.
Unfortunately, a lot of people lack such harmony. The excessively introverted tend to
lose contact with the external reality. The consequence is that the ups and downs of life
seem to gang up against them in order to undermine their peaceful composure. The
excessively extroverted betray frailty in tackling what comes up from the realms of the
unconscious and may have to face unexpected distressing moments. Through the
practice of Pranayama, specifically the alternate-nostrils variety, these two opposite
tendencies are, at least temporarily, balanced. As a result, the practitioner develops a
greater emotional awareness, more precise evaluating criteria and a wider range of
abilities to elaborate information, i.e. greater operative intelligence. A more calibrated,
intense, precise and clearer logical process will rise from a more efficient synergy
between thoughts and emotions. In this way, intuition can flow freely in order to face
the moments of life for which important decisions are expected to be made. When the
first good effects begin to be felt, the yogi is encouraged to keep practicing and he goes
deeper and deeper into it, looking for "something more." This "something more" is the
Sushumna current. This begins to flow creating an experience of joy, happiness and
elation. Here, the "mystic" venture begins. The practitioner might have no idea of what
this experience means; yet, it would happen to him.
Basic Routine
[a] Nadi Sodhana
It is important to clean the nostrils before beginning the exercise, so that the breath can
flow smoothly. This can be commonly done using water or inhaling eucalyptus essence
and blowing the nose. In some cases, there are complaints that one of the nostrils is
permanently obstructed; that is a problem of medical solution. If the obstruction is
caused by a severe cold, no Pranayama exercise should be practiced. To begin this
exercise, the mouth must be closed; the right nostril must be kept closed by the right
thumb and air is slowly, uniformly and deeply inhaled through the left nostril. The
inhalation lasts from six to ten seconds. It is important not to overdo it to the point of
discomfort. After having inhaled through the left nostril, the yogi closes the left nostril
17
with the right little finger and the ring finger; then he exhales through the right nostril
with the same slow, uniform and deep rhythm. At this point, the nostrils exchange their
role. Keeping the left nostril closed, air is slowly, uniformly and deeply inhaled through
the right nostril. Then, closing the right nostril with the thumb, the exhalation is made
through the left nostril, once again slowly, uniformly and deeply. This corresponds to a
cycle. In the beginning, six cycles can be made; later, twelve of them. A yogi can use a
mental count to make sure the time is the same for both the inhalation and the
exhalation. A short pause, amounting to a mental count of three, happens after each
inhalation. The nostrils can be closed with the fingers in different ways; the choice
depends on the preference of the practitioner only.3
[b] Ujjayi
The technique consists of breathing in and out deeply through both the nostrils,
producing a sound/noise in the throat. During the exhalation, the noise is not as loud as
during the inhalation. After a few days practice, the respiratory action is lengthened
without effort. This exercise is normally practiced twelve times. A mental count makes
sure that the inhalation and the exhalation have the same duration. It does good to
focus not only on the process itself, but on the comfort and the induced calmness as
well; this allows the concentration to become deeper.
[c] Bandha
The neck and the throat are slightly contracted, while the chin tilts down toward the
breast (Jalandhara Bandha). The abdominal muscles are slightly contracted to intensify
the perception of energy inside the spinal column (Uddiyana Bandha). The Perineum
muscles - between the anus and the genital organs - are contracted in an attempt to lift
the abdominal muscles in a vertical way, while pressing back the inferior part of the
abdomen (Mula Bandha). The three Bandhas are applied simultaneously and held for
about four seconds to produce a vibration of the body. This is repeated 3 times. In
time, a sensation of energetic current sliding up along the spinal column - an almost
ecstatic internal shiver - will be perceived. After two-three weeks of practice, the
Bandhas are also done during Nadi Sodhana – after the inhalation, during the short
pause of the breath.
[d] Final concentration
For at least five minutes, with an attitude of deep relaxation, the attention is intensely
focused on the Kutastha - the point between the eyebrows.
3 Tradition suggests that the exhalation should last twice the time necessary for the
inhalation and the pause after the inhalation should be four times as long.
18
CHAPTER I/02 A KRIYA ORGANIZATION
Undertaking the practice of Pranayama was like planting a seed in the
desolation of my soul: it grew into a limitless joy and matchless internal
freedom. The daily habit of enjoying the controlled flow of my breath
changed the course of my life: this discipline implied much more than easing
disharmonies and conflicts inside my disposition or refining the capacity for
aesthetic enjoyment. It took care of my hopes and brought them forward. A
certainty of eternity, an elated condition stretching out way over the limits of
my awareness - a sort of memory hiding in the recesses of my awareness -
began to be revealed, as if a new area of my brain had been stirred to a full
awakening.
As for the Kundalini experience, it appeared again during the following
months. I devoted myself to study late, only granting myself short resting
breaks every now and then. At the moment I laid down exhausted, it would
invariably take place in a few minutes and the rush of energy would occur
many times. There are circumstances fostering it. It takes more that a
lukewarm interest or aspiration toward contacting a superior reality: one's
heart must be afire! Then one's chosen technique of meditation should
include an intense concentration on Kutastha - better if followed by that on
Sahasrara (Thousand-petal Lotus on top of the head). Furthermore, the
element that makes the event almost certain is that of being occupied with any
kind of work or study requiring unswerving concentration. This has to be
brought ahead without surrendering to the tendency of falling asleep. When
one goes to bed, after few minutes, in a pacific dimension intermediary
between being asleep and being awake, the experience happens.
Now, even if this experience had happened only one time in my life, my
expectations of professional opportunity changed forever. Whatever
profession I was looking at, it had to leave me all the time necessary for my
meditative practices. A life devoted only to study or to work seemed me
meaningless. Most people have the same aim, but are overcome by events and
go ahead longing for a freedom that will never come.
As it regards the relationships with others, I could not avoid utilizing the
reality of daily life as a field of observation: in my youthful boldness I was
convinced I was seeing people as observed through a transparency. I made the
mistake of discussing my opinions. Since to me human misery consisted
entirely of one thing - the tyranny of uncontrolled thoughts and of instinctive,
wild emotions - I tried to make my friends aware of this fact. Actually, their
way of acting and expressing appeared to me as accompanied by a kind of
hysteria, embodying a mental deception: they wanted to create a totally false
image of themselves. The great amount of energy they squandered in this
19
play, was counterbalanced by periods in which they gave the impression of
"imploding". They disappeared for some time and, strange indeed, they could
no longer bear up with those friends they allegedly loved so much.
I believed that Pranayama had the power of helping them live in a better
way by disclosing a boundless background joy that lies behind the
unnecessary self-torture of their performances. I mercilessly unmasked their
behavior as to generate a violent reaction. In order to avoid the task of
listening attentively to me, they replied that I was unable to love, to respect
and to show human sympathy toward others. Besides, the transparency of
mind I spoke about what resembled a meaningless void, something unnatural
to them; it smacked of "death", it had a freezing grasp, it was the end of the
joys of life. Only one friend, a "Hippie", showed me some empathy; the only
inappropriate thing to him was my excessive enthusiasm for the power of
Pranayama. All the other people kept revolting against me rather bitterly.
Then there came a period in my life during which I felt so disoriented,
wondering what was the point of frankness and honesty in friendship. I had to
give up and admit that, at least for the present moment, I didn't succeed in
talking with a genuine sense of respect and love. Guilt-ridden, I convinced
myself that I was actually taking advantage of my friend's admissions and
stories to just find confirmation of my theories.
First information about Kriya
I kept following my way, determined to improve the art of breathing -
unconcerned about any limitations. In my reading of the autobiography of P.Y.
I came to that point in which he introduces Kriya Yoga, that kind of
Pranayama, which was first taught by Lahiri Mahasaya. He wrote that this
technique had to be mastered through four levels. This sparked my curiosity.
Lahiri Mahasaya was depicted as the incarnation of Yoga: surely there must
have been something unique in his "way"! I loved Pranayama, and the idea of
improving it through different steps sounded amazingly wondrous: if the
breathing exercises I had already practiced had given me such incomparable
results, it was obvious that the Kriya four-stage system would make them
greater and greater!
I began exploring as much literature as I could find about Pranayama and I
went on reading the books by P.Y.. I was amazed by his personality, with
unequaled will and an unexpected practical spirit. He would not excite me
when he spoke on a purely devotional tone, but it did whenever he assumed a
more technical one, making it possible for me to get at some aspects of the
subtle art of Kriya - I considered it an art in continuous refinement, not a
20
religious engagement. What I could guess was that the Pranayama taught in
Kriya Yoga consisted in a way of slow and deep breathing, while the
awareness was focused on the spine. Somehow the inner energy was made to
rotate around the Chakras. The author highlighted the evolutionary value of
such an exercise, not just including a man’s spiritual side but his physical and
mental sides too. He explained that if we compare the human spinal column to
a ferromagnetic substance constituted, as taught by physics, of elementary
magnets that turn toward the same direction when they are overlapped by a
magnetic field, then, the action of Pranayama is akin to this process of
magnetization. By uniformly redirecting all the "subtle" parts of our spinal
cord’s physical and astral essence, the Kriya Pranayama burns the so-called
"bad seeds" of Karma. We allude to Karma whenever we stick to the common
belief that a person inherits a baggage of latent tendencies from his previous
lives and that, sooner or later, these tendencies are to come out in actual life.
Of course Kriya is a practice with which one can experiment, without
necessarily having to accept any creeds. However, since the concept of
Karma lies at the basis of Indian thought, it is worthwhile to understand and
speak freely of it. According to this belief, Pranayama burns out the effects of
the "bad seeds" just before they manifest in our lives. It is further explained
that those people who are instinctively attracted by methods of spiritual
development such as Kriya, have already practiced something similar in a
"precedent incarnation". This is because such an action is never in vain and in
actual life they get back to it exactly where, in a remote past, they quit it.
I wondered if the four levels of Kriya consisted of developing a deeper
and deeper process of concentration on the spinal cord, including particular
areas in the brain. My imagination played freely and my fervor grew.
My compelling problem was whether I had to leave or not for India to look
for a teacher who would give me all the clarifications about the Kriya
practice. At that time, planning to get through my university studies quickly, I
excluded a journey to India for the near future. I rather chose to improve the
exercises I had already practiced, using all the books I could find about Yoga,
regardless of what language in which they were written. At least, now I knew
what to search for: a type of Pranayama in which the energy had to be
visualized rotating, in some way, around the Chakras. If this had to be - as
stated by P.Y. - a universal process, I had good chances of tracing it through
other sources.
There laid something dormant in the corner of my memory which became
alive again. I vaguely remembered having seeing, in a book about occultism,
some drawings sketching out the profile of a person and different circuits of
energy all the way throughout the body. The idea came to seek only the
essential information in the esoteric books rather than in the classic books on
21
Yoga – like Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika and similar
books.
I started going to a used books store; it was very well furnished, probably
because it had once been the Theosophical Society’s reference bookstore. I
turned down those texts which dealt only with philosophical topics, while, in
ecstasy and not concerned by time, I kept on skimming through those which
illustrated practical exercises with clarity. Before purchasing a book I made
sure it hinted at the possibility of channeling the energy along certain internal
passages, creating thus the prerequisite for awakening the Kundalini.
Since my first visit, I had been very lucky; while reading the index of a text
which was in three volumes, introducing the esoteric thought of the
Rosicrucian Brotherhood, I was attracted by the entry: Breathing exercise for
the awakening of Kundalini. It was a variation of Nadi Sodhana; this was,
according to the authors, the secret to wake the mysterious energy! Some
notes warned not to exaggerate with the exercise, because of the risk of a
premature Kundalini awakening. This was to be avoided by all means. This
was definitely not P.Y.’s Kriya because, according to several clues, Kriya was
not to be done through the alternate-nostril breathing.
So, I went on haunting the bookstore; the owner was very nice to me and I
almost felt obliged (considering the cheap price and the perfect conditions of
those second-hand books) to buy at least a book per each visit. But sometimes
I was very disappointed; a lot of space was usually reserved to theories alien
from concrete life, which tried to describe what cannot be seen and what
cannot be experienced – such as the astral worlds, the subtle coverings of
energy wrapping our body.
One day, after browsing a tiresome selection of books, I went to the
storekeeper holding a book in my hand; he must have realized that I was not
convinced about buying it; so, while deciding the price, he remembered
something that might interest me. He led me to the rear, inviting me to
rummage in a messy heap of papers within a carton box. Among a consistent
quantity of miscellaneous material (complete series of the theosophical
magazine issues, scattered notes from old course on hypnosis etc.), I came
upon a booklet, written in German by a certain K. Spiesberger, which
contained various esoteric techniques, among which included the Kundalinibreathing.
I did not have much familiarity with the German language, but I
immediately realized the extraordinary importance of that technique; I would
undoubtedly decipher all of it at home, with the help of a good dictionary. 4
4 I cannot help smiling when some half-hearted people insist that they are fond of
Kriya, yet they will not study some crucial texts in English because they are afraid to
misinterpret them. I am convinced that their interests are superficial and rather emotive.
Such was my enthusiasm, that I would have studied Sanskrit or Chinese or any other
22
The description of this technique still amazes me; the author, in fact, was
not as close to Lahiri Mahasaya’s Kriya as to the version of Kriya Pranayama
that P.Y. brought to the west. During a deep inhalation, the air was to be
imagined flowing up the spinal column, abandoning its habitual course; the
visualization of this as an empty tube was therefore prescribed and, while
inhaling, the air was to be imagined streaming along it from its base all the
way up to the area between the eyebrows; then, exhaling, the air had to go
down back to the base, along the same route. There was also the description
of two particular sounds that the air originated in the throat.
In another book, in English, there was an exhaustive description of the
Magic breath - more or less the same exercise, but the difference was in
visualizing/feeling the energy around the backbone, not inside it. Through the
inhalation, the energy had to go up behind the spinal column, to the center of
the head; exhaling, it had to go down along the front part of the body, just as
in the "Microcosmic Orbit" technique which is described in the Taoist Internal
Alchemy texts - the mystic tradition of ancient China.
I completely forgot about the other material. The smirk of satisfaction I
wore before the storekeeper, as if I had found a treasure of unfathomable
value, definitely caused an increase in their price. Walking home, I could not
help skimming through the pages; I was curious about some rough drawings
illustrating techniques which were based on the movement of energy. I read
that the Magic breath was one of the most hidden secrets of all times: this
filled me with higher enthusiasm; if practiced constantly, accompanied by the
strength of visualization, it would produce a sort of internal substance
allowing for the spiritual eye’s vision.
I convinced myself that the Magic breath technique was Lahiri Mahasaya’s
Kriya. I incorporated it in my daily routine: it replaced the practice of Ujjayi
Pranayama. I was very satisfied although in the next few weeks I did not
perceive any substantial changes in the effects.
While I was looking for all the ways of finding other valuable information,
while again reading a text of P.Y., I came to know, with my great amazement,
that he had written a whole set of lessons on Kriya, and that these could be
received by correspondence. This would have saved me, at least for some
years, a trip to India; I quickly applied for this course.
language, if that had given me the chance to understand an essential text on
Pranayama!
23
Being a member of an organization and joining a meditation group
While I was waiting for the written Kriya instructions, a letter from the
organization informed me about the existence of other people, living not far
from my place, who were practicing Kriya and had formed a meditation
group. I was enthusiastic about this and quivered with cheerful anticipation to
meet them. That night I hardly succeeded in falling asleep.
I had the first contact with them through the kriyaban (one who practices
Kriya) who organized their meetings. With great enthusiasm and a sort of
euphoria, I approached him, hoping, among other things, to receive more
details about the Kriya technique.
"Too bright were our heavens, too far away, too frail their ethereal stuff",
wrote Sri Aurobindo: I would never have thought that those words could be
applied to the consequences of that meeting of mine! With a sort of sour
irony, I would dare say that up to that moment, my existence had been too
happy for it to last that long. Life is made of short moments of calm and
balance, in an alternation of vicissitudes; during them, people experience
problems, limitations and deformations caused by the human mind.
Approaching this guy with a total sincerity, I could not have imagined what
kind of a hard shock I was about to receive.
He welcomed me with visible enthusiasm, sincerely eager to meet a person
with whom he could share the fire of his passion. Since the very first moment
of our meeting, standing on his house’s doorstep, I told him how fascinated I
was by the practice of Kriya! He asked me right away when I had been
initiated in this practice, taking for granted that I had received the teaching
from the same organization he was a member of. When he figured out the way
how I had learned the technique, he was petrified, showing a bitter smile of
disappointment. It was as if I had declared that I was the criminal mastermind
behind one of the greatest crimes of all time.
He emphasized that Kriya cannot be learned through books. He began the
tale - which, later on, I had the opportunity to hear plenty of times - of the
Tibetan yogi Milarepa who, getting no positive results from the painstaking
practice of his fraudulently-learned techniques, received the very same
instructions kneeling at the feet of and with the benediction of his Guru - so
that this time the results came out easily.
We all know how the human mind is more conditioned by an anecdote than
by a logical inference! An anecdote - even if it is totally fanciful with fictional
purpose - is endowed with a sort of internal "brightness" that conditions a
person’s common sense; stimulating emotions and feelings, it is able to cloud
people's judgment in order for them to easily accept conclusions that are
24
absurd. This story made me speechless; I just did not know what to reply.
There was only one way of learning Kriya: being initiated by a "Minister"
authorized by the direction of his own organization! According to his words,
no other person was allowed to teach that technique. Staring right into my
eyes, with an enormous emotive impact, he went on saying that a practice
learned from any other source was "worth nothing, it will not be effective in
matters of spiritual purpose", and a possible effect might be "a dangerous
illusion in which the ego remains trapped for a long time".
Inflamed by an absolute faith, he launched himself into a wide digression
upon the value of the "Guru" - spiritual Teacher - a puzzling concept to me
because it was attributed to a person that he had not known directly. In his
opinion, having been initiated to Kriya through the legitimated channels, P.Y.
was real and present in his life: was his Guru. The same thing was true for the
people who belonged to that group. Their Guru was a special aid sent by God
Himself, therefore such an event was "the greatest luck a human being can
ever have". The logical consequence - underlined with overflowing emphasis
- was that, abandoning such form of aid or looking for a different spiritual
path amounted to "a hateful rejection of the Divine hand, stretched out in
benediction".
He smiled, led me into his room and asked me to demonstrate for him my
book-learned Kriya technique. He was naturally intrigued by curiosity and, I
suppose, by the expectation to verify a well-rooted prejudice that the
technique, received through illegitimate channels, could not - because of a
particular spiritual law - be anything but corrupted. He felt relieved,
intimately "reassured" when he saw me breathing through the nose instead of
through the mouth (as he was told to) that therefore my practice was evidently
wrong to him. He asked me to explain more deeply what I was visualizing
during my breathing and, while I was telling him, I saw an inner satisfaction
spreading all over his face.
The reader might remember that, according to the books I had read, the
way of transporting the energy while breathing could be done through a route
around the Chakras or inside of the backbone. I tried both ways but, since P.Y.
wrote that it was correct to move the energy "around" the Chakras, I mainly
settled on the first one; therefore, this was the version I explained. Besides,
having read in another book that during Kriya Pranayama the practitioner was
supposed to sing Om mentally in the Chakras, I added this detail as well. I
could not imagine that P.Y. had decided to simplify the instructions and taught
in the west the other variation with no mental singing of Om. While I was
talking, my friend did not recognized his Kriya. The "secret" he was
apparently bound to had not been broken by any of the authors of my esoteric
books!
25
Thus, a bizarre situation was taking place: I was describing for him what
by all accounts was indeed the original Pranayama taught by Lahiri
Mahasaya while he was sarcastically simpering, one hundred per cent sure
that I was talking nonsense! Pretending to feel sorry for my consequent
disappointment, he informed me in an official tone that my technique had
"nothing to do with Kriya Pranayama"!
Since my position was totally incompatible with his basic tenets, he
recommended for me to send a written account to the direction of the
organization, describing the details of my vicissitudes, hoping that they would
accept me as a disciple. Only then could I legitimately be one of the great
Kriya family and practice safely under their surveillance.
I was somewhat stunned by the tones to which our dialog was progressing.
In order to re-establish the initial agreeability of our meeting, I tried to
reassure him about the positive effects that I had gained from my practice. My
statement actually had the effect of worsening the whole matter, giving him
the chance of a second scolding, which was not totally unfair but,
undoubtedly, out of place. He made clear that I should never look for any
tangible effects in the practice of Kriya; much less should I display them,
because in this way I would "lose them". That clever guy had gotten straight
into an obvious contradiction without even realizing it; he was saying that the
results were too important to risk losing them by telling others, and a few
seconds before he had underlined that they were of no value whatsoever.
Realizing he had given too much of his time to me, a strange
metamorphosis took place in his demeanor. It was as if all of a sudden he had
been invested with a sacred role: he promised that he would pray for me! For
that day, at least, I had lost the "fight". I told my friend that I would follow
his advice.
As a habit, the group practicing Kriya would meet twice a week to
practice the techniques together. The room devoted to meditation was bare but
pleasant. Each member paid part of the rental, so that its fruition would not
depend on the owner’s whims and it was consecrated to an exclusively
spiritual use.
My attendance began in a period that I remember nostalgically; listening to
Indian songs translated and harmonized for westerners and, above all,
meditating together was a true joy! Everything seemed paradisiac to me, even
though little time was given to the practice - no more than 20 minutes - often,
scantly 15 minutes. A particularly inspiring session of collective practice took
place on Christmas Eve; it was enriched by devotional songs and it lasted
many hours. Since I had not received Kriya "officially" yet, they asked me to
limit my practice to simply centering my awareness onto the point between
the eyebrows. At the end of each meditation we were required to depart in
26
silence, thus I began to know my new kriyaban friends more closely only
during the monthly meetings. Actually, once a month we had a "social" lunch.
It was a beautiful chance to spend some time talking together and enjoying
each other’s company. Since many of us did not have their family approval
and - much less - support to the practice of Yoga, the only occasion we had to
spend time among people with the same ideas and interests had to be an
experience of great serenity and relaxation.
Unfortunately, a distinct embarrassment in our behavior spoiled the
pleasantry of our meetings. The reason was that those who directed the school
from a distance, had requested us not to talk about other spiritual paths or deal
with specific details about Kriya. Authorized people only, could cover such a
role; no one in our group could. During our gatherings, since our
conversations were strictly kept on well-defined tracks, we were not able to
find a topic for our conversations which would be interesting and, at the same
time, respected the given rules. It was not the right place for worldly gossips,
unsuitable for a spiritual group discussion. So one single topic was left: the
beauty of our spiritual path and our great fortune in having discovered it! No
wonder that, after some meetings of mutual "exaltation", an almost
frightening boredom started to reign in the group. As a last resort, some risked
entering the realm of jokes; they were not mean or insulting jokes, but a light
and innocent use of some sense of humor. Unfortunately, this also had to live
up to the devotional attitude kept by many of the members and eventually
succumbed to their cold attitude, unable to show a single inch of true joviality.
I cannot say that people were depressed, rather they seemed divinely happy,
but when you tried to be agreeable you got a look and a hint of a smile that
left you frozen for the rest of the day.
As a matter of course, the group underwent a great recycling process;
many members who had joined in with enthusiasm decided to quit after a few
months and then, oddly and without deep reasons, scraped the whole
experience off their consciousness.
My open temperament allowed me to become close to one person and
establish a bond which later became true friendship. However, it was not so
easy to find what could be called a free spiritual seeker: many were
emotionally charged "devotees" wearing blinders. Even trying to do my best
in order to convince myself that I was among individuals akin to me – in other
words enthusiastic about Kriya - I had to admit that the reality was different!
Some of them reacted to my enthusiasm with annoyance: they could not
believe that I had no doubts or uncertainties with respect to the Kriya path.
They considered my euphoria being typical of an immature beginner.
An old kriyaban told me: "When you receive Kriya you will be
disappointed". I cannot understand what he meant, since when I received
27
Kriya, I was enthusiastic.
With a barely concealed impatience of receiving some elucidation about
the technique of Kriya, I tried on different occasions to discuss what had been
my book-learned practice of it. I hoped that someone, making some remark
about it, would ... let the cat out of the bag. No "courting" could extract from
them even a crumb of information. Each one repeated that he was "not
authorized to give out any explanations": this rule was strictly respected: they
had received the technique, submitting a precise and solemn promise of
"secrecy". Secrecy! How odd this word sounded to me, what a strange
appeal, what a mysterious fascination it exerted upon my being! Until then, I
had always believed that it did not matter at all how a certain teaching was
received, or what book had been read or studied in order to learn it; I thought
that the only important thing was to practice it correctly, accompanied by the
desire to go deeper and deeper into it. The idea began to enter my mind that it
was fine to protect a precious lore from indiscreet eyes.
Later, during an arc of many years, I witnessed an innumerable series of
absurdities originating from this behest; dramatically, I had the evidence that
it brought miserable repercussions into the lives of thousands of people.
With the exception of one person (who harbored really strange ideas about
the spiritual path, to the point that it crossed my mind that he was mentally
unstable), these new kriyaban friends seemed to censor my excessive interest
in techniques, saying that devotion was much more important. Often they
referred to a concept that I could hardly link to the practice of Yoga: the
paramount importance of loyalty towards P.Y. and his organization.
While their effort in practicing the meditation techniques in a deep way
was not remarkable, they tried with any external means (readings, devotional
chanting, convocations...) to extract from the depths of their psyche any trace
of religious attitude, any scrap of spiritual aspiration. They impregnated it
with the natural heart's affection for their Guru - even if they had known him
only from photos - obtaining thus the resolution of a lifelong commitment.
They called the solidity of their surrender to such ideal: "Bhakti" – devotion.
Looking back to those times, I wonder what those people’s opinion about my
impatient attitude might have been, much too different from their quietness. In
my sensibility, I could not conceive the idea of leaning passively upon the
protection of a saint who solved all one’s problems. This fact, together with
others I had experienced in that school, was a cause of real conflict. My
approach to the spiritual path was really different from theirs and there was no
hope of reaching a point of contact, a common ground.
28
CHAPTER I/03 DIFFICULTIES WITH THE CORRESPONDENCE
COURSE
Shortly after my admission to the group, I was introduced to an elderly lady
who had corresponded with P.Y. himself. Thanks to her earnestness, sincerity
and long-time loyal discipleship, she had been authorized to teach the Kriya
preliminary techniques. Her temperament was very sweet and more inclined
to understanding rather than to censorship. She taught me two preliminary
techniques to Kriya, categorically inviting me to limit my practice to them
only. 5 The first one eases off the breath and the whole psychophysical
system; it is called Hong-So because of the employed Mantra. The second one
concerns itself with the listening to internal (astral) sounds melting into the
Om sound. She did not give me these instructions at one time, but after an
interval, the latter technique four months after the first one. In this way I had
the unique and splendid opportunity to concentrate on the first technique for a
long time; only then would the combination of the two techniques come, the
first in the morning and a total immersion in the second at night. Thus, I could
experiment with the meaning and beauty of each one.
Preliminary techniques to Kriya
[I] The Hong-so technique is simple. It consists - after some deep breaths
oxygenating the blood and calming the system - of letting the breath go on
freely, mentally repeating the Mantra: Hong-so; the syllable Hong during the
inhalation and So during the exhalation. The concentration, the inner gaze, is
to be kept upon the third eye. The essential requirement is not to influence the
breath; it has to go on in a natural, free and spontaneous way.
[II] To practice the Om technique, a yogi leans his elbows on a comfortable
support that can be used for the purpose. The support can be a simple
horizontal table of any material, covered with foam-rubber and settled on a
vertical stake of adjustable height. Practicing in the evening or at night is best;
it is preferable to lock oneself up in a room, so that nobody will disturb the
practice. The technique consists of closing the ears with the thumbs and in
5 In order to be precise, she also checked my performance of the so-called "Recharging
Exercises" which I had already learned from the written lessons. These were physical
exercises similar to isometric stretches and were practiced standing. The strength of the
concentration directed the Prana in all the parts of the body.
29
listening to every internal sound, while repeating "Om, Om, Om..." mentally
(settling into a slow rhythm of about one Om per second) throughout the
practice. The attention, according to the instructions, is directed to the inner
part of the right ear, since the subtle sounds can be realized more easily and
with more clarity there.
The yogi’s intuition begins a long journey into his deepest memory, that of
his divine origin. The Om can be heard in a lot of variations; it can be easily
perceived after the ears have been closed, as soon as a minimum of internal
calm is created. The right attitude is to focus upon the loudest of these
variations. Each mental repetition of the Om, keeping the attention alive, is
essential; the awareness patiently follows any feeble inner sound like an
"Ariadne’s thread" out of the labyrinth of mind. Gradually it approaches a
sublime dimension, the Omkar Reality, which is the vibration of the primeval
Energy.
Personal experience of the two preliminary techniques
Foreseeing the thought rising in my mind, that lady went on clarifying that the
Hong So technique was not easy at all, in spite of its apparent simplicity! She
said that if the results had been disappointing, the cause would be some subtle
mistakes in the practice. She remained rather vague but, encouraging me with
a smile, she concluded: "The technique contains all you need to come into
contact with the Divine Essence".
I will be honest; my superficial beginner’s attitude led me to regard the
Mantra as a "magical formula" which could give me, within some days of
practice, a superhuman concentration. As is obvious, I became very
disappointed: it was the most boring technique in the world. The practice
seemed useless and dull.
One day, supported by the same goodwill characteristic of my way of
learning, I started to attentively observe a couple of details which, in my
opinion, were responsible for my failures.
[a]…By repeating the Mantra mentally over and over, it can easily and
naturally conform to a hard-to-change rhythm. Once breathing follows this
rhythm, it consequentially never settles down. Once the rhythm has stabilized
itself, inhalations and exhalations are made, even if the body "would like" to
stay off-breath for some moments.
Anybody can avoid this situation by not establishing any rhythm during the
mental chanting of the Mantra. The pauses between a breath and another
should be "allowed to exist"; therefore, they should be experienced, no matter
30
if each lasts less than an instant. This simple fact is sufficient to ease the
breath off, while a condition of total and almost perfect immobility stabilizes
within the body.
[b]…During inhalation the chest swells out and gets into an elastic tension.
While lungs and diaphragm are stretched, there is an elastic force trying to
relax them. Therefore, the pause between inhalation and exhalation is
contrasted not only by the rhythm but by the chest elasticity as well. It is fine
to be aware of this elastic strength: this is sufficient to make a more
comfortable and freer pause after the inhalation - the resulting exercise will
then be executed and experienced with greater harmony.
Putting all this into practice - a "virtuous circle" between this growing
calmness and a reduced necessity of oxygen - brought me to a nice condition
in which the movement of air through the nose was so slight as to be totally
imperceptible.
Trying to discuss my observations with those who practiced that technique, I
realized how hard it was for them to talk about such things. Sometimes I
noticed an enormous and unreasonable resistance towards such a discussion.
There were those who were not satisfied with their practice but planned to try
it again in the future (at that time they would postpone listening to my
reasoning), while others were not able to understand what I was saying.
I remember that when I tried to discuss these details with a lady who was a
friend of our family for many years, she pretended to listen attentively to me;
in the end, she brutally declared she already had a Guru and did not feel the
need of another one. Her remark cut me deeply, since it was not my intention
to teach her anything: my purpose was to have a constructive talk which could
be inspiring for both. Apart from this, what sort of friendship can exist
between two persons when one uses that mode of expression?
To pass by such episodes one after the other confirmed the idea that not
being encouraged to trust the limpidity of self observation, many of my
friends went on mechanically performing what had become an empty ritual;
which would appease their conscience.
In order to introduce the second preliminary technique, the so called Om
technique, that lady explained that her Guru (he had decided that this
technique, among so many possible ones, should be a necessary rather than
optional preparation to Kriya), had tried to explain the teaching of the Trinity
in a new way. Om is the "Amen" of the Bible - the "Holy Ghost", the
"witness", a sound; a proof of the vibration of energy sustaining the universe.
This Om technique I was going to learn, discovered by the mystics long ago,
31
makes it possible to detect this vibration. Thanks to it, it is also possible to be
guided towards the experience of the "Son" - the Divine awareness that is
present inside the above-mentioned energetic vibration. At the end of one's
spiritual journey, one can reach the highest reality, the "Father" - the Divine
awareness beyond every existing thing in the universe. 6
The lady’s explanation was characterized by such a sacred flavor that it
accompanied me for the following weeks, helping me overcome the beginning
of the practice, where it seems impossible that the sounds will manifest.
I remember nostalgically my time in that slightly illuminated room, where
I confined myself like a hermit. After three weeks of zealous practice, one
day, having just begun the exercises for ten minutes, I realized I could hear an
inner sound. It did not happen abruptly, but I felt as if I had been hearing it for
some minutes. I was in a state of deep relaxation, that sound reminded me of
the humming of a mosquito, then it became a bell, heard from a distance,
which was like an embrace of sweetness. It was a really ecstatic experience
and it occurred so strangely that it enchanted me. Listening to the Om meant
touching beauty itself. I can not imagine something similar making a person
feel so fine. For the first time in my life I found that the concept of "devotion"
had a meaning. I remember that whenever that sense of bliss arose, I would
say to myself: "This is what I have always desired. I do not want to lose it
anymore". 7
Recollections of the Kriya initiation ceremony
By studying the correspondence course, I learned different ways of creating
healthy habits and how to behave in order not to disturb, rather to foster the
blossoming of my spiritual experiences. I tried my utmost to embrace the
school’s peculiar Hindu-Christian religious vision. It was easy for me to
admire and cherish the figure of Krishna, imagining Him as the quintessence
of every beauty; more difficult to become acquainted with that of the Divine
6 This technique does not belong to those included in the original Kriya Yoga, where
the internal sounds perception happens without closing the ears. It is not an invention
by P.Y.. It had been plainly described in the books of classical Yoga, called Nada Yoga -
"the Yoga of the sound." It is a good preparation for Kriya since instead of putting the
accent on "to do", it teaches the attitude of "perceiving."
7 A lot of people start the Kriya path from a wrong attitude, as if seeking results that
gratify the ego. They believe and hope that the Kriya is a path of "psychological
growth", but they will not find a substitute for psychotherapy! The best thing is to relax
and recreate through memory the atmosphere of the most beautiful experiences we have
ever had in our life and feel a strong desire of finding them again in the Om vibration.
32
Mother also, who was not the Madonna, but a sweetening of the idea of the
goddess Kali. So much I did that I estranged me from myself. I read and
reread only P.Y.’s writings. Sometimes I considered a particular thought of
P.Y. so appealing and stunning that I would write it down on a sheet of paper
and hold it on my desk.
While I was continuously receiving unasked lessons of devotion, humility
and loyalty, my interest for Kriya became a real craving, a burning fever. I
could not understand the reason for which I had to wait for it for such a long
time: my great anticipation turned, sometimes, into a fruitless anguish. The
real Kriya technique could be applied for, as a rule, after one year of study of
the correspondence course. In my case, contingent reasons turned it into two
years - the written material traveled by ship and the delay times were
enormous.
During this long waiting time, now and then those who already had
received the Kriya initiation made fun of me with an unconcealed cruelty and
told me: "They won't give you the Kriya at all; a devotee should not desire a
technique with such intensity: that’s neither good nor wise. God is to be
mostly found through devotion and surrender". I tried to be good; I waited
and dreamed.
Eventually, the moment came to fill the application form to receive the
Kriya instructions by mail. About four months passed by, every day I hoped to
receive the coveted material, finally, an envelope arrived. I opened it with an
expectation that I would not be able to describe: I remained deeply
disappointed because it contained ulterior introduction material. From the first
index page of the material, I understood it was the first of a weekly series,
whereas the proper complete technique would be sent within five weeks. So,
for another month, I would have to study just the usual nursery rhymes I
already knew by heart.
It happened that in the meantime a Minister of that organization visited our
country and I could take part in the ceremony of initiation. After waiting for
months, it was high time that I came "to make an eternal pact with the Guru,
to be taught the Kriya techniques in the only legitimate way, together with his
benediction". Those who, like me, were ready to be initiated were about one
hundred in number.
A beautiful room had been rented for the ceremony at a very high price and
embellished for the occasion with lots of flowers, such as I have never seen in
my life, even at the most extravagant weddings. The introduction to the
ceremony happened in a magnificent way: about thirty people wearing a sober
uniform entered the room, lining up with a solemn attitude and their hands
joined in prayer. It was explained to me that those people belonged to the
local group whose leader was a stylist who had prepared the choreography of
33
that triumphant entrance. The two teachers, who had just arrived from abroad,
walked meekly and bewildered behind them. Then the ceremony began.
I accepted without objections their demand of swearing everlasting
devotion not only to the Guru P.Y. but also to a six-master chain; of this chain
Lahiri Mahasaya was an intermediary link while P.Y. was the so-called Gurupreceptor,
namely the one who would partially bear the burden of our Karma.
It would have been really strange if no one had doubts about this; I
remember a lady wondering if P.Y. - definitely unable to give any
confirmation, now being a long-time resident in the astral world - had really
accepted her as a "disciple" and, consequently, to be laden with her Karma.
We had been assured that Christ was part of this chain because He had
once appeared to Babaji (Lahiri Mahasaya’s Guru) asking Him to send some
emissaries to the West to spread the Kriya lore. This story caused me no
perplexity at all: perhaps I had no time to think about it. I was anxious to
listen to the explanation of the technique that would have happened in a short
time. On the other end, to consider the whole mission of Kriya diffusion as
originated from Christ himself was a pleasant idea.
The Kriya technique embodied God’s most effective blessing toward His
privileged creature, the humans, which exclusively possessed an inner body
with seven Chakras. The mystic seven-step ladder of the Chakras was the real
highway to salvation, the fastest and safest way.
My mind was in great expectation for something I had so strongly desired
and for which I had seriously been preparing myself for months. It was not
what might be called a "sacrament" that I was submitting to, in order to
safeguard a family tradition; it was the crowning of a definitive choice! My
heart was immensely happy at the thought of the inner joy that I would gain
through the practice of Kriya.
Finally, being taught the Kriya Pranayama, I found out that I already knew
it: it was the Kundalini-breathing technique, which I had found a long time
ago in my esoteric readings and which prescribes that the energetic current
flows all the way inside the spinal column. I have already explained that I had
not taken into serious consideration that procedure, owing to the fact that in
P.Y.’s writings, which were the basis for my first glimpses of the mechanism
of Kriya Pranayama, it was written that the energy had to be rotated "around
the Chakras, along an elliptical circuit".
I was not disappointed. Rather, the technique appeared perfect to me. The
explanation of the techniques Maha Mudra and Jyoti Mudra (they never used
the more common term Yoni) concluded the technical instructions. Each
technique’s detail was explained in such a way that it would not allow for the
smallest variation and, in addition, a specific routine was warmly
recommended. It was taken for granted that if the least amount of doubt on the
34
correctness of a certain detail had arisen during the practice, nobody was
encouraged – even vaguely – to conduct an experiment and come to a
conclusion by himself. The only "correct" action that was fair to do was to
contact the management of the school, tell them the problem and receive
further guidelines.
This, in effect, was what I always did. I learned to interact with the
"authorized" individuals only; I would instinctively look for their advice as if
it were given by perfect beings that could never be wrong. I believed they
were "channels" through which the blessings of the Guru flowed. Besides, I
was quietly confident that - even if they would not admit it out of humility -
they had already reached the highest level of spiritual realization.
Problems with the routine
I want to anticipate a problem here, which is fundamental to building a good
Kriya routine. The first exercise to be practiced was the observation of the
breath (the Hong-So technique) and this had to last ten to twenty minutes. The
breathing was supposed to become more relaxed and create a good state of
concentration. Then, after putting the forearms on a support, the listening to
the internal sounds began - this would require about the same time. Then there
would follow another interruption because of the Maha Mudra. Eventually,
setting back in a still and stiff position to restore the feeling of sacredness, the
Kriya Pranayama began with rigorous respect to all the instructions. After
Jyoti Mudra, the Kriya routine would be concluded with a full ten-minute
concentration on the Kutastha, to absorb the results of the whole endeavor.
In my practical experience, the two preliminary techniques were deeply
sacrificed, while the time devoted to the final concentration was too short.
During the Hong-So technique, the thought that I should soon interrupt it to
start the Om technique brought about a disturbing feeling, hampering my
whole surrender to its beauty. The same happened with the procedure of the
second technique, interrupting it in order to practice the Maha Mudra and
Pranayama. The technique of listening to Om was a complete "universe" in
itself and led to the mystic experience: that is why its interruption was
something worse than a simple disturbance.
It was illogical; as if, recognizing a friend with joyous surprise among a
crowd, one begins talking with him and suddenly goes away with the hope to
meet, quite by chance, that friend again and get back to where the
conversation had previously ended. The sound of Om was the mystic
experience itself, the goal I sought, why should I interrupt that sublime
attunement to regain it through another technique? Perhaps because Kriya
35
Pranayama was a higher procedure? Higher? What on earth does that mean?
It is complete nonsense!
I forced myself into such absurdity for an extremely long period. I am
embarrassed to confess that it lasted no less than three years. I went on
without changing the prescribed routine, hoping for a hypothetical future
evolution of an unclear situation. I had become like one of those animals that,
fed by man, tend to forget how to be self-sufficient. At that time, the idea of
using my brain seemed to me an act of stupid arrogance. Such was the power
of that insanity that in our group it was called "loyalty".
Difficulties with the printed material related to the Higher Kriyas
In my spiritual research, the Second Kriya technique had been sealed as a
secret for a lot of years.8 Since P.Y. wrote that the Second Kriya Yoga enables
the Yogi to leave his body consciously at will, to learn such a delicate
mechanism was one of my dreams. I was sure that practicing with such a
procedure would have a strong effect on my spiritual evolution.
Among the kriyabans in the meditation group, there was a lady, who
received Kriya initiation many years ago and had once lived by our school’s
general offices. One day I asked if she had received the Second Kriya. She
didn’t seem to understand my question. So, with astonishment, I reminded her
that Lahiri Mahasaya’s disciple, Swami Pranabananda, accompanied the
moment of his death with the practice of the Second Kriya. She became
visibly nervous, saying that the quotation clearly referred to the technique of
Pranayama: one breath, then a second one, and this had to be, in her opinion,
the "Second Kriya"! I felt my legs give way; I looked at her with a meek and
piercing look: unintentionally she had revealed to me the lowest place in
which she had pushed all what P.Y. had written or said. I had the impression
that the idea itself of a further technique to be added in time to the too many
already received and practiced daily, upset her. It was as if she felt she had
made so great an effort in setting the habit of a daily practice of the First
Kriya, that she could not bring forth a more engaging dedication. I know that,
8 If I consider what a lot of teachers said and are saying about this technique, I must
also consider the idea of a sound jinx hovering over it! As if acting out a perverse will,
they unleashed all their ability in generating the wildest of all transformations. One of
them tried to convince me that the Second Kriya was similar to a Tibetan technique
which consisted in boring a hole in the Fontanelle [top of the head]. The proof of its
validity was the same as in the Tibetan tradition; a kriyaban should have been able to
insert the stem of a flower into it! I do not want to burden the reader with all the
nonsense I heard in all those years. The reason why I was completely spellbound by
some of those absurdities is that my tendency was to favor complicated techniques.
36
up to this day, she has remained fixed in her conviction.
I don't know which was the worst example of what I call disrespect to
Kriya, the one described above, or the example to follow. One day an
aristocratic-looking lady revealed to me that, a long time ago, she had
received the initiation in the so-called Higher Kriyas. Full of enthusiasm, my
eyes opened widely. She said she had felt so unworthy that she had put them
aside and, after some time, she had forgotten them entirely. This last
abomination was inconceivable to me. Her willing ignorance passed off for
humbleness was really too much. When I expressed my objection that her
behavior seemed an exhibition of indifference toward the higher teachings
taught by her Guru, she looked at me in bewilderment as if my impertinence
had violated an implicit law: do not impudently enter the intimate dimension
of her Sadhana. She replied saying that what she had was enough; then
briskly cut off discussion from that topic.
The school provided only written instructions about the Higher Kriyas. No
direct initiations were ever given. The reader can guess how interested I was
to learn those techniques correctly. They were explained in the last part of the
correspondence course. Unfortunately, some details were ambiguous.
I was doubtful about how Kechari Mudra had to be obtained (P.Y. wrote
that it was an important technique, to be practiced regularly in order to
awaken Kundalini), hesitant about how to perform the particular form of
Second Kriya and also about how to master the technique of Thokar (the
school called it Third and Fourth Kriya) which required particular movements
of the head. I wrote to the school management to schedule an appointment
with one of its representatives, a Minister who would soon come to our
country. I hoped to clarify everything on that occasion and was looking
forward to that appointment with great anticipation. When the Minister
arrived I was introduced to him. He said he would clarify my doubts as soon
as possible. I was tranquil and waited. I was left in dismay when I figured out
that the Minister kept on postponing our meeting without valid reasons at all.
Since I decided not to give up, we finally met. I went through something truly
unpleasant. I was convinced that hypocrisy, bureaucracy, formality, hidden
falsity and subtle violence to one’s honesty were totally alien to one who
devoted his life to practicing and teaching Kriya. Yet, the sensation I had was
akin to meeting a business man, who had more important affairs in mind and
who was very irritable. He was emphatic not to talk about Kechari Mudra
and with regard to the head movements of Thokar, he advised me brutally to
restrict my practice to the First Kriya. I replied I would surely keep in
consideration his advice; in spite of that I wanted to see how to move my head
correctly in order to practice that technique in a hypothetical future. He
declared that I was overexcited and this was not a good mark for a kriyaban
37
(... I was only in a desperate and deeply disappointed mood); annoyed, he
recommended me to write my questions to the school’s head. In vain I replied
that the movements of the head could not be shown through a letter: I was in
front of a "wall" and the refusal was absolute.
I had trusted and respected the school; I had studied the whole reference
literature as if preparing for a university exam. I was now consternated to bear
witness to the senseless whims of a man on power. After the interview with
that ill-disposed figure, I was in an atrocious mental and emotional state.
Those who saw me immediately after this meeting were shocked: they said I
was unrecognizable. Having understood what had happened, a kriyaban friend
with a honeyed voice suggested that I have just received an important lesson
from Gurudeva: the necessity of being satisfied with the basic teachings. I
could not accept any invitation to calm myself and drop the whole matter.
There are childish thoughts that emerge in difficult moments: I was afraid
that this man, communicating back to the management of the school, might
speak unfavorably of me, saying something that might have reduced the
probability for me to obtain that coveted information in the future. I feared I
could no longer rely on the heavenly relationship with that Kriya
organization, which, for so many years, had represented my horizon.
At the same time, another part of myself, which the group’s rules had not
been able to stifle entirely, knew that this destructive experience would be
turned into something crucial both for me and for other people’s spiritual
improvement. The self-learned enthusiast of Pranayama, awakened from too
long a sleep by means of a healthy "kick in the butt", was intimately relishing
the whole situation.
Some years later I came to know that a group of kriyabans living in an important
European country, after having tried in vain to receive from the "authorized
Ministers" explanations about the Higher Kriyas, invited an Indian master to their
group. He accepted. At his arrival, after skimming through the written material, he
said he was not able to decipher what was written there, since the Kriya Yoga that he
had been practicing for so many years was quite different.
The written teachings provided by the school were indeed ambiguous; for
example, the Mantra was presented in an unusual way; a pronunciation especially
created for English speakers (Om naw maw bhaw….) was the substitute for its
actual syllables. This explanation was not integrated by a note reporting the true and
commonly adopted spelling of the Mantra. Apart from that, it was always written
with twelve separated syllables, as if it was not a Mantra but twelve different ones.
The average reader would not recognize the Mantra: Om Namo Bhagavate
Vasudevaya at all, thus trying in vain to imagine the origin and the meaning of each
syllable, as if each one was a strange bija Mantra. Being acquainted with Indians, I
am quite sure that this yogi was familiar with what he was reading and that he was
by all means able, to easily remove, in few seconds, every doubt. He was just
38
pretending. His performance was meant to give the impression that P.Y.’s teachings
were totally wrong, deceitful and made-up. He aimed at appearing as the teacher
who saved those people from an abysmal mistake. He advocated the necessity to
start all over again: he was ready to give them initiation into the First Kriya. As a
matter of course, he lost two thirds of the students on the spot. They, in fact, did not
accept to be his formal "disciples", as required by the initiation ritual. Those who
accepted his conditions were again initiated to the First Kriya and were given new
techniques such as the Kechari Mudra and Navi Kriya. Incidentally, the absolute
confidentiality was broken; in this way many other people in Europe received
precious information. Later, the group received the Higher Kriyas. Some of those
kriyabans followed the orbit of that Indian master and disappeared as if sucked into
a black hole; some swung in and out of the school, bringing on, as a consequence, a
practice characterized by a lot of dissatisfaction and changes of mind.
On second thought, perhaps that monk at least on one point was right: I was
not calm at all, rather I would never be calm any more. I was determined to
know Kriya inside out and nobody could stop me with any motivation. Rather,
I found it strange that a similar passion didn't literally take over my kriyaban
friend's life. Although remaining faithful to my Kriya organization, I didn't
accept vetoes.
My interviewer was that elderly lady who taught me the preliminary
techniques and was officially invested as a "Meditation Counselor". She
blamed me of having made the interview with the Minister a troublesome
event. She had learned the Higher Kriyas years ago and only in written form,
just as I did. Strange to say - in my opinion, an unforgivable negligence - she
had never had them checked by direct disciples of P.Y., having had plenty of
opportunities to do so. Subsequently, she lost such written material and never
asked a copy of it. In plain English, perhaps she knew less than me about that
subject. Unable, as she was, to clarify my technical doubts, she finally said
firmly, however in her sweet way, that the Minister’s advice embodied God's
will.
I tried to reason with her about my right and duty to explore all the
possible sources. I discussed the project of leaving for India in order to
improve my Kriya. She mumbled something about India, about so many
people that according to her were disappointed or found just drugs or lost the
grace of their Guru-disciple relationship. I didn't understand. She mentioned
the fact that some students found in a well known Kriya Ashram a teacher
who gave them Kriya initiation without any authorization and who combined
it with techniques that had nothing to do with Kriya. It slipped out of my
mouth a very strong sentence of which I was then surprised: "Should I receive
a Kriya teaching from the worse criminal in the world, I would be able of
turning it into gold. Should it be polluted, I would have the intuition to
separate the wheat from the chaff". She was astonished, perhaps she thought
39
that her many words and scolding proved useless. She said with a sigh that
my logic was originated from a wounded ego.
I shifted my attention to a particular photograph of P.Y. shot on the day of
his death. It was framed nicely, some flowers and a packets of incense were
put before it. In those moments of silence, I had the sensation that some tears
were going to form in his blissful eyes (it was not a bizarre feeling, other
people told me they had the same impression). I related my impressions to
her, in response to which she became so serious and, with her eyes pointed far
off toward an indefinite spot, she soberly uttered: "You have to consider it a
warning: the Guru is not content with you"! There was not the least doubt
that she was not joking at all. At that time I realized how P.Y. was a
"presence" in her life, although she never met him in person!
She spoke at length, uninterruptedly, for about an hour. She went on
explaining that the intelligence is a double-edged weapon: it can be used to
eliminate the swelling of ignorance and also to cut off abruptly the lifeblood
that sustains the spiritual path. Then she spoke about a disciple of P.Y., who
had been formerly part of the direction of the organization, then had branched
out on his own opening another Kriya school: a "traitor" to her. She compared
him to the angel Lucifer, beautiful and intelligent. Then she lost herself
talking about discipline, loyalty...
I remember particularly an anecdote that wanted to illustrate that
everything the organization through its representatives asked me came
directly from God. She told me what happened when one of his disciples
decided to leave P.Y.’s Ashram. The Guru, aware of this, got in on the
disciple’s way to stop him, when he heard an inner voice - "the voice of God",
she specified - ordering him not to interfere with the disciple’s freedom. The
Guru obeyed and in a flash of intuition foresaw all the disciple’s future
incarnations, those in which he would be lost, in which he would keep on
seeking – amid innumerable sufferings, jumping from one error to another –
the path he was then relinquishing. Then, in the end, the disciple would return
to the same path. The lady said that her Guru had been really accurate on the
number of incarnations that the whole discouraging trip would have taken to
be over – about thirty!
The moral of this story was clear, something from which one could not
escape: I just had to follow what I had been advised and not to look for other
"because that was God’s will". If I had not done so, I would lose myself in a
labyrinth of enormous sufferings and who knows when I would be able to get
back to the correct path. Although she admired the earnestness with which I
was making progress – unlike so many other tepid and half-hearted people
who would go to her only to be reloaded with the motivation they could not
find in themselves - she was dismayed, for her devotion toward the Guru was
40
totally extraneous to me. By telling me that one or other episodes of P.Y.’s
life, she tried to let me share her experiences. I am very thankful to her for all
her sincere efforts and time spent with me, but how could she thwart my inner
nature? She did only what was in her power: she could not relieve my
immense thirst for knowledge of the art of Kriya. Looking into her beautiful
but sad eyes, I had the clear impression that she was permanently expecting
me to act in a somewhat "disloyal" way.
I didn't follow her suggestions. For a long time I hoped to find in some
book clues which could help me to clarify my doubts concerning the practice
of the Higher Kriyas - one was the praxis of Kechari Mudra, the second what
were the psychophysical blows with which P.Y. assured it was possible to
awaken the Chakras. My search took a particular route: she herself told me
three names of some direct disciples of P.Y. who had a clash with the school’s
board of directors and set up on their own. Without saying anything to her, I
purchased all their published material, taped lectures and all. I was expecting
that in order to show how they had become proficient with Kriya, they would
come out with intriguing sentences, deeper than the material provided by the
main school. A faint expectation lingered in me that they gave the reader (who
neglected the principal source to listen to their voice of dissent) the present of
a more accurate didactic material.
The first disciple seemed an expert in idle chatter and was mean with
giving practical instructions; the second one was undoubtedly more
professional, pedagogically gifted, but from of all his literature and tapes only
one of his sentences shed a faint light upon one of the Higher Kriyas; in the
literature of the third disciple - surprising and valuable since, having met the
tragedy of mental illness, he recounted exhaustively his anguish - I found
(save for an illumining sentence upon the role of Kechari Mudra) only a
devastating banality. The secrets, if they had some, were well guarded!
Months later, the lady that I had known, the meditation counselor came to
know that I had read the "forbidden" books. I had no doubt that in the third
millennium a person can read whatever he considers more convenient and so I
did; one of those books, although clarified almost nothing, was interesting: I
made a present of it to some friends. After some months, a friend of mine
showed me a letter in which she had called me "a man who stabs his Guru’s
back, handing out daggers to other people as well, so that they can do the
same"! Her reaction had been so emphatic that I wasn't hurt at all; I felt a sort
of tenderness toward her. I could sense that her actions were driven by waves
of emotions and decades of steadfast conditioning, affecting irretrievably her
commonsense. Seeing her own expectations regarding my behavior coming
true, I am sure that while typewriting that letter and pouring into it lots of
other considerations to free all the accumulated tension, her countenance was
41
at last tranquil and serene as if tasting a delicious, intimate satisfaction.
Some years later, when my relationship with that Kriya school was almost
completely compromised, I met with another of its representatives: in a matter
of five minutes that minister showed me (without reservation and hysteria)
how to do the movements of the Third and Fourth Kriya and encouraged me
in the practice of all the Kriya techniques. Had God changed His plans, or had
I finally met a polite and judicious person?
42
CHAPTER I/04 THE BREATHLESS STATE
Overcoming a certain reluctance, I began reading some books written by
Lahiri Mahasaya’s disciples, who did not have any connection with P.Y.. My
hesitation in dropping the literature linked with P.Y. resulted from the fact
that, in my opinion, he was unique and I was confident that I would use only
his teaching for the rest of my life. I used to get annoyed at those people
hinting about Kriya secrets to be gained outside P.Y.'s legacy.
The books written by Lahiri Mahasaya’s direct disciples (or by their
disciples) were few: mainly commentaries on spiritual classics. They
disappointed me and made me miss the clarity of P.Y.’s writing. They were
but blank, meaningless words, with an endless number of repetitions in
addition to continuous changes of topic, which I considered unbearable. The
practical notes, presented as essential, were but scattered notes copied from
classical books on Yoga. The lack of care in them made me suppose that the
author had not bothered checking the original texts he had quoted. He most
probably took those quotations from books which were also quoting from
other reference books, continuing a chain where each author would add
something to mark his personal contribution. I decided to study all the
material furnished by the organization again and to delve deeper into it.
I used to meet some kriyaban friends on Sundays, read crucial passages
from those Kriya lessons and dwell on them during a walk. Everyone
embarked in a personal study of which those talks represented the peak. I
shudder at the thought of how fruitless our effort was - like drawing blood
from a stone - yet it's the way things went for about two years.
Then a profound crisis uprooted any previously acquired scheme and
dogma. It originated from the obstinate decision of coping with the problems
arising from a delicate relationship in the yogic way. I chose, among all P.Y.'s
writings, a sentence that matched those plans of behavior toward which my
blind instinct drove me. I deceived myself by repeating it internally like a
Mantra while acting in a way contrary to ordinary common sense. I could not
see that this lethal approach prevented me from exerting watchfulness and
discrimination. I was acting as supported from "above", imagining that the
benedictions and the strength of the Guru were with me.
The failure came about and it was desolating and shameful. In a first
moment, I could not accept it. I refused to believe that I had acted wrongly. I
was convinced that the other person was unable to live up to the standards of
my actions. I believed that mine was an apparent failure and that one day
everything would resolve in my favor. Then my illusory dream began to
disintegrate, slowly but inexorably.
43
For some months I wasn't able to track down the thread of a single
coherent thought, then I succeeded in looking at the whole situation with due
detachment.
My first efforts in exploring my book-learned Pranayama were
accompanied by intelligence and by a bit of courage too: I could only rely on
my intuition. The Pranayama discipline was for me an art to be perfected
with the greatest concentration. While practicing, I dreamt about its
unthinkable progression and was quietly excited during each instant of it. This
disclosed a real heaven for me!
With regard to the way I tackled the preliminary techniques of Hong So
and Om, I was stirred up by the idea (which proved false) that they were not
effective like Kriya Pranayama. As a consequence I expressed a never-againto-
be-found commitment: the result of which rewarded me immensely.
Afterwards, having received Kriya, the idea of practicing "the fastest
technique in the field of spiritual evolution" made the intensity of my effort
lose its edge. Apart from other foolish thoughts, I had swallowed the childish
idea that each Kriya breath could produce "the equivalent of a solar year of
spiritual evolution" and that through a million of these breaths I would
infallibly reach Cosmic Consciousness. I tried just to perform the greatest
possible number of Pranayama in order to complete quickly the abovementioned
number.
The hypnotic atmosphere of the "Guru's Blessings" made sure that I didn't
realize into what situation I had relentlessly slipped and therefore I felt no
shame or remorse. I felt myself a privileged being to whom an unexpected
advantage had been granted.
"Aren’t you glad of having found a true Guru? - for years I heard this
refrain from the organization - Aren’t you enthusiastic that He has been
chosen for you by God Himself?" "Oh yeess we are happy" we replied with
tears of joy. This idea, more than any other factor, had lethal effects on me: it
was the cradle in which my ego was fed and strengthened.
To remind myself that I entered the Kriya organization only to perfect my
already good practice of Pranayama created a thorny pain: it was imperative
to recreate the spirit of an authentic search. I had to stop behaving like a man
who had found a treasure, hides and sleeps satisfied upon it; it was necessary
from now on, if Pranayama was really a treasure, as I was convinced, to use
my intelligence to perfect it. This also implied accepting the uneasiness of
uncertainty and doubt.
44
Patanjali
I studied Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras with the intention of finding a clue about
how to plan a Kriya routine. Patanjali was a pioneer in the art of rationally
handling the mystical path, aiming at individualizing a universal,
physiological direction of the inner events that explained why a certain
phenomenon, inherent to the spiritual path, should be preceded and
necessarily followed by other ones. His extreme synthesis may be criticized
or, because of its temporal distance, may be hard to understand; however, his
work is of extraordinary importance.
In the mystical path (Yoga), he pinpoints eight steps: Yama, Niyama,
Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana, Samadhi.
There are different ways of translating the Sanskrit terms. Yama: selfcontrol
(non-violence, avoid lies, avoid stealing, avoid being lustful and seek
non-attachment). Niyama: religious observances (cleanliness, contentment,
discipline, study of the Self and surrender to the Supreme God).
In regard to Asana (position of the body), Patanjali explains that it must be
stable and comfortable.
The first meaningful action is Pranayama: regulation of the Prana mainly
through regulation of the breath. A state of calmness and poise is created
which becomes the foundation of the subsequent steps.
The Pranayama phase leads to the lofty breathless state. Pratyahara (the
awareness is disconnected from external reality) requires perfect immobility.
Dharana is concentration (focusing the mind on a chosen object --
Patanjali goes on explaining that, after the breath’s disappearance, a Yogi
should look for a physical or abstract object onto which he might turn his
concentration and practice in a sort of contemplative meditation in such a way
as to lose himself in it).
Dhyana is meditation or contemplation -- the persistence of a focusing
action as a steady, uninterrupted flow of awareness, which fully explores all
aspects of the chosen object.
Samadhi is perfect spiritual absorption (deep contemplation in which the
object of meditation becomes inseparable from the meditator himself).
In order to relate Patanjali’s eight step path with Kriya, it appears clear that
the first two steps (the what-is-correct and the what-is-not-correct) should be
taken for granted without being mentioned. The total uselessness of the
moralizing "sermons" is manifest. This doesn't mean that a kriyaban’s life can
be licentious. But the necessity of accepting definite moral precepts, is
something that is understood only after having tasted the honey of the
spiritual experience. To put it simply, it has been seen that people running a
45
morally questionable life were successful in Kriya, coming spontaneously to
the so-called virtuous life, while a lot of conformists failed.
A Kriya teacher is always inclined to pretend he does not notice some
problematic delusive student’s behavior. He lays his confidence in the
transforming Kriya effect. On the other hand, it is obvious that if the
eagerness to learn Kriya pushes a kriyaban to go to a teacher, being further
proposed to swear on oath on Patanjali’s moral rules (Yama, Niyama), the
student will almost surely make the required promise just to please the
teacher.
As for Asana, the Half-lotus (seldom Siddhasana, hardly ever
Padmasana) is commonly utilized in Kriya. Most of the Kriya teachers do not
even dream of wasting time in giving personal detailed advice with regard to
this point: they know that the earnest and resolute student will use his
common sense to find an ideal and comfortable position, so that he can easily
maintain his back straight during the Kriya practice. The practice of Maha
Mudra, besides its important role in preparing the body for Pranayama, helps
in maintaining a supple and healthy spine. Pranayama is the core of Kriya
Yoga: kriyabans know this very well! What they, on the other hand, seem to
forget is the fact that it is only a phase of the whole process. Kriya
Pranayama above all, if integrated with the Higher Kriyas, involves such
ample and delicate procedures that many kriyabans don't have the time to give
the due attention to what comes afterwards. In strict physical immobility
Pratyahara happens, which, without interruption, flows into Dharana and
therefore into Dhyana.
Those techniques which require movement should be ideally and
practically situated inside the phase of Pranayama: as a whole they constitute
a definite action on the breath and therefore on the energy contained in it. The
Prana is guided, harnessed - hence the utility of certain movements - into
definite parts of the body. The breath and the heart subsequently slow their
pace. During Pratyahara the awareness of the breath is put almost entirely
aside: it goes on free, at his own rhythm. Intensifying the awareness on the
spine and the centers of the brain, the breath calms down almost entirely. In
this phase, and in those following, it is not possible to move a single muscle
of the body. Entering into an even greater immobility, the mental one, one
meets with the Omkar Reality in the form of inner sound and spiritual light.
This phase is Dharana, which spontaneously becomes Dhyana: the borders
between the two being indistinguishable in practice. Thus it is unthinkable
that after the Kriya Pranayama one's routine is completed by just waiting
passively for five-ten minutes before getting up from one's Asana.
It was not difficult to abide by this principle; its correctness appeared right
from the profusion of inner joy. The concentration on the third eye - that
46
"inward eye" which Wordsworth with appropriate words defines as "the bliss
of solitude" - happened spontaneously. I didn't practice the Hong So
technique anymore before Pranayama but, in certain cases, only after it.
Some times, especially in the evenings, I replaced it with the Om technique.
This happy choice gave birth to one of the most beautiful periods of my life,
but in order to speak about it, it is necessary to make some preliminary
remarks about Japa.
The Mother
The great fascination for this eminent figure started when I was introduced to
the thought of Sri Aurobindo - his Aphorisms, Synthesis of Yoga and his epic
poem Savitri [Collected works of Sri Aurobindo by Sri Aurobindo Ashram
Trust] had deeply impressed me. After Sri Aurobindo’s death, in 1951, the
Mother (Mére) was the one continuing his research and giving ground to his
dream that the Divine - the intelligent and evolutive force at the base of any
existing thing - could come to a perfect manifestation on this planet! "The
world is not an unfortunate accident: it is a miracle moving towards its full
expression" and "In matter, the Divine becomes perfect…" were her favorite
sentences. From 1958 to 1973 - the year when Mother left her body - she
tried to find the passage to the next species, to discover a new mode of life in
matter and narrated her extraordinary exploration to Satprem. Their talks are
written out it Mother’s Agenda 9
She did not behave like a traditional Guru, even though she tried to extract
from those disciples looking for inspiration at her feet all their hidden
potential. "I belong to no nation, no civilization, no society, no race, but to
the Divine. I obey no Master, no ruler, no law, no social convention, but the
Divine", she affirmed.
Her presence in my life, evoked through close and passionate readings,
acted like an inner pressure calling for the necessity of extracting a meaning
from each part of my existence. According to her teaching, people become
true individuals only when, in a constant pursuit of a greater beauty, harmony,
power and knowledge, they are perfectly and in a compact manner unified
around their divine center. She stressed the value of not trying to become pure
in other people’s eyes, but to behave according to the truth of one’s being. To
her, one should acknowledge one's dark side: in the depths of our being it stirs
9 This huge document — 6000 pages in 13 volumes — is the account of twenty-two
years of Mother's discoveries.
47
the same substance which, in a few, has developed into a way of living which
is shunned by society. I do not remember where I found her statement that
"the desire for purity is the greatest obstacle for one’s spiritual path". "Do not
try to be virtuous - she added - find out to what extent you are united with
what is anti-divine." I really cannot describe the explosion of joy and the
feeling of freedom I felt reading such words which, in the spiritual field, were
really revolutionary!
Japa
I remained very impressed how Mother handled a theme that later became one
of my favorite ones: Mantra (Japa). During the screening of a film she heard
the Sanskrit Mantra: OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH. She wondered what
would happen if she repeated that Mantra during her daily meditation. She did
this and the result was extraordinary. She reported that: "It (the Mantra)
coagulates something: all the cellular life becomes one solid, compact mass,
in a tremendous concentration – with a single vibration. Instead of all the
usual vibrations of the body, there is now only one single vibration. It
becomes as hard as a diamond, a single massive concentration, as if all the
cells of the body had ... I became stiff from it. I was so stiff that I was one
single mass." [This quotation, as well as the next ones, are drawn from
Mother’s Agenda.] Her practice of Japa consolidated into a life-long habit.
When she sat for meditation, she always began with the repetition of the
Mantra and there was a response in the cells of her body: they all started
vibrating as "seized with an intensity of aspiration" and that vibration went on
expanding. It is not the place here to dwell upon the subtle phases of her work
in the body: she used the Mantra to hasten it. What was important for me was
the fact that she dared to challenge Sri Aurobindo's authority. Actually, she
said to Satprem: "Sri Aurobindo gave none [Mantra]; he said that one should
be able to do all the work without having to resort to external means. Had he
reached the point where we are now, he would have seen that the purely
psychological method is inadequate and that a Japa is necessary, because only
Japa has a direct action on the body. So I had to find the method all alone, to
find my Mantra by myself. But now that things are ready, I have done ten
years of work in a few months." In many passages of Mother’s Agenda they
discussed how the Mantra calms the persons in surrounding areas by creating
an atmosphere of such an intensity that disharmonies cease to exist.
Furthermore: "Mantra has a great action: it can prevent an accident. It simply
springs forth in a flash, all of a sudden" but "It has to spring up without
thinking, without calling: it should issue forth from the being spontaneously,
48
like a reflex, exactly like a reflex." But the Mantra is also the sweetest of all
the things: "On the days when I have no special preoccupations or difficulties
(days I could call normal, when I am normal), everything I do, all the
movements of this body, all, all the words I utter, all the gestures I make, are
accompanied and upheld by or lined, as it were, with this mantra: OM NAMO
BHAGAVATEH ... OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH ... all, all the time, all the
time, all the time." A last amazing remark I quote is that she was able to
notice the difference between those who have a Mantra and those who don’t.
"With those who have no Mantra, even if they have a strong habit of
meditation or concentration, something around them remains hazy and vague,
whereas Japa imparts to those who practice it with a kind of precision, a kind
of solidity: an armature. They become galvanized, as it were".
Needless to say that in those days one single idea rotated in my mind: I had
to find my Mantra. I experimented with Mother's - Om Namo Bhagavate - but
it did not worked for me. In the meantime I stuck to the simplest routine of
Kriya and tried to live in a more conscious way (continuously attentive of any
perception, inner and outward).
I tried to carry out the well-known instruction to resolutely maintain a
impartial attitude toward both pleasant and unpleasant events, being like a
detached "witness". This discipline is recommended in almost all the books
dealing with oriental meditative practices. After three days, I felt myself under
unbearable stress as if it all was a pretense, an illusion.
Swami Ramdas
It was at this time that I came across a book about the life and experiences of
Swami Ramdas, the Indian saint who moved far and wide all over India
unceasingly repeating the Mantra: Sri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram Om. This
was indeed an important event; his photo - the almost childish simplicity of
his smile - kindled my intuition and led me to try the same practice.
An event arose from this decision, which still remains in my heart as a
peak experience. Helped by a mala (rosary beads), I started to practice Japa
aloud during a walk for 108 times, then I tried to continue it mentally during
the remaining part of that walk and during my daily chores.
Even though the oriental traditions recommend to do Japa mentally, I am
confident that it should be done aloud - at least for an initial set of a hundred
repetitions. Furthermore, experience and common sense contradict the belief
that a Mantra works only if it is given by a Guru; it is obvious that an expert
helping us choose a Mantra and using all his persuasion to win our consent to
49
use it relentlessly, represents the most precious service we can ever take
advantage of, but that’s all!.
The sound of the Mantra, which I had already listened to in a spiritual song
recording, was very pleasant. Since the choice of my Mantra was born from
an indubitable predilection, I loved to caress its vibration, prolong it on my
lips, make it vibrate in my chest and invest it with my heart’s aspiration. My
attitude was not that of a supplicating and sobbing devotee, but that of a man
one step away from his goal. Even if sometimes I felt a bit dazed, I
maintained the determination never to discard the practice. Since I observed,
while doing it, an irresistible impulse to put everything in order, I thought that
the Mantra could work in a similar way by cleaning my mental stuff and
putting my "psychological furniture" in order. The practice was like a
pneumatic hammer tearing asunder the concrete of the mind's conditionings,
allowing me to cross, unharmed, its swamps and reach the dimension of pure
awareness. I had the impression it annulled the mental background noise, of
which presence I was aware only when I sat for Kriya - sometimes I felt
desperate since it definitively blocked any attempt at concentration. There are
some thoughts which we can visualize, identify and block, but a diffuse
persistent background noise nullifies all our efforts. This is won when we
practice Japa. This tool is unique, it can produce "miracles" where our best
intentions fail! I was astonished in perceiving its considerable effect. There
must be a reason why Continuous Prayer ("Inner Prayer", "Heart Prayer",
Dhikr) was and is the basic technique used by a lot of mystics.
I know that some kriyabans do not use Japa, not because they do not like
it, but because they state that Lahiri Mahasaya did not recommend that
practice. We can reply that almost all his disciples, Hindus and Muslims, used
that practice since it was, at that time and in that place, very ordinary.
The breathless state
Summer came, and I practiced Japa every day in the morning and Kriya at
noon in the open countryside. One day, during mental Pranayama, while I
was climbing up and down the Chakras, I distinctly perceived a fresh energy
sustaining my body from inside. I entered a perfect immobility and, at a
certain moment, I discovered I was completely without breath. This condition
lasted various minutes, without any feeling of uneasiness: there was neither
the least quiver of surprise, or the thought: "Finally I have it!". The event was
enjoyable beyond words: in a blue-painted profundity, it contained the skies
of my childhood.
50
In the following days the same events happened again. I verified the
perfect association between the practice of Japa and the attainment of this
state. I was astonished that one of the simplest techniques in the world, such
as Japa is, had brought such a valuable result! Before starting my Kriya
practice, I looked at the surrounding panorama wondering if I would
experience that state once again: after about 35-40 minutes I had already
completed the active part – the last breaths of Pranayama – and then, after no
more than two or three minutes, during mental Pranayama, the miracle
happened.
An incomparable sense of inner freedom - which is impossible to forget –
accompanied the impression to be implacably crushed by the beauty of nature
and, at the same time, be situated above the whole world. About the effects
this exerts upon daily life, it reminded me of what Sri Aurobindo wrote about
the moment he first stepped on Indian soil, after his long periods of study in
England. He discussed the manner in which the Peace, the Silence, the
freedom in Infinity descended, surrounded him and remained with him for
months afterwards. Subsequently, I carefully observed, how the breathless
state arose.
My awareness paused on each Chakra about ten seconds - as a bee drawn to
the nectar in flowers, hovering upon each in great delight - slightly
"touching" their nucleus along an anticlockwise (as viewed from above) path.
The more I relaxed during this inner action, the more I became aware of a
fresh sensation of energy sustaining each part of my body. I was thus
simultaneously aware both of the Chakras and of the body as a whole. A clear
perception of an inner lightness and utter mental transparency was the mark
that the breathless state was settling. The breath, which in the meantime had
became very very short, eventually came to immobility, like a pendulum
gently reaching the equilibrium point.
In the course of three months I lived in this celestial dimension, perfectly at
ease, still, without any desire to fulfill. A calm euphoria accompanied me: the
certainty of finally having found something stable and immutable within the
evanescent flux of existence - which sometimes seems to have the consistency
of an infinite sequence of reflexes upon the water. Flashes of the ultimate
stage of freedom touched my mind...
When I went out for a walk, if I met somebody and stopped to listen to
him, no matter what he said, a sudden joy would expand in my chest and rise
to my eyes to the point that I could barely hold back my tears. Looking at the
distant mountains or at other details of the landscape, I would try to direct my
feeling toward them in order to turn my paralyzing joy into aesthetic rapture;
51
only this could keep back the joy clutching my being, only this could hide it.
Absence of breath does not mean action; it is total lack of movement and
of the least thought-caused throb; however it is from it that an action is born
which changes one’s destiny. Aurobindo wrote: "The mind does not act; it
simply releases an irresistible action from its recess".
Many outward changes in my life ensued; surely the luminosity of that one
day helped me to get rid of all my doubts about the decision of writing a book
about Kriya, thus breaking the vow of secrecy; this choice began radiating
since this enchanted epoch.
I thought: "I must not forget this experience ever, I want to have it again,
every day of my life, because it is the most real thing which has ever been
experienced"! It seemed impossible to lose it. It almost lasted for one year,
then I lost it. The world of the "traveling Gurus" was getting closer to my life,
and with it, an unbelievable confusion too.
52
Appendix: literature about Japa
The literature concerning Japa is very vast and of great inspiration. My preferred books
are: In Quest of God by Swami Ramdas and the The Way of a Pilgrim and The Pilgrim
Continues His Way by Anonymous. They are two simple books, easily found, which
explain with amazing simplicity everything essential about Japa.
Swami Ramdas was born in 1884 at Hosdrug, Kerala, India, and named Vittal Rao.
He lived a normal life until he was thirty-six and experienced also the usual ups and
downs of an householder's life. Often he inquired about the true meaning of life and felt
the necessity of pursuing the spiritual path in order to get the real "Peace". At the right
moment, his father initiated him into the Ram Mantra, assuring him that by repeating it
unceasingly he would, in due time, achieved the divine happiness he was aspiring to. It
was then that he renounced the secular life and went forth in quest of God as a
mendicant Sadhu. The first years of his newly found life are described in his aforesaid
autobiography.
The Mantra "Om Sri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram" was ever on his lips. Besides the
practice of Japa, he adopted the discipline of looking upon other people as forms of
Ram – God - and of accepting every happening as coming from the will of God.
In a short time the Mantra disappeared from his lips and entered his heart. He beheld
a small circular light in the spot between his eyebrows, which yielded him thrills of
delight. Then the dazzling light permeated and absorbed him. Lost in this inexpressible
bliss he would sit for hours. The world appeared to him as a dim shadow. A stage was
soon reached when this dwelling in the spirit became a permanent and unvarying
experience. Ramdas attained Mahasamadhi in 1963.
To meet the simplicity of his life and the greatness of his experience is very
inspiring: one receives a fresh impetus to start with Japa.
The second book, The Way of a Pilgrim, is tied with Hesychasm, a Christian Orthodox
movement which has astonishing similarities with the Kriya Yoga path.
The origin of this spiritual classic is in many ways a mystery. No one knows for
certain if it is a true story about a particular pilgrim or a spiritual fiction created to
propagate the mystical side of the Orthodox Christian faith.
We are stricken by the opening words: "By the grace of God I am a Christian man,
by my actions a great sinner, and by calling a homeless wanderer of the humblest birth
who roams from place to place. My worldly goods are a knapsack and some dried bread
in it, and a Bible in my breast pocket. And that is all".
The wandering hermit's life is held before the reader for guidance and imitation.
Those who would truly lead a spiritual life will surely feel a wave of attraction for this
simple and courageous way of living and will draw benefit from the central idea of
starting with a set number of Mantra repetitions and then increasing it until it becomes
automatic. In order to realize the ideal of "praying ceaselessly", the pilgrim is first
instructed to repeat the Jesus Prayer 6000 times a day, then increase to 12000. Then he
finds the Prayer at his lips and in his mind every waking hour, as spontaneous and
effortless as the breath itself. In this wonderful condition he comes to experience the
effulgence of the divine light, the innermost "secret of the heart". In order to give an
idea of what, from now onwards, his life has become, the pilgrim quotes the Gospel
passage of the birds of the air and the lilies of the field - identifying himself with them
as completely dependent on God: whatever happens, it cannot separate him from God.
The importance of having these examples as reference is felt when moments are
53
encountered in which the temptation to leave Japa aside is tremendous. Sometimes one
might feel like one is in a difficult process of recovery; sometimes the noise coming
from the external world will reach one's ears as amplified, while the widened sensitivity
gives one the impression of having become more fragile, vulnerable and defenseless. At
that moment, it is necessary to concentrate upon the chosen Mantra with an absolute
fervor, to the point of exhaustion - an apparent exhaustion.
I adopted the term exhaustion after discussing Japa with a friend. He practiced it
without getting any result. I had the impression that Japa was for him a cerebral act. His
thoughts were repeating it, its vibration was not connected in any way to his body. I
observed him carefully while he was practicing: I was witness to a lifeless practice, a
tired plea for God's mercy. It was not for nothing he had put aside his initial beautiful
Indian Mantra and chosen an expression in his mother tongue - which was nothing else
than a sigh of self-pity. There was nothing to be surprised at when, after some time, he
entirely abandoned the practice. He did not realize he was about to become the greatest
supporter of Japa.
The turning point came when he took part in a group pilgrimage. Someone began to
recite the so-called rosary (a set number of repetitions of the same prayer), to which all
the pilgrims united. Even if tired and almost gasping for breath, he did not withdraw
himself from this pious activity. While walking and praying softly, murmuring under his
breath, he began to taste a state of unknown calmness. He looked with different eyes at
the show of continuously changing landscape and had the impression of living in a
paradisiac situation. He went on repeating the Prayer unremittingly for the entire path,
completely forgetting he was tired and sleepy.
When the group paused to rest, he had the grace to be left alone —undisturbed; he
slipped into an introspective state and was pervaded by something vibrating in his own
heart, which he definitely identified with the Spiritual Reality. The ecstatic state
assumed the consistency of reality, became almost unbearable, overwhelming him. This
experience taught him the correct way of practicing Japa. He said that the secret was
not only to reach, but also to overcome the state of "exhaustion." After some
experiments he returned to his Indian Mantra and, thanks to it, he reached the breathless
state.
54
CHAPTER I/05 SEARCH OF THE ORIGINAL KRIYA
During a trip to Vienna (Austria), I found a book written by an Indian Swami,
claiming he was teaching the original Lahiri Mahasaya’s Kriya - P.Y.’s was
mentioned as a slightly modified form of it. Obviously that book, like
innumerable others which I would read in the future, had to serve as bait; to
make people interested in the Kriya school founded by that Swami and it
would never include practical explanations. I was positively excited when I
read that the practice of Pranayama should be considered inaccurate and
wrong if, settling down after fair number of breaths, the practitioner - without
closing his ears - had not listened to the internal sound of Om. The statement
was worthy to be taken into consideration; it was surely from a very deep
practice of Pranayama. Reading that book, I had the sensation that its author
knew the whole process of Kriya Yoga far better than many other teachers. In
his conception, Kriya was divided into six levels. He said they were
progressive steps of an enlightening process which would take place in the
hollow cavity of the brain called "the cave of Brahma". In the frontal part of
this region there is the pituitary gland (hypophysis), behind it we have the
pineal gland: the seats of the sixth and of the seventh Chakra respectively. An
emission of light, similar to a voltaic arc, would happen between the two
"poles" and shed light in that area. This process was described as a "mystic
union". The whole explanation was accompanied by a helpful sketch, which
had the psychological effect to eliminate all uncertainties on the validity and
universality of this theory.
I had no idea of when and where I could have the opportunity to encounter
this teacher, but I could almost touch the marvelous possibility of deepening
my Pranayama, clarifying my doubts regarding Kechari Mudra and Higher
Kriyas as well. In the following months, my fixed idea was to guess the
principle underlying the promised deepening of the Pranayama technique.
Sometimes an annoying doubt appeared: once this new teaching had been
received, how could I understand whether it was really original or made up?
My reservation stemmed from my conditioning according to which any Kriya
information, obtained not directly from my school, could be an invention of
those who pursued their personal interests - like earning money or exerting
power over other people. However, I reasoned thus: whether this procedure
was concocted or not, listening to the Om sound with opened ears would
surely be considered the proof of an optimal deepening of Pranayama.
I convinced myself that the key technical addition consisted in mentally
chanting Om in the Chakras while exerting all the possible attention to the
55
internal sounds.10 I can't remember how many of these breaths I used to
practice each day: surely, I never went over 48-60 breaths. Since from my
Kriya school I had learned to practice Pranayama with open or half closed
mouth, thus I did. After these pleasing breaths I went on listening inwardly.
The best thing was to remain aware of the breath (a calm short breath, almost
imperceptible and on the verge of disappearing), linking each breath with a
different Chakra.11 Recalling the wonderful period of my life when I received
the deepest satisfaction from the Om technique learned inside the school, I
anticipated a striking success in the new undertaking.
The inner sound appeared after just four days of painstaking practice. It
was winter and I had a three week vacation. I spent every morning wrapped in
the warmth of my home, practicing as much as possible. I experienced a total
contentment and ease, as if my Kriya path had come to its fulfillment. By day,
everything seemed surrounded by a 'padded coating', reducing all
dissonances. Everything was as if it were transfigured; it was like living in a
perfect reality and the whole world was smiling ecstatically at me - every pain
took flight, off my sight.
I also spent some days in a beautiful location equipped for winter sport.
Here I could wander the snow-white countryside aimlessly. While I was
lazily getting about, the sun set early, painting the landscape with breathtaking
colors; the small village, sunk in the snow, started to radiate all the colors
from the spectrum of light. My memory will always hold it as the splendid
symbol of my contact with the Omkar experience. The strange part was that I
did not know the teacher yet; I had just read his book: it was the intensity of
my practice that was extreme!
The winter vacation ended and I got back to my job. During my spare time,
I would think about what a precious jewel the Kriya technique was;
visualizing the possibility of a future deepening, with such a commitment to
the Higher Kriyas also. One day, still at work, I was in a room from which I
could glimpse the distant mountains through a window pane, and contemplate
the pure celestial sky above them. I was in ecstasy! That distant sky was the
mirror of my future years, wholly dedicated to my Kriya Yoga. For the first
time, the prospect of retiring and living with a minimal income, maintaining
10 That teacher would have disappointed me. What I was guessing now was the original
Kriya of Lahiri Mahasaya, not the form taught by that Swami. Over the years, he had
simplified the original technique more and more. The whole matter is faced in detail in
the chapter II/3: what he taught before making so many corrections is reconstructed
under the heading school [A].
11 In the book I had found a deep detail: if we want to make a remarkable spiritual
progress, we should engage ourselves in being aware of 1728 breaths a day.
56
this state for the rest of my days, started to take real shape.
My first Kriya teacher
Being about to undergo surgery in the United States, the author of the book
was going to make a stop in Europe; I worked very hard to meet him and
receive his Kriya initiation on that occasion. That moment came up at last! I
was excited like a child receiving the most beautiful of all gifts. The
introductory conference was for me of great emotional impact. He had a
majestic and noble aspect, he was "handsomely" wrapped in his ocher clothes,
his old age, long hair and beard marked the features of the typical sage. I took
glimpses of him while he spoke, hidden by the front rows; I heard him talk of
Lahiri Mahasaya’s legacy according to his personal experience.
The theoretical concepts he introduced were absolutely new for me and
created a beautiful consistent frame for a Kriya praxis conceived as a unique
progressive process of tuning with the Omkar reality. Like a thread passing
through all the pearls of a necklace, Omkar was coursing through all the
different phases of Kriya. Maha Mudra was not separated from Pranayama
which was not separated from mental Pranayama. Furthermore, the Omkar
reality had to be perceived not only in the aspect of sound and light but also in
the aspect of a "swinging sensation" (some other time he spoke about a
feeling of pressure). His stupendous, appealing words were for me a
revelation but, at certain moments, the inquisitiveness in learning the new
technical details made me unable to give the due attention to what he was
saying; I therefore did not grasp at once all the implication of those concepts.
My obsession was: "What kind of throat sounds are to be produced in this
original Kriya, to which center does the energy rise in the spine?" To make
the students understand the proper aspect of the movement of Omkar, he
touched some of them (their head and chest) making his hand vibrate, trying
to transmit this quivering to their body. He was leading the auditorium into a
wondrous dimension, he gave himself completely to us so that we could feel
the flavor of this experience.
The initiation into the First Kriya thrilled and disappointed me at the same
time: the forward bendings that preceded the Maha Mudra were really
precious and so it was the final meditation (improperly called Paravastha) but
the Pranayama seemed to have disappeared and reduced to a short, purely
mental process.
His Second Kriya, which I learned months later was easy and enjoyable: it
contained a beautiful form of breathing. It consisted primarily in blending the
twelve-syllable Mantra (Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya) with a fragmented
57
breath. The effect was to touch internally each Chakra with one syllable. 12 No
one met with any difficulties in performing this and made it a regular part of
one's daily routine.
Yet, in spite of his strong power of persuasion, the soil he plowed and was
cultivating began to become sterile, because he had made the fatal mistake of
leaving out some of the techniques Lahiri Mahasaya had passed on - not only
some parts of the Higher Kriyas, but also some of the basic techniques such as
Kechari Mudra and Navi Kriya.
Being aware that the original Kriya spirit had been lost in other schools, he
focused only in passing on its nucleus. He had tried all Lahiri Mahasaya’s
techniques, concluding that some of them were not essential, while others
were rather too delicate and difficult to be learned. Attempts made by
inexperienced students - in order to effectively use these techniques - could
result in a useless distraction for the students and a waste of time for him as a
teacher.
He expressed himself adamantly: the request, by some people, to receive
other advanced techniques implied a lack of engagement in the basic ones.
What he said made definite sense, but contributed to his isolation. He did
not take into consideration how the human mind really works, through
insatiable curiosity and the total rejection of any veto. He really had all the
necessary tools to attract the western world. The book he had written had been
a smart strategic action which made him popular in the west, saving for him a
place of crucial importance in the domain of Kriya. Moreover, his Indian-sage
figure impressed the people. Hundreds of scholars were enthusiastic about
him, they were ready to back his mission and treat him like a "divinity", being
willing to show the same respect to possible collaborators and successors.
His unlucky decision triggered an inexorable mechanism which pushed
away the people who were most indispensable to him. Literally devoured by
the thirst for obtaining the complete teachings, they started to turn to the
search for other teachers. Disappointed by their defection, he stubbornly
focused even more on the essence of teaching and further simplifying of the
First Kriya techniques.
I saw the sense of his solitude when, one day, on a Kriya reviewing lesson,
he told his public that the real Pranayama could only take place in a state of
calm breath; contrary to the one marked by a long deep breath (which many
knew was the characteristic of Lahiri Mahasaya's legacy), could be "good
only for kindergarten children"! He closed his nostrils with his fingers and
kept that position for some time. He hinted in this way that he had mastered
12 This teaching is quite similar to the Omkar Pranayama which, by many Kriya
schools, is today given as introduction to the Second Kriya. The particular way it was
taught by this school is given in Chapter II/03 (see school [A])
58
the breathless state; it seemed he wanted to point out that the public was
neither able to understand nor practice Kriya. I thought to myself how many
disappointments must have convinced him to make such a peculiar
demonstration. Perhaps he had only met people who had not been able to
adopt the discipline of a regular meditation practice and therefore did not gain
any benefit; but they did have the curiosity for 'other secrets' of Kriya.
Many acknowledged this as a nasty comment to the fact that he was giving
his explanations only out of kindness, but the audience was not able to
understand the deep meaning of what he was demonstrating. The students
staring at him were completely at a loss; he must have been bizarre and
peculiar to them. The result was that the beginners could only sense too big a
distance to be bridged between them and the Master. Those who already had a
good mastering of Kriya had the final confirmation that what he had taught up
to that moment was a simple introduction to Kriya and did not provide the key
to obtain the experiential acme.
It is true that a lot of people were contented with his Kriya, but they would
never do something like organize a seminar for their teacher. Frankly
speaking, the faithfulness of the many was not enough to avoid the worst end.
His commendable effort, all the marvelous subtleties by which he had
enriched our Kriya, making this practice by far more beautiful, was not
enough to prevent a shipwreck of his mission – at least here in Europe. Those
who tried to get this absurdity across to him and prevent it, found themselves
facing a wall that would never break.
Using the same fliers and changing only the Master’s name and photo,
many of those people, who formerly organized his seminars, invited another
teacher from India because they knew he was well-disposed to explain Kriya
in its complete form. This invitation was very strange and was perhaps made
more out of desperation than that of conviction, because those who had
already met him in India knew that his spiritual realization was almost nonexistent.
It took two years before he could succeeded in overcoming the
problems with his visa and could finally land in Europe; when he arrived he
found practically all the afore described teacher’s disciples ready to welcome
him as a God-sent messenger.
New-Age-polluted Kriya Yoga
Meanwhile, I met different groups of people who practiced Kriya Yoga. I
dived head-first into the dreary territory of the New-Age-polluted Kriya Yoga.
I am reminded of this period of my life when I listen to the tape recordings of
some devotional chants which I had bought at that time. For some of my
59
friends who followed me in this trip, it turned to be the scene of bitter
disappointments and marked the definitive abandonment of the spiritual
pursuit.
My heart, if only I had stopped to listen to it for a moment, would have
told me that I was going adrift losing some essential attainments like the
breathless state, the listening to the Om sound.... It is very strange to
acknowledge: I had forgotten everything, it was like I had been hypnotized.
In that ambiance I met many people who – at least that was my first
impression – had a trait in common. Bound to a very oriental lifestyle, they
particularly loved an atmosphere, a way of behaving characterized by specific
sensations that they would cultivate with care and, above all, innocent
frenzies. 13 I learned to relate to each of them - for example, to those who
would host me whenever a seminar was held in a distant city - the way an
explorer deals with unknown animals, waiting for any eccentric revelation. At
times I would react to their oddness ironically; it was something I just could
not help, it came out so spontaneously.
Inside the group tied to my first organization, I met people whose
enthusiasm towards Kriya was very moderate, and it seemed they practiced
the few techniques they knew as if making a sacrifice to atone for the "guilt"
of existence. In this new ambiance, I met a lot of people who were yet "too
passionate" for Kriya and oriental meditative practices, fostering too much
faith in their alleged cathartic problem-solving potential. Many focused their
attention only on secondary aspects of the mystical path and had lost sight of
13 The New Age sensibility is marked by the perception of something "planetary" at
work. Since distinguished men of science have contributed to the New Age sensibility,
there is no need to dwell on the affirmation, irrelevant for our understanding, according
to which such a progress coincided with the entry of the solar system in the sign of
Aquarius - from this belief it derived the term "Age of Aquarius" or "New Age". The
essential thing is that people realized that the discoveries of Physics, of Alternative
Medicine, the developments of the Depth Psychology, all converged towards one and
the same understanding: the substantial interdependence among the universe, body,
psyche and spiritual dimension of human beings. The esoteric-initiation societies,
overcoming for a long time the differences of culture and religious vision, had already
recognized this truth, which now, has become common heritage. During the twentieth
century, human thought has made a strong step forward in a healthy direction.
There are many grounds to believe that, in the future, such an epoch will be studied
with the same respect with which nowadays Humanism, Renaissance and
Enlightenment ages are studied. The New Age thought deserves a deep respect for
many reasons. If I hint at some "frenzies" I refer to the excessive use of alternative
remedies for any type of real or imaginary troubles and to even more dangerous theories
borrowed with a lot of superficiality from various esoteric currents, rather than to a
depth progress in the understanding, in the expansion of the awareness out of the
narrow fences of the small ego tied up obsessively to the maintenance of its petty
conveniences.
60
their goal. Often a vague sense of well-being perceived while practicing a
certain technique for the first time was the proof of the excellence of the
technique itself. They did not realize that, in this way, they had made their ego
the compass needle of their spiritual journey. In their meditation room, filled
with multicolored posters and cushions, decorations, crystals and other
objects, they were satisfied by the established beautiful atmosphere. There
existed no other reality to be sought.
Sometimes this attitude was like preparing one's house for a distinguished
guest; endlessly polishing and decorating it, delighted by entranced awareness
of the different comforts their house allows - meanwhile, after having
repeatedly rung the bell, the guest was sitting neglected on the doormat…
Research on alternative medicines, group therapies directed by eccentric
individuals devoid of academic formation, were expensive distractions to be
added to Kriya.
Some had the dangerous and potentially destructive mania to explore
unceasingly the mysteries inherent to the "human potential". They were able
to devote any amount of time and action for this purpose. Some were lured to
invest in expensive seminars where their energy channels would be opened
and they would learn the secret of how to make use of the Universal Energy.
All this cost a lot, also because the seminars were not given nearby but
abroad, in expensive residences. Some abandoned their genuine attitude and
started losing contact with reality. When I dared to call into question the
validity of the whole thing, they, feeling annoyed, rebuked that there was no
reason to be perplexed about their practices, without having tried them. They
would comment: "It is our Karma that is giving us the best of all the
opportunities to grow in all the planes". "We are expected to answer in a
positive way. We don't have to stay jammed against this beneficial current
otherwise we could have … to die and born again just to live those
experiences that we are now shunning!" "The Kriya techniques are practiced
with the energy present in the body – they said - well, if this is recharged by
the flow of the Universal Energy, what appears as a long journey will become
like a stroll".
With regard to Kriya proper, we received various initiations by "minor"
teachers – namely those who once had been some illustrious Guru’s righthand
man, then had become independent by their own choice or because the
latter disowned them. Although I felt that atmosphere to be extraneous to me,
I accepted it as an inevitable drawback to succeed in acquiring the
information I searched for with so much passion. Bringing flowers was
recommended, some teachers asked for one flower, some others three or six;
some fruit was required too - someone might also expect a coconut, forcing
the students to desperately look for it store after store. Finally, a donation was
61
required, sometimes a free donation, sometimes a compulsory minimum
amount of money was set. I would finish all those initiations repeating to
myself how satisfied I was, making up my mind about abandoning all other
practices for the one I had just received. I shunned the awareness that the new
initiation had only added something insignificant to that which I already
knew; that it was confining myself to what would soon become a "cage" from
which I would sooner or later feel an unbearable suffocation - from which I
would eventually have to break loose.
These initiations were a true vice. There was the tendency of stocking up
on techniques like food for a famine. This habit created some splits in my
personality. Just to give an example, at almost all those initiation seminars a
solemn pledge of secrecy was the password to be accepted. Every one
devotionally took this pledge and, as soon as the meeting was over, they
shared, by cell-phone, the coveted news with other students who, in turn,
would take part in other initiations and would reciprocate the favor.
Generally speaking, after attending many different rituals, the explanations
were always quick and shallow; a destructive criticism was often raised
against information coming from other sources. We agreed that our teachers
were mostly mediocre persons with common visible human traits; this might
have been tolerable to common people, but strongly contrasting with the
personality expected of people who called themselves "spiritual guides".
We were not able to find even one of them who would prove to possess
that mastery of Kriya which was crucial in such a delicate pedagogic work
they were confident to do. Some trifling episodes confirmed our first
impression of instability, improvisation and, in one case, even of mental
instability. They knew little about Kriya Yoga and they taught it in an even
more superficial way. How was it possible we kept enduring these situations?
We were subjugated by the myth that Kriya is to be received from an
"authorized" teacher. They said they were, and to us this was enough.
It is strange to think that it was this deep rooted suggestion received from
P.Y.’s school that supported our deferential and tolerant attitude toward people
whom were actually abusing our trust and confidence.
Those who organized these meetings gave the impression of being honest
researchers and always guaranteed that no nonsense would ever slip out of
their mouths. I was surprised when one of them, beyond simple exhibitionism,
quoted by heart some lines from a work by P.Y.; the same, prophetic lines
which had once been the source of so many uncertainties. He read and read
through those texts several times trying to figure them out; he really strained
upon those texts. I felt that those researchers were my real family; I learned to
listen to them respectfully and silently whenever they would correct some of
62
my fancy interpretations on Kriya Yoga. Our relationship was based on real
affection and it never experienced disagreement, bitterness or formality. They
were always generous toward me and respectful of my personality. Never did
they try to force something into my mind, passionately sharing everything
they had learned, no matter if it cost them a great deal of time, effort and
money.
Other disappointments from India
Some friends of ours, coming back from India, showed on their face the
excitement for having seen such an extraordinary land. At the same time, their
disappointment for all the things they had not been able to learn started to
emerge. A couple happened to meet a boaster assuring them he knew Kriya
Yoga and could initiate them. This could only happen as long as they had kept
it a total secret without establishing any contact with other teachers. In this
manner, the boaster made sure that they would not realize that it was not
Kriya Yoga they were being taught. I could realize this only when,
overcoming their inner opposition, I had this technique explained to me as
well; it was nothing more than the mere repetition of a Mantra! What made
me feel sorry about it was not so much the great advantage gained by those
braggers (the Gurudakshina -- donation -- they received meant a real fortune
at my friends’ expense) as for missing their opportunity of learning Kriya
from other sources, in other places.
Something different happened to a friend of mine who met a descendant of
Lahiri Mahasaya. This was one of the master’s nephews, a man with a great
academic background and with a deep knowledge of Kriya, but my friend was
not able to learn anything from him. I was taken aback when he told me
"something bizarre". He told me that in Benares, and probably throughout
rest of India, Kriya Yoga was not practiced any longer. I kept enough control
not to interrupt or to challenge him, then by posing him apparently incidental
questions, I tried to understand what had happened. My friend, as he usually
did, began their discussion with trivialities like asking some information on
Indian habits, an Ashram’s address where he had planned to go, then almost at
the end of the interview – he must have suddenly remembered he was in
Lahiri Mahasaya’s house – he asked if any of the disciples of Lahiri were still
practicing Kriya... His demeanor must have frozen the eminent listener,
because his answer resulted in a sarcastically sour, negative response; in other
words: "Definitely not, it is not practiced any longer. I dare say it is not
practiced throughout the whole Indian peninsula. Rather, you surely must be
the only one still practicing it!".
63
At the end of his explanations, my friend’s eyes were looking at me
surprisingly. I am still not sure whether he was hoping to convince me or
whether he was just absorbed in bitter frustration. I did not pry into it. In my
opinion, he did not realize how foolish his discussion had been with that noble
person. A certain blow came for him one month later: he came to know that a
man from his same town had recently been initiated into Kriya Yoga from the
very personage he had met in Benares. He was so irritated by that news that
he planned to go back to India to raise a protest to that Kriya Acharya.14
Another friend of mine remained for some days at an Ashram in the hope
he might receive initiation into Kriya Yoga. The leader of the Ashram was
away, and my friend received the initiation to Kriya Yoga from one of his
disciples. In the end, he acquired a large volume summarizing the techniques.
At the end of his trip, visibly content, he showed me that book; the techniques
did not differ that much from those I already knew, but there were many more
details. However, there was nothing contained in that book that could remove
all my doubts; not a single hint about Kechari Mudra, nothing on Thokar
either. On the contrary, I can remember a very complicated technique based
on the visualization of the Chakras like they are described in Tantric texts.
Each technique was preceded by a theoretic introduction with quotations from
ancient books and an illustration which eliminated any possible doubt. In the
last part of the book a precise gradual routine was given. Of course, there was
a note guaranteeing that all the mentioned techniques constituted Kriya Yoga
taught by Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya’s mythical Guru.
Since that material was very interesting, I would have liked to yield to the
illusion that my quest had finally ended, since those notes contained what I
was asking for. I simply had to convince myself that Babaji had but made a
synthesis of Tantrism to obtain His Kriya Yoga. It was impudent to think that
Thokar could be considered no more than a variation of the Jalandhara
Bandha! If the instructions for Kechari Mudra were not there, never mind, it
probably just meant that … Kechari was not really so important! With a bit of
good will and application I could have closed the circle. Chance made me
listen to the recording of a conference of the author Swami S. S.. He
discussed how he had found those techniques in some tantric texts which he
had translated; he then made an accurate selection from them to form a
coherent system which constituted his system of Kriya. How was it possible,
then, to have a note saying that those teachings came directly from Babaji?
Simple - as is the case with the majority of Indian masters, he had the book
14 Unfortunately, this is something he did not have the chance to do; a serious illness got
hold of his life. In spite of our huge character difference, I will always be grateful to this
friend for all the things that he shared with me concerning his spiritual path.
64
written by his disciples; they had the brilliant idea of making it more
interesting by hinting that the techniques were derived from the mythical
Babaji. The teacher, reflecting another classic Indian habit, never checked that
material – he was taken aback later on, coming to know about those
"supplementary notes". He then tried to defend his disciples’ work stating that
after all …. " Babaji’s Kriya had Tantric origins".
On top of all this confusion, a couple of years later, some Forums appeared
on the Internet devoted to Kriya. I found one, without moderator, where an
unutterable vulgarity was unleashed as people felt free to coarsely insult those
with different opinions. Of course, there were - and there still are - very
genuine Forums; what annoys me is that there are always a few kriyabans
who reply to legitimate and reasonable questions with an unacceptable tone.
With factious tenderness, betraying the lowest form of consideration, they go
on labeling the seekers' desire for deepening the Kriya praxis as a "dangerous
mania". They have the audacity of counseling the bewildered student to
simply improve the depth of the already received techniques and be contented
with them – and they usually provide this type of counsel to hide their own
limited understanding or information on the subject. I wondered how could
they dare to enter (uninvited) a person’s life and personal space, about whom
they know nothing, treating that person as an incompetent and superficial
beginner! Would it be so difficult to simply answer truthfully: "I don't have
that information"?
Appendix: deformations
Coming across different groups of people who practiced Kriya (since the days of my
affiliation with a Kriya organization and later in different parts of the world while
following this or that Guru) was like meeting my vast family. In that period I was very
happy: I fell in love with an Indian bhajan and I sang it within of me the whole blessed
day. For me it had the consistency of food; rather I really had the impression of eating
that music since after some days of singing I realized I had exhausted it and was
looking for another song to plunge into as if it were the only one worthy of singing.
Swimming in this state of happiness, I didn't understand anything of other people and it
seemed to me that even if they had so many interests, they lived a very beautiful life,
did very beautiful jobs and I dreamed to live like them forever. Later on, I had different
occasions to meet and to approach more intimately various types of researchers.
[a] I was struck by the tendency to spend lots of money on training workshops focused
on the strangest therapeutic methods of cleaning away one's internal conflicts. I
attended a Kriya group which was under the influence of a cunning fellow who, in
accordance with the situation, assumed the role of the psychotherapist, the spiritual
teacher, the alternative physician who - with a pendulum in his hand - was able to
diagnose everything - from the slightest indispositions to the most serious illnesses, as
65
well as to suggest remedies. Harmless methods like aromatherapy, crystal therapy, color
therapy… aroused great enthusiasm, seemed to intensify our experience of Kriya: they
worked for some time, afterwards they were forsaken. It was also typical for us to take
part in various forms of alternative psychotherapy during weekend seminars. Those
methods recalled the traditional ones, giving great importance to revealing one's
childhood traumas in group discussions. From the legal point of view, such activities
had to be camouflaged as social games, cultural or religious activities. I remember
vividly how, sitting on the ground in a circle, we formed work groups and, overcoming
inner resistances, shared, sometimes with acute suffering, experiences that we had never
told before. There were also those who tried to find, through hypnotic regression, their
past lives in order to revive and then understand the deeper traumas. It seemed – the
idea did not appear so bad - that this process of removing the internal blocks could help
improve the energy flow inside the body during Kriya. This process, in turn, becoming
more intense could give decisive help in the most delicate phases in the process of fullbody
cleaning. The idea to keep this virtuous circle in motion fascinated us without
limit, unfortunately some strayed further away from Kriya up to the point of losing it
entirely.
A few were ensnared by the claim that the classical meditative practices - the sober
methods adopted through the ages by the mystics of various religions - were no longer
valid for our time. They were all right up to 50 years ago, but with the new era, man
had evolved and should employ faster tools; and were effectively seduced by the
temptation of applying faster means. They became enthusiastic of expensive techniques
shared over the weekend, which in 20 minutes a day would result in the regeneration of
their DNA, greater expansion of consciousness than could ever be achieved via other
means, final liberation etc....
For one friend in particular, the events took a very bad turn. He intuitively
understood the difference between the mystical and magical dimensions; nevertheless,
he didn't stop dreaming that in the esoteric field there were secret techniques, known
only to a few elects, which constituted a short-cut to Self realization. For some time he
tried to "improve" Kriya by incorporating various esoteric techniques, even those
described in the rituals of ceremonial magic. He was convinced that only by using
certain rituals, formulas and initiatic symbols, it was possible to complete the
evolutionary jump conducive to liberation.
He met a self-named expert in occult matters who purported to know the secrets of
an almost extinct esoteric path and, in particular, a spiritual technique - far more
advanced than those known today - which was practiced centuries or millennia ago, by
few privileged beings. This friend got into a situation in which his economic base,
essential to his living, was at risk of being swept away, completely reduced to shambles.
The pseudo expert, who created the impression of being a dreamer, but was not so naïve
as it seemed, easily bewitched him. "Now that humanity is different from before, such
teachings are not revealed to just anyone" he started off; then after a pause and with a
sigh, finally concluded: "Today's students would not know how to appreciate them and,
in their hands, they could be dangerous." He used an enchanting terminology similar to
that of the Kabbalah (mystical movement within Judaism) and talked effortlessly about
original Christianity also, whose texts (canonical and apocryphal) he was able to
interpret in a non-conventional way.
My friend tried to captivate the teacher in order to receive more information.
Confiding that he was willing to accept whatever toll and deprivation, consenting to
whatever behest - provided that this extraordinary secret will be revealed to him, he
actually fell into the trap. After having expressed some reservations, our smart teacher
66
at long last capitulated, murmuring: "Only for you, only because I feel I am guided to
make an exception". My friend, a poor victim quivering with emotion, lived the best
moment of his life, convinced that the meeting with the expert had been decided in the
higher spheres. The donation he offered during the initiation - united to the promise of
keeping absolute secrecy - was conspicuous, since in that way he would confirm the
great value attributed to that event. The donation would enable the teacher to carry on
the good works... obviously! (Such teachers affirm invariably that they give the
donations to a certain monk— interestingly not a priest— who supports an orphanage.)
While my friend, completely satisfied, was preparing to receive such an incomparable
gift (our occult expert underlined with emphasis that it was a gift and that nothing could
adequately compensate the benedictions that such an initiation would bring to his life)
the teacher distractedly decided what kind of trash-stuff he was going to demonstrate
with glaring solemnity. As soon as the new technique was acquired and tested with
indescribable emotion, my friend spent two days in sheer fervor.
Later, imprisoned in his chimera, he witnessed the rekindling of his passion and the
comedy repeated. He heard about other incomparable valuable "revelations". This
illusion is, in effect, indomitable. After having received his "drug", he continued his
inexorable run towards the abyss. I cannot predict if, one day, he will realize that the
techniques for which he paid a fortune had been taken from some books and altered, as
for him not to guess their origin.
[b] It will forever remain one of the saddest yet helpful experiences of my life, a
cautionary tale about people who use spiritualism to contact Kriya Masters in the
beyond. In effects, there are people who claim they have the privilege … to
communicate directly with the historical Masters of Kriya. If spiritualism kept its
promises, it would be the most valid gold-mine of information - a direct connection
with the beyond, far more accurate than any other source! Indeed, those who practice
this feel they are infinitely more fortunate than any other spiritual researcher. Those
among them who firmly believe that a great worldly upheaval (cataclysm) is around the
corner, seem always optimistic and walking on air, having received the assurance that
they will be saved.
Many came to spiritualism dreaming to contact a deceased relative or friend, while
some were moved by the sheer thirst for occult knowledge. Classical spiritualism -
characterized by a person (medium) who enters a trance state at a desk, answers the
questions put by the bystanders through a code of loud raps - has handed over its place
to more modern methods such as those where all the participants, putting their hands on
an upside-down glass to move it among the letters of the alphabet stamped on a
comfortable flexible tablet (Ouija board). Many prefer the more accessible revelations
of a channeler who lets the invoked entity express through the flood of his own
eloquence. It is interesting to see how the channeler’s biographies trace a common
scheme. All tell that once they were skeptic of their own faculties and would not accept
yielding to the higher Will who had decided to entrust to them the mission to serve as
medium between spirits and humanity. Once their mission was accepted, from the same
ultra mundane source came the inspiration to mix the flow of the various revelations
with the diagnosis of unlikely illnesses, with prescription of expensive alternative
remedies.
What I witnessed, with a sadness sharpened by the particular situations which at that
time took place, was the mental fragility of most people practicing spiritualism. They
puzzled me not only on account of their statements but also of what emerged through
their eyes. It was as if, from behind the mask of their face, another personality
67
appeared, extremely self-confident, who allowed others to defraud them in the worst of
the ways. How incredibly strange is this whole matter! Apart from the automatic
writing in which the one who asks is the same person that gives the answer, the Medium
knows in advance the preferences and anticipations of the person who addresses him.
Therefore all becomes like a closed circuit: question and answer reverberate in an
endless loop like the feedback of a microphone set next to its loud speaker. As anyone
can observe, the messages are always agreeable. Every adept, even of limited
intelligence, receives the message that the Divine has assigned him an important
mission…
To be entangled in this activity is an amazingly easy way of destroying, in a short
time, years of genuine spiritual effort. I have some grounds to believe that the
untrustworthy soil of spiritualism is one of the best areas to cultivate splits inside one's
personality.
I knew some kriyabans who plunged into situations of such a narrow vision that
their life style appeared grotesque. Their original desire to find total freedom, spiritual
realization, ended in giving all their possessions, and their life, to a person who was an
authentic fraud.
As I have mentioned, there are those who claim they communicate directly with the
main historical Masters of Kriya. It is pathetic and, to an extent, even amusing being
told that their message is coming from the hereafter: "In this epoch, the Kriya is oldfashioned
and useless. Devotion is enough!".
[c] I also knew some people that showed more attachment to a particular person, than
to the spiritual path itself. Everyone agrees that esoteric knowledge is best transmitted
through a strong human relationship. It is also self-evident that to slip into an uncritical
personality cult, into the deification process of the teacher figure, essentially constitutes
the death of the spiritual search. Sometimes, a disciple is spellbound by the idea of
"transmission of power". We know that a lot of esoteric brotherhoods and great
mystical traditions teach that the strength of the great Teachers of the past, their subtle
vibration, is still present in their descendants -- not because of consanguinity, but
through the transmission of their "power", as a non-stop chain. Their tenet is that
spiritual progress cannot happen except through receiving this "power". A few people
are authorized to act like channels of this transmission. The great financial means that
an organization possesses don't serve only to maintain the beauty of their buildings but
also to provide luster and surround their Ministers and representatives with a divine
aura. 15 It is normal that one feels the highest respect for that human channel who is
officially invested by the mission for transmitting their particular "benediction". It is
reasonable then that one tries to achieve a place of importance in their heart. The
problem is that sometimes this attainment becomes more important than meditation.
The emotional impact of this conditioning is strong and it turns, with time, into
unreasonable claims: one wants to be accepted, to be loved, and looks for any occasion
to have private interviews with that beloved person. Even if one has no doubts about
15 People easily forget how important it is to proceed without ever giving another
person or institution the right to abuse them. However, discussing the theme of cults,
where the dignity of the individual is crushed, lies outside our main theme. For a
researcher who would invest his time in studying this matter, there are innumerable
sources from which he can draw precious material. Undoubtedly striking is the material
supplied by the institutions that aim at defending people from cults. Shocking are the
web sites created by ex-adepts of cults.
68
the techniques, one simply makes up some questions, just for the satisfaction of
entertaining a superficial, emotional correspondence.
I became acquainted with an elderly kriyaban, worthy of the maximum respect and
admiration, who began the Kriya path many years before me. We saw each other in the
last years of his life. There were moments in which, knowing the total loneliness in
which he lived, it broke my heart to remain months without seeing him. For various
reasons this was inevitable; I always met him for short and transient afternoons,
walking and quietly speaking. I rejoiced at his company, yet I felt as if a giant wave of
inexplicable nostalgia was ready to overwhelm me, but it remained as if suspended. I
was witness to an inexorable process that brought him to the point of living only on the
warm rays coming from the memory of an embrace, a glance, or even a simple nod
once received from a person (the epitome of his ideal of perfection) belonging to the
executive board of his Kriya organization. His supreme delight was the illusion of
having created a privileged bond with that person.
He had given his full approval to the idea that on this planet there were special
people, like the aforementioned "Self realized" ones, and irreparably common people.
In a dimension of utter authenticity, one day he vented all of his despondency. Looking
at how superficially -- so he said -- he had practiced the techniques of meditation, he
had no doubts that, in this life, he had certainly missed the "target". He was already
dreaming of a future incarnation in which he could practice with great engagement. He
expressed something that years before he would not have even dared to think: the idea
that a presumed evolution of the individual, achieved through Kriya, was so slow to be
practically negligible. (Strange to say, the idea of an automatic evolution determined by
iron mathematic laws remained in him as an instinctive reflex and he would continue to
repeat it while addressing people inquiring about Kriya.) The Kriya techniques were,
for him, like a religious ritual which had to be performed scrupulously just to give proof
of loyalty. Unfortunately, this axiom was the frame-work upon which he had been
interweaving his thought. Sometimes, I felt myself drifting in his state of sweet
resignation but could not accept that the practice of Kriya left people, after decades, in
the same condition in which they had started to practice it. My friend lived in the
certainty of something beautiful that existed in the beyond; his being was already
projected toward that dimension.
Now that he has left us, I wonder if the diffusion of Kriya here in the West has
served only to spread the cult of certain persons who are "impudently" saintly, perfect,
majestic. How wretched it had been for him, the belief that his supreme good depended
on a human loving glance coming from the person he felt as divine! He had made the
unfortunate mistake to believe that the eternal spiritual source in the center of his being
would dry out when he was far from the blessings of the one person towards whom he
directed the warm love of his heart.
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CHAPTER I/06 INSIGHT INTO THE TRUE NATURE OF KRIYA
When the moment came to meet the long awaited teacher from India - the
one, I hoped, was going to explain Kriya in its complete form - I was not in
the best mood. From some clues, I knew I was going to reckon with a
radically new approach. I was afraid that this could upset the simple and
adequately profitable routine in which I had settled. The magical realm of
Omkar, into which my previous teacher had immersed me in a passionate way,
could be neither left aside nor forgotten. I did not even dream about putting
other principles in place as a foundation for my spiritual path. This is why I
approached my new teacher with the idea of rejecting him if, somehow, he
appeared to be trying to guide me away from such a reality.
I met him in a Yoga center where he had been invited by some disciples.
The synthesis of his introductory speech was that Kriya didn't mean to inflate
the mind and the ego moving toward a hypothetical superior mind, but a
journey beyond the mind, into an uncontaminated territory. From certain
answers to people’s questions, I came to know that he knew my former
teacher and was aware of his choice not to teach the whole body of the Kriya
techniques. He clearly communicated to us that the reason for his tour to the
West was to re-establish the original teachings. This was enough to overcome
my initial wariness.
During the following initiation seminar, I indulgently observed some
inadequacies in his behavior which, instead, shocked other followers. He was
hot-tempered. He exploded with rage whenever he was addressed questions,
even if they were legitimate; he would always sense, underneath the words, a
veiled opposition - an intention of challenging his authority.
The technical explanation was reasonably clear but, in part, unusually
synthetic. For instance, his instructions on Pranayama - formally correct -
could be understood only by those who had already been practicing Kriya
Yoga for a long time. He would dedicate a very short time to explain this
technique. One day I decided to time him: the explanation was offered in no
more than two minutes! He carried on that way for years, in spite of his close
collaborators’ polite complaints. He demonstrated Pranayama by means of an
excessively loud vibratory sound. He knew that this sound was not correct,
but he continued using it in order to be heard by the last rows of students too,
sparing himself the annoyance of getting up and walking among them, as
Kriya teachers usually do. In any case, he would not bother to say that the
sound had to be smooth rather than vibrating. I know that many of the
students, believing that this was the "secret" he had brought from India, tried
to reproduce the same sound.
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The reasons for the end of our relationships will be dealt with in the next
chapter, also because this will provide a special opportunity to discuss the
myths of the Guru-disciple relationship and the request for secrecy regarding
the techniques of Kriya. The six years spent with this teacher were important;
both for a particular routine of Kriya which I adopted16 and for the
understanding of Kriya which originated from my studies.
Entering a Kriya-founded organization meant to be ensnared and
bewildered once again by many fairy tales. I was convinced that finding
Kriya was like a stroke of luck, a gift from the Divine, thanks to a certain
merit of which I was unaware. I began to look at people who belonged to the
same path as shrewd persons who knew how to take the best from life.
Consequently, I regarded those who refused it, or in spite of much talking
were still uncertain if they should take a decisive step and begin with it, as
idiots who didn't know what they were losing.
My Kriya Pranayama, practiced with enthusiasm for some months,
became a tranquil good habit. The iron will of my discipline internally
softened the atmosphere of the "Guru's blessings". My desire to abide by the
values instilled in me by my culture (a rational attitude open to the value of
artistic creation) was gradually twisted. It was as if a large portion of my brain
withdrew, while another one, which did its utmost in believing what was
convenient to believe, tried to usurp its function. In the very beginning, my
"spiritually-oriented" brain didn't know how to answer back to any censure
from other persons and reacted by running away or reciprocating violently.
Subsequently, it became so cunning that I started to behave "normally" in
social life; people began to look at me as a man who chose a simple life trend,
marked by lofty principles - not revealing how my fairness of judgment was
impaired, and practically inexistent.
It is difficult to retrace the very slow process through which I was brought
back to my senses. Decisive points on this process were the readings of Sri
Aurobindo, Mother and Satprem. Their appeal stemmed from the fact that
they treated the themes of India's spirituality with a western language which
was both lyrical and rational, at the highest degree of excellence. They would
flawlessly express enlightening remarks where both the contemplation of the
16 I refer to the Incremental Routines which are a particular feature of Lahiri
Mahasaya's Kriya. It is a means of obtaining a stout inner transformation, both in the
psyche and in the ability of entering deep introspective states. It consists, once a week,
for a certain number of weeks (20 – 24 – 36 …), of putting the usual routine aside and
using only one technique - whose number of repetitions is gradually increased up to a
certain amount that the tradition has handed down as optimal. The principal
Incremental Routines are that of Navi Kriya, Pranayama mixed with Omkar
Pranayama and of Thokar.
71
beauty in nature and the emotion arising from listening to classic music were
considered a bridge to the spiritual experience. They were able to express, in
an euphorically vivid way, my innermost convictions for which I had no
means to express nor clarify these even to myself. In their aspiration for a full
manifestation of the Divine in the atoms of inert matter, there was a fragrance
which excited and moved me. Sometimes, while I was reading them, I had
the impression that I had a fever. A revolution, a reversal of values, was
slowly but inevitably happening in me. Spellbound, I was contemplating the
shimmering splendor of a new way of looking at the spiritual path: two
seemingly opposite worlds, that of a rarefied paradisiac atmosphere (which
we imagine is enjoyed by the ascetic souls) and that of the full enjoyment of
the earthly beauty (so dear to artists), could unify in each kriyaban's
consciousness through an atypical but genial use of Kriya Pranayama. It
could be utilized not only in bringing the energy and the awareness into the
spine, but also into the cells of the body!
My first attempts at that were like discovering Kriya for the first time.
From that moment onwards, meditation was approached as if it were the
pursuit of the mystical experience of art, the search of a perfect Beauty
unattainable through physical human means and abilities. The naïve
conception of devotion as a hectic emotion arising either from devotional
bhajan, from certain pictures, from the scent of certain incenses... was left
behind forever.
Some years later, the first Kriya teacher I met outside of the organization,
tightly connected together my concept of Beauty with Omkar experience. He
brought me closer to the multifaceted (sound, light and movement sensation)
experience of Omkar: it became the unique focus of my concentration, a
"contact" to be obtained during the practice of Kriya and preserved with the
utmost care during the day. A simple idea like this was like a cascade of light
in my life: I lived for some days in the sweetest reality. The sphere of my
sentiments was touched in a stronger, more involving way than any of my past
experiences. For the first time I had a clear perception that I was following not
only an abstract ideal of perfection but also a state of inconceivable sweetness
that I could taste every day; during the practice and in every moment when I
rested, free from work. In that happy period of my life I tried tracking down in
spiritual literature any movement or eminent figure who had something to do
with that subject.
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Spiritual literature
The first name that came to my mind was that of Saint John of the Cross. He
gave a splendid description of his meeting with the "silent music", the
"sounding solitude". There is no doubt that he heard the Omkar’s sound as
that of rushing waters. He inspired me to give more emphasis to the practice
of Japa -- Prayer. Together with Saint Teresa of Avila, he was convinced that
perfection in the spiritual life can be reached only by expanding the limit in
the practice of Prayer. He meant a Prayer which goes beyond supplication,
beyond words themselves -- a "Prayer of the heart".
Over the centuries, a great deal of incomprehension and misunderstanding
deposited on this practice. For many devotees Prayer had - with rare
exceptions - the meaning of a plea to God with the only purpose of obtaining
personal favors or blessings on a suffering humanity. The concept of "Inner,
intimate Prayer" risked an almost total eclipse.
The state of consciousness born during that lofty period inspired me to also
benefit from the study of the lives of those saints whom I had no occasion
before to be acquainted with. I read a book about the Orthodox St. Seraphim
of Sarov and other literature about other Orthodox saints. It was easy to
recognize in the explanation of the meaning of the Holy Ghost (Holy Spirit)
the same Omkar Reality. I had been so proud of my Kriya practice and now I
began discovering I was less than a novice.
They did not refer to their practices as "techniques", they had no redundant
name, there wasn't any remark upon their "extraordinary" effects. They were
described in a very simple way as a universal process happening naturally in
any soul who sincerely treads the spiritual path. The idea of secrecy was
either totally extraneous or was simply the effect of a natural, not
institutionalized, instinct of decency and modesty which those humble souls
possessed. However, this reserve and 'secrecy' disappeared in their
autobiographical writings.
Very interesting was the literary material relating to the Hesychasm, a
Christian orthodox movement considering inner peace to be a necessity for
every human being. The essence of this movement is to be found in the
already quoted book The Way of a Pilgrim and The Pilgrim Continues His
Way. Its main emphasis is upon the "uninterrupted, continuous Prayer". The
story is that of a pilgrim, coming back from the Holy Sepulcher, who stopped
at Mount Athos and told about his lifelong search for the teaching on how "to
pray continually" - the way Saint Paul had recommended - to a monk. He was
resolute about covering an infinite distance across the steppes, if he had to, in
order to find a spiritual guide that would reveal to him the secret of praying
that way. One day, his ardor was awarded; he found a spiritual teacher who
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accepted him as a disciple and gradually clarified to him every detail of the
practice of the "continuous Prayer". Very interesting is the fact that the
hesychastic practice involves a breathing exercise with a tongue position akin
to that of Kechari Mudra.
After this initial step, one is encouraged to be tenacious in praying with the
focus of concentration on the navel: "...(in this way) it is possible to find a
joyless and lightless obscurity but, persisting, a limitless happiness will be
reached". Once one gets over the obstacle of the navel, a whole path unfolds,
leading to the heart. The description of the Prayer entering the heart is
unforgettable; the effects are strikingly similar to those of Lahiri Mahasaya’s
Thokar! The hitting of the heart Chakra is obtained by blending the
perception of the throbs of the heart with the syllables of the prayer. The
consciousness slips into it and there contemplates the "Uncreated Light"
(obviously the light aspect of Omkar), which is considered the highest of the
mystical achievements.
The art of Prayer is developed in an astonishing way in the Sufi path.
There is no doubt that Thokar is the same process which the Sufis call
"Dhikr". Interesting is to learn that Lahiri Mahasaya gave the Islamic Mantra
Lâ Ilâha Illâ Allâh to his Muslim disciples to be practiced during Thokar.
We don't have the exact details of that procedure but it seems reasonable
that the Prayer was lifted (with or without the help of the breath) from under
the navel up to the brain; after reaching the brain, it moved from the brain to
the one shoulder, then to the other shoulder and then it hit the heart. A modern
Sufi confraternity practices in the following way: "La" is placed in the head,
"ilaha" (with head bending to the right) in the right upper part of the chest,
"illaal" (with head bending to the left) in the left upper part of the chest, and
"lah" (with head bending down) in the heart; then again "La" in the head,
while raising it....
I think that if one wants to follow the Sufi path by using the Kriya
techniques, one will encounter no difficulties whatsoever. Of course one
should be endowed with a strong self-teaching spirit. As for the number of
repetitions of each technique, one may abide by the numbers given in the
Kriya schools or one can go beyond them in a completely different dimension.
As the chant increases its intensity, a deep intoxication is felt in the heart: one
may reach numbers of repetitions which are inconceivable for a kriyaban.
In the Sufi literature, any comment about "Dhikr" is most inspiring.
Instruction is given to avoid distraction, in such a way that the heart is
occupied with neither "family" nor "money". One begins the practice by
uttering the Mantra aloud – this is the Dhikr of the tongue. One continues
until a great absorption makes it impossible to go on in this way. "The rust
upon the heart is burnt, the darkness turns into day and the candle of the mind
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is put out by the sun of the divine light (Qur’an)".
The heart is continually applied to the Dhikr. One perseveres assiduously,
until the syllables are effaced from the heart and only the meaning of the
words remains present: a touch of divine recollection drives the mind crazy –
the most intoxicating of joys begins to expand within.
I studied Kabir (1398 Benares - 1448/1494 Maghar) also, whose teachings
and those of Lahiri Mahasaya's overlapped perfectly. An illiterate weaver,
Muslim of origin, he was a great mystic, open to the vedantic and yogic
influence; an extraordinary singer of the Divine, conceived beyond name and
form. The poems and sentences ascribed to him are expressed in a particularly
effective language that remains permanently emblazoned in the reader's
memory. In the last century, Rabindranath Tagore, the great mystic poet of
Calcutta, rediscovered the reliability of his teachings, the power of his poetry
and made beautiful translations of his songs into English.
Kabir was instructed to conceive of Islam and Hinduism as two roads
converging toward a unique goal: he was always convinced of the possibility
of overcoming the barriers that separate these two great religions. He did not
seem to base his teaching upon the authority of the holy writings; he shunned
the religious rituals. Kabir taught not to renounce to life and become a hermit,
not to cultivate any extreme approach to the spiritual discipline, because it
weakens the body and increases pride.
That God has to be recognized inside of one’s own soul - like a fire fed by
continuous care, burning all the resistances, dogmas and ignorance - this
beautifully appears in Kabir’s saying: "One day my mind flew as a bird in the
sky, and entered the heavens. When I arrived, I saw that there was no God,
since He resided in the Saints!" Hinduism gave Kabir the concept of
reincarnation and the law of Karma; Islam gave him the absolute monotheism
- the strength of fighting all the forms of idolatry and the caste system. I found
the full meaning of the yogic practice in him; he says that there is a garden
full of flowers in our body, the Chakras, and an endless beauty can be
contemplated if the awareness is established into the ''thousand-petal Lotus''.
Regarding his concept of Shabda, which can be translated as "Word" (the
word of the Master), I thought I could relate this to the Omkar teaching.
According to him this Shabda-Om dispels all doubts and difficulties, but it is
vital to keep it constantly in our consciousness as a living presence. Om, the
divine call present in each man’s body, born in the silence of introspection, is
the compass needle: by following it, Kutastha is revealed to us.
The study of Kabir brought me directly to consider the wonderful figure of
Guru Nanak (1469 Nankana Sahib - 1539 Kartarpur). The teaching was the
same. He disapproved ascetic practices and taught instead to remain inwardly
detached whilst living as a householder. "Asceticism doesn't consist in ascetic
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robes, or in having a walking staff, nor in visiting burial places. Asceticism is
not mere words; asceticism is to remain pure amidst impurities!"
Traditionally, release from the bondage of the world was sought as the goal,
therefore the householder's life was considered an impediment and an
entanglement. In contrast, in Guru Nanak's teaching, the world became the
arena of spiritual endeavor. He was bewitched by the beauty of creation and
considered the panorama of nature as the loveliest scene for worship of the
Divine.
He expressed his teachings in Punjabi, the spoken language of Northern
India. His disregard for Sanskrit suggested that his message was without
reference to the existent Holy scriptures. He made a deliberate attempt to cut
off his disciples completely from all the ritualistic practices, orthodox modes
of worship and from the priestly class. His teaching demanded an entirely new
approach. While a full understanding of God is beyond human beings, he
described God as not wholly unknowable. God must be seen through "the
inward eye", sought in the "heart": he emphasized the revelation of this to be
achieved through meditation. In his teachings there are hints on the possibility
of listening to an ineffable internal melody (Omkar) and to taste the nectar
(Amrit). One has the impression he gave a unique meaning to the concept of
monotheism.
I also studied the basis of the Sikh religion, founded on the teachings of
Guru Nanak and nine successive Gurus: the fifth-largest organized religion in
the world. What I appreciated in particular was that the key distinctive feature
of Sikhism was a non-anthropomorphic concept of God, to the extent that one
could interpret God as the Universe itself. But to dwell on this subject matter
lies outside my intention.
I got enthusiastic about the Radhasoami faith, considered a derivation of
Sikhism. It is also referred to as Sant Mat (Path of the Saints). Everything I
read reminded me of the writings of P.Y. and of my first Kriya organization! I
run through pages where the role of the Guru was extolled – there was the
theory according to which a Guru takes on himself part of the karma of the
disciple, appears to them at the moment of death in order to introduce them to
God... It was explained that a disciple could never break off the sacred
connection with the Guru under any circumstances. Initiation in this path was
to be received from the Guru or from an authorized representative... The need
of attending the spiritual service or "satsang" was extolled...
My main interest was what they called Surat Shabda Yoga: the teaching of
how to listen to the inner sound of Omkar -- it was exactly the same teaching,
with the same words that I received from my first Kriya organization! Surat
means "soul," Shabda means "word". The "word" is the "Sound Current", the
"Audible Life Stream" or the "Essence of the Absolute Supreme Being". With
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the same words of P.Y.'s organization, they affirmed that this Shabda was the
Word referred to in the Bible: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1) The Sound vibration, the
dynamic force of creative energy that was continuously being sent out from
the Supreme Being at the dawn of the universe's manifestation throughout the
ages, molding all things animate and inanimate; could be listened to through
Surat Shabda Yoga.
Meditation upon the sound, also means perceiving the inner Light whose
intensity can range from a subtle glow to the brilliance of many millions of
suns. During initiation, the living Satguru (Sat - true, Guru - teacher) activates
this Shabda which becomes the inner Satguru stationed at the third eye of the
disciple. Through its inner Light one comes to "know God".
The Om technique is practiced by Radhasoami groups covering their ears
and eyes, either using the classic squatting position, resting their elbows on
the knees or using an arm prop. Some combine the listening to the inner
sounds with the attempt to taste nectar (Amrit) by sticking the tongue to the
roof of the mouth. Before listening to the sound and seeing the light, some
groups move Prana up and down the spine...
I was reading with shivers of surprise what had essentially been my life,
my deeper convictions. It was the same Kriya Yoga I had always heard about.
I could claim that, at all effects the organization and my first Kriya teacher
gave me light and sound initiation, just as Radhasoami groups do. For all
intents and purposes I had been member of a Radhasoami group. When in
some particular (perhaps non-orthodox) Radhasoami literature I read strange
theories on the role of the pineal gland, descriptions of six additional Chakras
in the grey matter of the brain and six more in the white matter, which could
be activated through meditation practices, I neatly see the origin of many
Kriya modifications.
How many researchers wonder about the origin of certain variations of
Kriya! They try to find all the good reasons to justify the behavior of this or
that teacher - usually a direct disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya - who initiated
them, creating unending complications. What about the hypothesis that, in the
first years of their formation, those teachers belonged to a Radhasoami group
and perhaps, without even being fully aware of this, added to Kriya some
elements of theory and practice which they had previously learned? Taking
for example into account the afore quoted theory of different sets of Chakras
present in our brain, I understand how it came about that some Kriya Acharya
added to Lahiri Mahasaya's Fourth Kriya (in which the Chakras are raised
into the Kutastha) other procedures (which they call Fifth, Sixth... Kriya) to
stimulate these other hypothetical centers. Many techniques (not quite wrong
or useless, but surely not essential) could be concocted using the dynamics
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and the methods of Kriya (the power of visualization united to the breath
awareness and to the use of some Mantras) for translating into practice a
theory which was not Lahiri Mahasaya's.
Although the book Puran Purush (Yogiraj Publication. Calcutta) does not
seem to respect a logical order in the topics and contains an endless number of
repetitions and rhetorical sentences, its publication a few year ago was really
an event! I think that studying it can help more than any other books to
understand Lahiri Mahasaya’s personality - thus, the core of Kriya may be
reached as fast as an arrow. Puran Purush is based on Lahiri Mahasaya’s
diaries. It came out in Bengali (then in French and in English), thanks to one
of Lahiri Mahasaya’s nephews, Satya Charan Lahiri (1902-1978), who had
material access to those diaries. Helped by one of his disciples, a writer, he
decided to make a selection of the main thoughts which might have been
useful to those who practiced Kriya.
During summer I used to have it with me in the countryside; many times,
after reading a part of it, I would raise my eyes to the distant mountaintops
and repeat inside of me "At long last…!". I looked at the photograph of
Lahiri Mahasaya on the front cover; who knows what a state of bliss he was in
while being photographed! I saw some horizontal lines on his forehead, his
eyebrows raised like in the Shambhavi Mudra, where awareness is set upon
the head; a slight tension of his chin seemed to reveal he was practicing
Kechari Mudra. During those days, his figure, with that blissful smile, was a
sun in my heart; he was the symbol of the perfection I yearned after.
From the few words which are reasonably attributed to him, emerged the
great importance he gave to Pranayama, Thokar and Yoni Mudra. It strikes his
skill in communicating complicated abstract concepts when he affirms that
the whole course of Kriya is a great adventure beginning with a dynamic
Prana and ending with a static Prana. One feels a thrill of delight by reading
sentences which have light in themselves: "Kutastha is God, he is the supreme
Brahma".
I also eagerly read the comments on the sacred writings attributed to Lahiri
Mahasaya. As a matter of fact, he verbally commented on some sacred texts.
Later, his disciple P. Bhattacharya printed these interpretations. These books
were little known for a long time, as they were written in Bengali. They were
later translated into English. A lot of people studied that material with
enthusiasm, hoping to find there some useful information to the understanding
of Kriya; yet, they were disappointed.
By examining them, we are not able to extract anything useful from them;
we dare not say they are adulterated but we recognize that their value - from
an exegetic point of view - is almost null. It almost seems to me impossible
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that they came really from him: I don't find the same practical wisdom and
tremendous realization expressed in his diaries. I find rather a mind with an
almost maniacal tendency to interpret each thing on the light of Kriya, as if
centuries before, the authors of those spiritual works knew exactly one by one
all the techniques of Kriya.
According to my discernment, it is possible to hypothesize that, reading the
verses of those texts, Lahiri Mahasaya was transported from the force of his
insight, forgot completely the writing mentioned before departure and,
entranced, talked extensively and freely about the subtleties of Kriya. What
he said on that occasion could have been taken as a specific comment to that
text. Furthermore, it is possible that, in order to publish those hard-tounderstand
notes, the editor had them completed with his own philosophy.
Towards a definition of Kriya
Some authors waste their time in asserting that Kriya is a science. What's the
use? Whom to lure? We can rationally expound its principles and discuss its
effects in an analytical, practical way but we cannot bring the whole entirety
of it on the table of a laboratory. They maintain that Kriya helps in calming
mind, breath and heart and promotes a holistic wellbeing... all these are
secondary effects: many other disciplines, sports, pastimes etc. bring about the
same results. There are books with pages and pages of pseudo scientific
demonstrations of how Kriya brings about a perfect state of concentration...
All that blather leads to nothing. Kriya Yoga is a mystical path - nothing
else. It is a process of refining, in successive stages, our tuning with Omkar.
Lahiri Mahasaya's thought gives us a matchless inspiration. Kriya Yoga is the
faith of Kabir and Guru Nanak: a monotheistic religion where the ''single
God'' is substituted by Omkar! All the other names given to the Last Reality
(also used by Lahiri Mahasaya in his diaries) are entirely useless words,
ephemeral wraps imposed by the human mind. Omkar is the final goal of
Kriya and the unique essence which percolates through all its phases.
An interesting experience
One day, I tried to "recapture" the magic of that distant period in which I
reached for the breathless state for the first time. I went back to the readings
of that time: especially Mother. I could not say I had betrayed Aurobindo and
Mother, but up until now what had I properly realized of their teaching?
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Practically nothing, except for the fact of having freed myself from all the
Gurus. Often I repeated, like a Mantra, the sentence:
Now the wasteland, now the silence;
A blank dark wall, and behind it heaven.
(Sri Aurobindo, from Journey's End)
It was after having re-read some pages of Mother's Agenda when I freely
allowed an experience to happen that revealed an unfathomable wealth: I
baptized it as the Kriya of the cells. Such a name was derived from the fact
that my Pranayama began to inject awareness into the cells of the body.
These, according to Mother, acted as doors: opening on a totally new
dimension of the consciousness – the only one free from the labyrinths of the
mind.
One day, while practicing Kriya outdoors, I felt an inexplicable repulsion
to using Kechari Mudra and practiced Pranayama without it and with open
eyes: I didn't want to abandon the beauty of the landscape that was before me.
Nature was to me the source of inspiration from which I didn't want to detach.
During inhalation, I filled my consciousness with a powerful Vaaa vibration:
it departed from the sexual zone, absorbed the energy there and brought it into
the head; exhaling, it was the vibration of Sheee that guided the energy down
as a rain into the whole body. Gradually this going down was like an
hypodermic needle which injected the awareness into the cells of the body. It
came spontaneously to make exhalation last a lot more than inhalation: the
sound of the breath came out more acute and it seemed easier to guide the
energy into the cells. Then, I reasoned in this way: why shouldn't this inner
action of Pranayama continue, in the same way, when I have completed my
scheduled number of long Pranayama breaths and the breath is let to flow
freely? Why this compulsion of doing other things, of guiding the energy into
other parts of the body, physical or astral? Something uplifting happened in
fact: there came a spontaneous rotation of energy, which took the place of the
usual mental Pranayama. It was like a miracle and gave me a feeling of
infinite safety surrounded by a crystalline state of an immobile mind. It was
like having crossed the barrier of matter, living in the body and in a
measureless space, at the same time.
I emerged from that Kriya session overwhelmed by euphoria: it was as if
all the problems at a psychological level were a nightmare which had
dissolved forever, an illusion out of which I had emerged definitively. My life
which, up until that point, had been full of asperities, seemed to stretch out
evenly towards the future. When I returned to my daily duties, the beauty of
living, like wine from a full cup, seemed to overflow from every atom and fill
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my heart; I rejoiced in feeling an unfathomable clarity of mind.
In the following days I experienced something strange: I felt as "not
having a skin anymore". This is a metaphoric way to indicate the impression
of perceiving - not only through my awareness but, in a strange way, also
through my body - what was passing in another person’s consciousness (not
each thought of course, but just one's mood) and, strange to say, to mistake it
for my own. Let me quote a recurrent example.17 It happens that all of a
sudden, a deep depression takes hold of my mood (I was never subject to
depression), lasts several hours and then disappear; it is not a simple
dissonance, a disharmony, but an agonizing pain in a moment in which there
is no justification for it. Unfailingly I realize that a significant circumstance
has happened: I have been introduced to a new acquaintance, we had shaken
hands and talked with a sincere involvement. It is well known how good our
mind is when it comes to clutching at straws; but when a similar episode is
observed with due detachment and, as the days and the months go by, it
repeats with mathematical precision, then the evidence of a phenomenon of
tuning into another person’s consciousness, cannot be denied. What one is and
what others are, mixes.
My hypothesis is that this form of Pranayama with its sweet pressure on
the cells of the body, succeeds in breaking the barrier of the mind and touches
the psychological dimension which ties all human beings together: the vast
ocean of the Collective Unconscious. This is not a poetic concept but a real
widening of the sphere of our awareness. This explains its "borderline" trait
and the substantial difficulty in describing it.
I believe that Jung’s discoveries are precious for the understanding of the
mystic path - perhaps more than many other concepts formulated during the
20th century. Even though his statements never lacked the necessary prudence,
the scientific community never forgave him for dealing with matters that were
not considered a part of Psychiatry - such as Alchemy (deemed an absurdity),
the realm of myths (considered the result of a senseless imagination) and,
more than any other thing, the great value he attributed to the religious
dimension; which he considered something universal and fundamentally sane,
instead of a pathology. Nowadays, the enthusiasm for his writings remains,
especially among those who study topics of a spiritual and esoteric nature.
Jung introduced a terminology which permits one to probe an aspect of the
mystical path which would otherwise risk being totally extraneous, not only to
our capability of expression but also to our comprehension.
17 Before writing this, I have hesitated a lot. The reader may be disappointed by it
because it may evoke the New Age manias. It is only after listening to similar effects by
other researchers and on account of my commitment to total sincerity, that I have made
up my mind to write about it.
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In the esoteric literature there is the vast chapter of miracles and Siddhis
(powers), namely the subtle laws that work in the life of a mystic. Those who
write books on Yoga are not able to resist the temptation of copying some
lines from Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. It's typical to find the ridiculous warning of
the danger coming from the abuse of the Siddhis. Quoting Patanjali (IV:1),
they recount that Siddhis are the spiritual powers (psychic abilities) that may
occur through rigorous austerities; they explain that they vary from relatively
simple forms of clairvoyance, telepathy, to being able to levitate, to be present
at various places at once, to become as small as an atom, to materialize
objects and more. They recommend to their readers not to ever indulge in
these powers since "they are a great hindrance to spiritual progress". Indulge:
what a beautiful word! If you did see someone practicing Pranayama and
indulging in a little bilocation for fun, would you tell?! Perhaps they don't
think enough about what they are writing because they let themselves be
seduced by the dream of possessing those powers .... perhaps they already
visualize all the fuss which will come out: interviews, taking part in talk
shows etc.
Jung put a rational basis for the study of this subject in his Synchronicity:
An Acausal Connecting Principle. The more we consider how intelligent,
fascinating and stimulating his thought; the emptier the nonsense appear to us
when they deal with the Siddhis in the many books on Yoga. Our body still
remains a mystery. To guide the energy, and therefore the consciousness in it,
has effects that we cannot even imagine.
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Encounter with the Taoist Internal Alchemy
At that point of my search, a friend gave me a photocopy of a book on the
Taoist Internal Alchemy -- a spiritual discipline, the esoteric core of Taoism.18
When I read the description of the basic procedure (Microcosmic Orbit) of
this ancient discipline, I saw it was very similar to Kriya Pranayama. Various
metaphors used to explain its mechanism (bagpipe turned upside-down, flute
with no holes...) brought back to my mind, with surprising similarity, some
weird explanation about Pranayama and Kriya in general - which I had once
received from an eminent source. The description of the second phase of the
Taoist Internal Alchemy (after a certain amount of rounds of the Microcosmic
Orbit, the energy accumulated in the brain was guided from the head down
into the Dan Tian) exemplified clearly the principle of Navi Kriya. I was
disoriented: this meant that Kriya Yoga didn't exist as an independent tradition
but it was the Taoist Internal Alchemy, taught within an Indian context, with
clear use of both purely Indian techniques and procedures (as Navi Kriya) that
were Indian only in appearance. Kriya Yoga turned out to be a discipline
which can be described through the symbols of two different cultures but was
markedly different from classic Yoga, Hatha Yoga or tantric Kundalini Yoga.
I thought that it was not a weird idea that the mythical Babaji was/is one of
the "immortals" of the taoist tradition. Anyway, my attention had been
considerably stirred up and I embarked on a more careful study. Conscious
that the received book was worth studying with great attention, I cut out (I
was dealing with photocopies - I would never do anything similar to a book)
various paragraphs, I put them in order according to an ideal logical sequence
of exposition and glued them on four sheets of paper summarizing the four
phases of Taoist Internal Alchemy respectively. On a different sheet I arranged
a rudimentary glossary, limited to the essential definitions.
I purchased the book in order to relish reading everything anew,
underlining the essential passages. Later I studied every title I could find on
the subject (Taoism included). My enthusiastic response derived from the
intuition that Kriya Yoga and Taoist Internal Alchemy shared a common
foundation and by studying the latter, I could understand more clearly the
working of some Kriya techniques.
I had long, passionate talks with people who had studied and followed that
path for decades. It was of great help to read some articles and essays written
by Michael Winn. This researcher studied Kundalini Yoga in the late 70's and
Kriya Yoga afterwards with a renowned teacher. He observed that while
18 Charles Luk& Lu Kuan. Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality. Weiser Books, 1999
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through Kundalini Yoga one is just trying to climb up to the crown of their
head to experience there divine ecstasy, in the Taoist Internal Alchemy one
utilizes that state to reach the body, nurture and transform it. He noticed that,
although Kriya Yoga has many parallels with the Taoist Internal Alchemy, it is
substantially a "fire" path, a path of "ascent". But any energy movement
upward has to be balanced by a movement downward, until one settles in the
still point of no movement. In our body that point is the Dan Tian, the
doorway to reach the prenatal state of blissful breathlessness. Michael Winn
was wholly devoted to Taoist Internal Alchemy and Qigong (Chi Kung).
According to him no tradition respects the whole mystery of human nature as
deeply as the Taoist Internal Alchemy. One who wants to follow the spiritual
path could avoid a wide range of problems by listening to the practical
wisdom it embodies. He took the binding appointment of teaching only from
direct personal experience. In his opinion, oral or written teachings may
become traps: only the living experience promotes the true self-inquiry which
leads to Self realization. One should take the teachings received by the
tradition into consideration, try them with a lot of respect and take also the
courage to solve the problems that might arise alone . He reports that, in the
many years of his own practice, he has evolved towards simplicity - he is
confident that somebody will take his refinements and improve on them.
Among the very interesting information that I found in his writings, I was
surprised to learn that the annoying problem of secrecy concerns also the
Taoist Internal Alchemy. As usual it was claimed that secrecy was meant to
protect the purity of the lineage and prevent corruption by selfish people who
might abuse the spiritual power gained... The author maintains that these are
pretexts, not sincere and not sufficiently thought over. Actually, a taoist said to
him: "We don't know why the ancients kept it so secret. We just imitate them".
Michael Winn's noble definitive position is that if one feels spiritually
attracted to some particular teaching and feels worthy to receive it, then he
has the right to learn it without groveling at anyone’s feet. No human being
should be denied the opportunity of achieving true spiritual independence!
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CHAPTER I/07 THE END OF AN EPOCH
The studies of which I have reported in the preceding chapter played a part in
pushing me to confront the myths of Guru and secrecy. The conflicts I had
with my second teacher brought me to conceive of the idea of writing a book
on Kriya. When he asked me to teach Kriya to those people who were
interested in it, I rejoiced at this opportunity because I could finally explain
everything in a complete and exhaustive way. I wanted no student to feel the
pain of seeing a legitimate question unconsidered. After some months, I had
the impression that everything was going smoothly: about a dozen of people
had received Kriya without any problems; when all of a sudden the situation
seemed to get complicated. This happened when, some months before his visit
to our group, in order to prepare a beautiful event, I wrote a letter to him
asking if it was possible, at the end of his Kriya initiation seminar, to check
the students’ comprehension of the techniques through a guided group
practice. This of course had never happened; as a matter of fact, people
usually left the initiation with many doubts. Incredibly, as a reply, he crossed
me off his list of disciples; only communicating his decision to one of his
close partners, not to me. Probably, my experience with that teacher would
have ended that way - and it would have been better – had I been informed
about what was happening.
Unaware of the situation, when I welcomed him back to Europe at his
arrival, he hugged me as if nothing had happened. He probably interpreted my
presence there as a move of repentance. Later on, I was appalled when I came
to know about everything that had happened. For the benefit of the group’s
peace, I decided to go on without reacting but I deliberately began to control
myself, without making any reasonable suggestion.
In order to explain the definitive crack in our relationship, it is necessary to
come back on the shallowness with which he explained the Thokar technique.
It happened that from one year to another that he demonstrated it in a visibly
different way. When one among the listeners asked him about the reason for
the changes, he argued he had not changed anything and that, in the past
seminars, a problem of translation might have occurred. It was I who did that
translation. Since his lie was too evident, I did not say anything: my friends
remembered very well the head movements they had formerly seen with their
own eyes.
Although I spent weeks with him, it was not possible to even find five
minutes to discuss such a technical detail. Confronted with other minor
changes, I had the impression that I was cooperating with an archaeologist
who was deliberately altering certain findings in order to justify them to the
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public in the theoretic framework to which he was accustomed. I saw that so
many things were not going along the right direction. My subconscious mind
was beginning to rebel. I can vividly remember a dream in which I was
swimming in manure. I felt that this man, whose every small whim I tried to
satisfy, devoting myself to this task (as if I was doing a sacred deed), did not
love Kriya. He used it, instead, only to conduct a more beautiful life here in
the West compared to the wretched life in India -- which he had often
described to me. I helped to organize his tours in a way so that he could
spread Kriya in his rushed, superficial manner: behind my mask of fake
delight hid a dry agony. There were moments in which, thinking of my meek
beginning in the practice of Yoga, my heart felt an indefinite nostalgia for that
period which was waiting for nothing but consistency and honesty on my side
to rise again and blossom to the full.
Another year went by. As an answer to some friends abroad, I went on
behalf of my teacher to their group to teach them Kriya Yoga. There I met a
very serious student who was already familiar with my teacher’s behavior and
was taking part in the initiation ceremony only as a revision. He asked me a
lot of pertinent questions, always getting accurate answers. That was the point
when he asked me: "From whom have you learned all these details?". He
knew well that my teacher was a total disaster from a didactic point of view.
He perceived that I had learned many details from other sources. How could I
ever give Kriya initiation using a knowledge that did not originate from my
teacher? He could understand my predicament but was surprised that, since I
was authorized to teach Kriya, I had never found the chance to talk freely with
him about the Kriya details! It was logical and befitting for me to settle the
matter as soon as possible. Knowing how irascible the disposition of my
teacher was, I hesitated a lot, but there was no other way out. Through a
friend, I sent him a fax where I mentioned the matter at hand and prayed him
to arrange his schedule in a way that we could discuss it after his arrival in my
group during his next tour. He was in Australia, but within one week at the
latest I would have received his answer.
During one of those crucial days, I went to the nearby mountains to ski.
During the trip I was absorbed in my thoughts. My subconscious mind was
ready for the cataclysm, in anticipation of an event I intuitively knew would
come. The most probable situation was that my teacher would have become
very angry and would have resulted in confrontational outbursts. If the whole
situation slipped out of my hands and, as a result of our break, he would stop
coming to our group, those people who loved him would suffer; few people,
in fact, would be able to comprehend the reason for my action. I would have
been the one who had disturbed, an imperfect, yet comfortable situation. My
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friends liked him; his annual visit was a powerful stimulus to their effort; they
got themselves up for his visit with an intense practice of Kriya. Everybody
appreciated his philosophy of life, which was not far from Krishnamurti's
thinking. 19
It was a good day for skiing. I found myself taking advantage of a break
by looking at the mountains marking out the boundaries of the distant horizon
in all directions. In less than half an hour the sun would paint them pink – of
an intense hue on their eastern side and tinged with blue on the western side. I
imagined India to be right behind them, the Himalayas being their
continuation. My thought went to all the Kriya enthusiasts who found, as I
did, insurmountable obstacles in the understanding of their beloved
discipline.20 For the first time I dared to contemplate a thought, which had
long been lingering hesitantly in my subconscious: I visualized a book on
Kriya explaining every technique in great detail. How often have I wondered
what would have happened if Lahiri Mahasaya or one of his disciples had
written it!
My imagination led me to fantasize about its cover, to skim its few pages –
sober, yet very rich in content. If this book existed, we would have had a
reliable manual of Kriya that would have restrained the many small or large
variations made up by various teachers. Perhaps some annotator would try to
force its meaning into his own theories. Nay, I’m sure that some pseudo-guru
would say that the techniques described in it were for beginners only, while
there were much more complicated techniques which could only be passed on
by an authorized teacher to chosen disciples. Some people would swallow that
bait, contact the author and pay good money to be introduced to those
techniques that, either through fancy or borrowed from some esoteric book, he
had devised. The simple fact is that this happens, this is a part of our human
nature. However, sincere researchers would surely be able to recognize the
strength and self-sufficient intrinsic evidence of the original text without
commentary.
The problem lay in the fact that mine was only a day dream! I let my
thoughts stray towards about what could have happened if I had written it.
It was hard, yet possible, to summarize the totality of my knowledge of
Kriya into a book - welding together techniques and theories through a clean,
19 Up to now, I have continued to read some of Krishnamurti works (like The Only
Revolution) which convey an unmatched vision of the distinctive feature of the
authentic spiritual mind.
20 I am referring to those researchers who had learned the rudiments of the First Kriya
and something of the Higher Kriyas from an organization or from a traveling teacher in
the West. I am not referring to those people who had the fortune to meet a true Master.
87
rational vision. The intention was definitely not to celebrate myself or lay the
foundations for yet another new school of Kriya. If I was describing my
experiences, this would only be with the purpose of clarifying theoretic and
technical explanations. No more rhetorical claims of legitimacy and riddlelike
sentences to allow the reader to guess at some technical details and, at the
same time, creating further doubts! I was day dreaming of a book which
would prove its validity by attempting to reproduce Lahiri Mahasaya’s
thought, in the simplest and most logical way; a complete, harmonious set of
techniques. The model for this could be Theos Bernard’s Hatha Yoga: The
Report of a Personal Experience.21
Of course, many teachers of Kriya - those who get by on donations
received during rituals of initiation and who exert power over people thanks
to the pledge of secrecy - would consider my book as a real threat. Maybe
what was virtually eternal for them (living like a lord, surrounded by people
who have to meet all their needs with the hope of getting the crumbs of their
"secrets") might change, and they would be fearful of that. They would try to
destroy its credibility by means of a pitiless censorship. I anticipated their
scornful comments uttered while skimming its pages: "It contains but stories
that have nothing to do with Babaji’s and Lahiri Mahasaya’s teachings. It
spreads a false teaching!"
Actually, a book like mine could not be a threat to any honest Kriya
Acharya’s activity, especially if he had accepted to teach the entire Kriya
properly - gradually, of course, with the required care - without keeping
anything for himself whatsoever, be it based on a honest or dishonest
decision. Good teachers are and will always be requested, in any field, when a
skill is to be transmitted. But how could I highlight this to them, without
being at odds with the deeply-rooted conditioning of their "cerebral
chemistry"?
Other people for different reasons could not like the book, either because
they are taken aback by the barrenness of an exposition deprived of frills,
which hurts their convictions, or because their refined sensibility does not
manage to catch that 'vibration' which should characterize the authenticity of
the author's experience.
Only those who love Kriya more than their whims would feel an enormous
relief in finding it in an esoteric library. I was already living in their
21 This extraordinary handbook, better than all the others, clarifies the teachings
contained in the three fundamental texts of Tantrism: Hatha Yoga Pradipika, Gheranda
Samhita and Shiva Samhita. In spite of having been published many years ago and of
the several texts of Hatha Yoga appearing recently, that book is still one of the best
ones. Old, 'dusty' techniques once again became relevant, feasible, comprehensible in
front of the eyes of our intuition. That is why I thought that a similar book on Kriya
would be a real blessing for scholars and researchers.
88
happiness. Thanks to them, the book would continue to circulate, and who
knows how many times it would get back to the teacher who had decreed its
unforgivable flaws. At times he would have to pretend not to notice that a
student was browsing through its pages during his seminars, thus missing a
part of the conference…
Each part of this dream developed in the space of a few seconds, invaded
my consciousness as a swollen torrent, as if every part of it had already been
rehearsed and cherished innumerable times. But how could I find the courage
to violate the vow of secrecy I made in regard to the Kriya techniques,
coarsely challenging the sacredness of the Guru-disciple relationship as the
unique way to be instructed in it? Even if the up-to-now known Gurus (I am
not referring to historical figures which I have not known personally) did not
have any of this sacredness, it was the Kriya that was sacred. It had to be
received from an "authorized" person, not from books: this had been repeated
to me a thousand of times.
I began to see the secrecy about Kriya procedures as mere, unnecessary
and sometimes (if not at all times) harmful, dogma. Nevertheless, I was
radically convinced that I could not write it. Yet, looking around and watching
the blue sky above the gilded mountain brims turning pink, all seemed to tell
me that the book had already been written, in some corner of my heart!
With the thought of writing the book pressing inside me, I reflected a lot
on the situation of the diffusion of Kriya. It was very difficult for me to put all
the crucial points in a logic order. Different conditionings, dogmas carved in
my brain, acted as entities which had a life of their own. Each time I tried to
think sequentially there was an automatic mechanism which took care of
organizing my vision in a well-integrated and coherent whole: but this, for
one reason or another, appeared as a monstrosity.
Reflections on the concept of Guru
It is good to remember that the great Lahiri Mahasaya refused to be
worshiped as a God. This is a point that some among His followers seem to
have forgotten. "God is not a person but a state of consciousness", He
remarked! He said: "I am not the Guru, I don't maintain a barrier between the
true Guru (the Divine) and the disciple". He added that he wanted to be
considered like "a mirror". When a kriyaban realizes that Lahiri Mahasaya is
the personification of what resides potentially inside himself, of what one day
he will become, the mirror must be "thrown away". Whether one likes it or
not, that is exactly what He wrote: thrown away. People who have been raised
with the usual dogmas about the Guru-disciple relationship are prevented
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from fully understanding the impact of these words, otherwise they would
face a strong conflict within themselves. To face the truth, it takes courage
and an intelligent, discriminating approach to abandon one’s own illusions,
especially those that are nice and gratifying.
Organizations aside, many think that Kriya must be received from a Guru
"because only the Guru knows what your really need!" This may indeed
happen, beyond the shadow of a doubt, within some very rare relationships -
but usually a Kriya Acharya gives the same instructions to everyone and does
not want to hear very intimate and personal questions to which he usually
answers: "that is your life!" or "those are matters that you must resolve with
your intuition".
Unfortunately, those kriyabans who could be defined as honest and
competent Kriya Masters, are based in India and do not travel. It was said that
many know the critical condition of Kriya diffusion in the West. They don't
appreciate that in order to others to learn some crumbs of Kriya we have to go
to persons they judge as charlatans. They think we are irreparably stupid, but
instead of meeting us halfway, and giving some of their students the
permission to correct our performance of Kriya, blinded by dogmas, locked in
their ivory towers, they act against common sense; demanding even more
secrecy from their few western disciples.
A friend of mine, with whom I had shared everything of my spiritual path,
accompanying me in my ventures with both the teachers and suffering the
same woes on himself, went to India for a vacation, where he visited a teacher
whom I held in great esteem but never had the opportunity to meet personally.
He explained to that Teacher the deplorable situation of the diffusion of the
Kriya here in the West and particularly all the vicissitudes of our group; the
Teacher said he felt sorry for us and that he was willing to help us. My friend
had his Pranayama reviewed. When he got back to Italy, I met him; he was
very happy and asked me to practice Pranayama in front of him. He told me
that there was a mistake in my practice. I asked him what it was and his reply
literally froze me: he could not tell me, since he promised the teacher he
would not reveal anything.22 He clarified that he had indeed asked for his
teacher’s permission to correct eventual mistakes in our practice: the answer
had been negative, the teacher swore him to secrecy. Was this teacher – who
had manifested the intention to help us - concerned that we would not find
any need to visit him after our mistake had been corrected? Was he really so
22 Considering the episode later, I realized what this incorrect detail was: I had not made
the abdominal breath in a particularly visible way. I am sure of this fact because it was
the only thing my friend was able to see – we did not talk about inner details of the
practice.
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petty and unkind?
I did not put pressure on my friend to tell me everything about his talk with
the Master. I could not, and would not, enter the privacy of his experience -
but how could he just let me go on with my mistake? I considered this to be
absurd and reacted badly. My friend was taken aback when I cut our
discussion and left. The only practical result, unfortunately, was the severing
of my relationship with that friend.
The "wise" Indian Acharyas have no "representatives" in the West and their
students don't have the permission to teach anything. Now, it is impossible to
think that, each year, an innumerable series of charter flights will transport all
those interested in Kriya - no matter if old or ill - to a remote Indian village,
like a pilgrimage to Lourdes or Fatima! Unfortunately, the gap between them
and us is bound to grow.
One evening, after a long walk, subdued by a sudden tiredness, I dragged
myself back home. Worn-out by my thoughts, the problem of the Gurudisciple
relationship emerged, obscurely, more as a wound than as a theory
unfolding its myths. In my room, I set the record player on "repeat", playing
Beethoven’s second movement of the Emperor Concerto... Did anybody,
after having haunted all the possible ceremonies of Initiation given by the
"legitimate" channels, being stuffed with all the possible Guru’s blessings,
ever practice Kriya with the same dignity and courage with which Beethoven
challenged his fate?
I turned down the lights and watched the sun go down behind some trees
on the top of a hill. The shape of a cypress covered a part of that great, bloodred
circle. That was the eternal beauty! That was the norm by which I would
be inspired. Sitting down from sleepiness; a strange image captured my
attention - that of Vivekananda’s "investiture" by his Guru Ramakrishna. I
read that one day, toward the end of his life, Ramakrishna entered Samadhi
while his disciple was near him. Vivekananda started to feel a strong current
before fainting. Having returned to consciousness, his Guru, crying,
whispered: "O my Naren (Vivekananda), everything I had I gave to you,
today. I have become a poor fakir, I do not have anything; with these powers
you will do the world an immense good". Later, Ramakrishna explained that
the powers he passed onto him could not be used for his own spiritual
fulfillment, one had to get to that by himself; on the contrary, they would help
him in his mission as a spiritual teacher. I think my subconscious came up
with such a flash as a warning not to yield to the temptation of throwing
something valid and precious away. Now, if we say that Ramakrishna was
Vivekananda’s Guru, we are saying something true and unquestionable.
It came to me spontaneously to again read the memorable, impressive
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discourse by Dostoevsky about the role of elders in Russian monasteries in his
The Brothers Karamazov.
"What was such an elder? An elder was one who took your soul, your will, into
his soul and his will. When you choose an elder, you renounce your own will and
yield it to him in complete submission, complete self-abnegation. This novitiate,
this terrible school of abnegation, is undertaken voluntarily, in the hope of selfconquest,
of self-mastery, in order, after a life of obedience, to attain perfect
freedom, that is, from self; to escape the lot of those who have lived their whole
life without finding their true selves in themselves. " (Translated by Constance
Garnett)
My musings arrived just to that point and there they stopped - for months. I
was not yet able to see that the problem did not lie in the concept of Guru -
which deserved to be explored to the full - but in the fact that the organization
made me believe that I found myself in a lucky condition, I had a Guru -
whereas in fact I was light years away from having one. I was hypnotized and
could not see that Vivekananda' story and Dostoevsky's extract depicted
situations which were intrinsically, exceedingly different from mine.
It took time before the awareness dawned upon me that while the great
examples of Guru-disciple relationship were based on a real physical meeting
between two persons, my relationship was purely ideal.
I don't know how it happened that I accepted the impudent assumption that
Guru and God were the same Reality. A chief of the most important Italian
branch of my school had once instructed me: "Don't you understand that P.Y.
is the Divine Mother Herself"? Many kriyabans and my dearest friends
simply repeated this identification and took the statement for granted. One
day, when I was able to unmask this insanity, I closed my eyes for various
minutes and tried to have a dispassionate, unemotional discernment of the
situation. It seemed to me an absurdity that wore the clothes of a nightmare –
I felt an infinite rebellion.
Well, who is a Guru? Let us consider the idea of a net or web; each
individual is a junction from which a lot of other links fan out, like the
network of our brain’s neurons. When a single individual takes an action - a
significant one of course, like starting on a mystic path and making good
progress on it - he shakes the surrounding network connected to him as well.
A serious practitioner is never isolated; thus, he will be helped by other
people’s positive response and vice versa he will be slowed down by their
indolence and apathy. In my opinion a real Guru-disciple relationship has its
foundations in this phenomenon. An enlightened Master is able to carry the
disciple's evolution ahead, or rather foster their own spiritual progress,
through a factual contact with their unconscious dimension. He is able to dive
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in the ocean of Collective Unconscious (the collective network connecting all
of us), track down the tiny vibration which is the ego of the disciple and crack
it to a certain point, infusing it with light, with vastness. Usually the permitted
Kriya Acharyas (those who were officially allowed to bestow Kriya initiation)
have not even an ounce of such a power. Ramakrishna and Vivekananda had
different personalities, but, considering the deepest and truest side of
themselves, they were one thing.
As the reader definitely knows, Jung talked of a deeper level than the
subconscious, which does not have a similar origin but is "inherited with our
cerebral structure" and consists of "the human systems of reacting" to the
most intense events that can happen in one’s lifetime: the birth of a child,
marriage, death of a loved one, serious illness, family crisis, true love, natural
disasters, war... We, as human beings, are linked through this Collective
Unconscious. If to Freud the Unconscious was a part of the psyche similar to
a depot full of old, removed things that we cannot recall to consciousness -
refused by a nearly automatic act of the will; this Collective Unconscious
binds all human beings by the deepest layers of their conscience.
One who claims to have legitimately received the power to initiate should
reflect upon the fact that to accept a disciple doesn't mean to explain Kriya to
him, but to accept lucidly and coherently the future tangles and complications
that such a relationship might imply.
Those who had the fortune of being drawn to the spiritual path and guided
along it by a true Guru, should not waste all their time and effort re-telling
innumerable anecdotes, miraculous stories concerning the life of their Guru,
whose grace rescued their life from insignificance. It is true that some stories
can help build confidence, inspire and transmit helpful lessons, but by going
too far with them, useless myths and unjustified expectations might be built. It
is quite understandable that generous souls would like to project to other
students the blessing they received. It happens also that having an implicit
humility, they hesitate in conveying a spiritual instruction when it is based
only upon their own experiences. However, the spiritual seed their benefactor
planted in them can blossom again in other souls only by passing along the
warmth of their imperfect but sincere and compassionate humanity.
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The deceit of secrecy
After I had gotten rid of all the Gurus, I was invited by a local cultural
institution to give lessons about the history of the mystical paths. After
completing the first cycle of lessons, I accepted the assignment for the
subsequent years which, in all, became five.
The mystical path was considered from different points of view and, during
the last two years, there was also a practical introduction to elementary
practices like Japa and Pranayama from classical Yoga... I was delighted to
prepare the lessons by studying the best available essays and textbooks. Here I
mean books written by academics who didn't belong (or were so smart as to
hide their membership or affiliation) to any particular mystical school and
manifested a detached attitude towards the whole matter.
This was an unclouded period of my life: I was very gratified to have time
and opportunity to pursue such studies. I appreciated those texts that were
capable of grasping the essence of a religions movement, especially those
which flourished freely around the great religions. The impact of certain
readings, the liveliness of certain biographic stories, has the effect of melting
away our over-zealous enthusiasm born from strong conditioning, admitted
innocently into our lives through the door of blind devotion. Such studies
contributed to calming my recurrent torment of having violated the "sacred"
rule of maintaining secrecy about the Kriya techniques. For an innumerable
amount of times I repeated to myself: "Such a rule is not sacred, it is human,
it is the cause of disastrous effects, of excruciating conflicts and sufferings".
Nevertheless, a painful grip in my breast along with a general sense of
uneasiness and unreality continued to linger. Of all my reasoning, this one
helped me almost instantly to regain a light-hearted, self-assured mood: Kriya
is a collection of introspective tools which, although perfectly integrated,
were taken from different traditions. It is neither possible, nor fair, to claim
that they belong to one organization or one teacher: no one can make claims
of exclusive ownership.
According to the organization from which I learned the first rudiments of
Kriya, secrecy was required "to maintain the purity of the teachings". The
baffling fact was that this organization was the first to come up with
significant Kriya alterations! Perhaps it would have been better to say: "to
maintain the purity of our modifications!" "The technique is effective only if
it is obtained by authorized Ministers", repeated the organization. Sometimes
what I saw was the exact opposite to this principle.
Those who had been initiated in a solemn way, were practicing with the
illusion of being subtly and automatically helped by the Guru. While the
humble self-taught student put into his practice all the possible prudence and
94
creativity, always unsure that the book from which he had learned Kriya, or in
the words of the friend who explained it to him, not all the necessary
instructions were present.
The pressing, obsessing request of secrecy with the threat of possible
calamities that would happen to whom infringes it, clearly clashes with
everything we read in the biographies of the saints; it instead perfectly suits
those of the esoteric-magic dimension of certain societies – rather, secrecy is
essential to their preservation.
Kriya organizations need the secrecy in order not to become modest
institutions devoted to publishing the works of the Master. The myth of
secrecy allows the myth of the divinity of their Guru (the concept of Avatar –
divine incarnation) to be kept alive. If there were no secrecy, the Guru would
belong to everyone, would be inevitably more "human" and a great renowned
personage - but surely not a God in human form. In this situation they could
not carry on that subtle work of persuasion that Guru is God and the idea that
the organization is the materialization of God’s will. Only through this last
hypothesis could they hope to maintain that a kriyaban cannot approach God,
if not through that Guru and that organization.
The end of a nightmare
A harsh reply from my second teacher came just a few days later. In a
disdainful way, he did not address it directly to me but pretended to answer
back to the 'persona' that had materially sent my letter via fax. He wrote that
my excessive attachment to the techniques would never let me out of the
fences of my mind -- I was like S. Thomas, too desirous to touch with my
hand and verify the goodness of his teachings. He added that he would have
satisfied my request but only for gratifying my ego. Reading the term
"gratification", I saw he had understood nothing. We should have talked to
each other long before it came to this! I wondered why he had never let me
express my concerns. I didn't want to contest him, I didn't want to destroy
him, the necessity that brought me to write him was to establish once and for
all what I was supposed to communicate and what not to communicate to the
kriyabans during initiation. Why did he always evade me? 23
23 One day, during a three week tour with him, we were alone and he was seeking
something in a room: I found the courage to put to him a technical question about Kriya
and it was a delicate question, an issue which set one Kriya school against another. He
suddenly turned toward me with his eyes showing such a hate as if he was in the act of
killing me; he shouted that I should practice in the way I considered right: it was not his
business. This, according to my memory, is the sole technical discourse I had with him
in the course of some years.
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I decided to behave in a candid way as if I had not perceived his tone: I
had the desire to see what he was capable of doing. I neither apologized nor
answered in a resentful tone. I wrote that, since I taught Kriya on his behalf, a
mutual talk about some Kriya details was necessary. I added that at such an
event the other three people in Europe, authorized by him to impart the Kriya
initiation, could also be present. I thus made him understand that he would
have not wasted his time and breath only for me. I did not receive, neither
then nor later, any answer. Some weeks later I was shown that on his Internet
site the plan of his visit to Italy had changed and the name of my town had
been taken off; my second letter had brought about a definitive split. The
nightmare was over!
I took a one day vacation and had a long walk; I roamed a lot, tensely,
imagining a hypothetical talk with him. All of a sudden I found myself crying
with joy. It was too beautiful: I was free, I had been six years with him, and
now all that really ended!
This split of my relationship with that teacher was perceived with
bewilderment by my friends. Like a domino effect, some coordinators
belonging to other groups in Europe, who had hardly been tolerating his bad
manners, took advantage of that episode to also break any contact with him.
They felt the time was ripe to enjoy this liberation.
The next period was pleasant but not as euphoric as I had foreseen: the
sense of all the time wasted - of all the silly things which had been carried out
thoughtlessly - was weighing me down. I had not even a faint idea of what our
group was to become without a teacher joining us in the near future. Some
weeks later the wheel of good fortune seemed to be turning again; there was
the possibility of inviting a new teacher to our group. As he was a wellregarded
person, I accepted the proposal to bear the cost of his travel.
Some days later, contacted by the teacher’s secretary, she handled the
financial side of the tour with a shocking earthiness, added unacceptable
conditions. I was really disgusted at the whole situation; I had enough of
behaving like a compliant disciple who accepts everything in order to receive
one more crumb of information regarding the Kriya practice. I declined the
offer.
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The first draft of the book
The years that followed the break-up with my second and last teacher were
completely different from the previously described years. Having "sent him to
hell", an enervating situation was over. I didn't have to go here and there to
organize seminars for that rascal. While replying to those who called me to
ask information about him, I was relieved of any constraint of wearing a mask
of hypocrisy. I felt free inside. At long last I enjoyed a quiet moment of my
life, experiencing the calmness and contentedness that comes to those who
devote all their efforts to one single purpose. In my case it was Kriya:
practicing it intensively and writing about it. I knew, without doubt, that my
disposition wouldn't have allowed me to get lazy, that the approaching months
had to mark a new birth to the path of Kriya: I had to revive my initial
enthusiasm.
I purchased a computer and, as a voluntary prisoner, I reduced my social
life to an absolute minimum and began the work of writing the book. The aim
of this book had to be only to provide information about the technical aspects
of Kriya to those who, for their personal reasons, were looking for it. Seekers
could thereby find material through which they would enrich their search.
The time employed for completing the book has been indeed too long. My
friends made a fool of me and said that I'll never put the last world to the
enterprise. One of the reasons for my slowness in writing was not only
inexperience, but also the fact that I practiced a lot of Kriya, especially the socalled
Incremental Routines - preferably in the open air. I could thus dedicate
a more constant attention to what, years before, had been embarked on in a
superficial manner. I must admit that, in the past, the major impulse which led
me to finish the prescribed number of repetitions of each Higher Kriya as
soon as possible was also the anxiety of obtaining the next initiation from my
teacher. The ardent desire of "squeezing" anything he could teach me, was fed
by a strange fear; as if, for some unfathomable reasons, I would not have been
able to contact him in the future.
The Incremental Routines soon revealed their great heuristic value. The
essential core of each technique, deprived of any embellishment, appeared as
something fixed, definite, inevitable - something that could not be but that
way. If a certain variation of a Kriya technique was redundant or ineffective, it
would fall away by itself. The Incremental Routines applied to any technique
helped me greatly to develop the quality of discrimination. A fundamental
criterion to judge a technique as essential, was that it should appear as the
simplest logical translation of Lahiri Mahasaya’s words into practice. I
discarded some redundant and ineffective variations; this was the end of a set
of techniques which had been given to me as "Dhyana Kriya": their main tool
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was the power of visualization, brought to the extreme limit. Eminent writers
had already remarked that such practices did not have any place in Lahiri
Mahasaya’s Kriya; they had no similarities within any mystic tradition but
had a strong, rather perfect connection with the esoteric or magic traditions.24
They had nothing to do with the Omkar perception or with the ability to reach
the breathless state. I dramatically experienced their uselessness and "danger":
it was a relief to polish up my Kriya path and my life forever from such a
trash.
I tried to extract from my huge heaps of notes, collected during years with
different teachers, the essential core of Kriya. There was the feeling of
working on a difficult puzzle, without having a preview of what was to be
obtained in the end. I didn't know if, in the final completed picture, four, six
or more levels of Kriya had to be expected. In fact, I was not entirely sure if I
had understood what these levels were. Further, in case that just four stages
should emerge as fundamental, I didn't know if these had to be put in a oneto-
one correspondence with the process of unfastening the internal knots
(tongue, navel, heart, coccyx).
In the first draft, the description of the Higher Kriyas was given as a chain
of techniques (eleven), each one ideally preparing the next one. After second
thoughts, I decided to describe all the techniques in the scheme of four Kriyas
(avoiding thus the use of imaginative names as fifth, sixth Kriya); thus
looking at any valid Kriya technique as pertaining to one of the four levels.
In the second part of the book I freely share all I know about the Kriya
techniques. There remain, in my shorthand notebooks, some variations and
details ready to be added to the book, but only in case I receive other
information corroborating and, at the same time, showing their intrinsic value
in the light of Lahiri Mahasaya's legacy.
At the present moment I am not frantically looking for any more
information from any possible source, although I study carefully all that I
happen to come across. I reflect deeply about the criticism I receive now then
- which never leaves me cold. Nevertheless, drastic affirmations like: "The
renowned teacher X, who is disciple of Y who was direct disciple of Lahiri
Mahasaya, has affirmed that part of the techniques you describe are an
invention" leave me calm and cheerful. This comes from the fact that I have
touched first-hand their value: they are marvelous and they will remain in my
life!
24 We know that visualization is the principal ingredient - sometimes accompanied by
an affirmation - of a boundless series of New Age methods.
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Why a third part of the book
After having completed and posted the first two parts of the book on the web,
I have been corresponding with different types of researchers. Almost
everyone of them had already experienced some form of Kriya. We freely
discussed the techniques and the routine. Sharing of Kriya information with
people who were not experienced in it also occurred. Let us avoid discussing
the reason for their interest in Kriya as it would not be relevant. By talking
with them, when I felt I could trust them, I accepted to help them in taking the
first steps. This was always done in person. Some were particularly skillful,
with an intelligent and sound mind. The responsibility of choosing a didactic
plan was mine. To envisage it, I used my past experiences as a starting point.
I have concerned myself with the problem of teaching Kriya when, on
behalf of my second teacher, I gave Kriya initiation following the fixed
protocol by which he bid me to abide. After introducing the theme of nomind,
a summing up of Krishnamurti's strong points, which my teacher
improperly called Swadhyaya, I reminded the initiates of the eight steps of
Patanjali. Sometimes my consciousness revolted at the idea of asking - as I
had been requested to do - my male students to look at women as "mothers"
and, correspondingly, women to look at men as "fathers". I was aware of the
obvious impossibility of obeying this precept. (My teacher gave a great
emphasis to it - I remember how the public listened to his vain words with a
sigh of ill-concealed nuisance.) Then I switched to the explanation of the
basic techniques. While concluding, by counseling a minimal routine, I sensed
I had done a virtually useless work. I took leave of those students, well
knowing that they would practice for some days, or weeks, then most of them
would leave everything and pursue other esoteric interests.
After some days, it usually happened that one or two among the most
tenacious students made up some questions and called me just to have the
illusion of carrying on, from a distance, a relationship with a real person. I
answered kindly but succinctly and invited them to the next seminar where
my teacher would be present.
Usually, they didn't "survive" such a meeting. Observing in my teacher the
most total lack of human understanding, and perhaps of intelligence, they
entered a deep crisis. They doubted that Kriya worked and that they had made
the right choice in receiving initiation in it. But now that time had ended and I
had to reconsider the whole matter using my head. Now it was necessary to
put myself in their shoes, wondering, often without answer, whether the
confusion and uneasiness that I found in some, were due to temperamental or
physical reasons. It was evident that many had started the Kriya path without
proper attitude.
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Following the flickering of their moods and the drastic changes of their
frame of mind, I tried to understand the reason of their failures, especially
when I was convinced that the failures were not inevitable. Some had an
entirely childish idea of Kriya. They were unyielding in bringing their false
hopes to the forefront, supposing I agreed with them. Some poured into Kriya
a remarkable commitment, however, got nothing in return. Sometimes I felt
myself inclined to discuss it with them, to the point of exhaustion, completely
forgetting the time. I saw they were adamant in practicing Kriya making
glaring mistakes. (For instance, one neglected the normal rules of health,
refused, during meditation, to assume the correct position of the backbone,
didn't even attend maintaining immobility in the final part of his routine.) It
was impossible to correct them. They behaved towards me in a very cordial
way but, when it dealt with defending their choices, showed a dialectical gift
that made me feel like an idiot. As opposed to their sophism, I would (one
hundred-fold times more!) prefer to listen to a funny guy shouting at me: "I
leave Kriya to idiots like you: I like to eat, to drink and to enjoy life!".
The wrong thinking of some succeeded in bringing me to a state of
alienation. I remember one who sought total harmony with life, at the same
time utilizing any means to develop his hidden psychic potential. He went on
paying attention to the revelations coming from a healer (- a channeler -) (to
whom he went in order that the spirits reveal to him the karmic reason of an
illness, as well as the attitudes to be changed in order that his problem be
astrally destroyed) but, at the same time, haunted a church where he pretended
a genuine devotion while asking a "particular" benediction as a bland form of
exorcism.
One day, after talking with him, gasping in order to find "myself" again, I
felt the need to walk in the open air and practice Japa. The feeling of
alienation seemed to stretch out as far as the horizon and touch the rim of the
sky. I had a thought, luminous and warm: even if all my friends, all the people
I know would leave Kriya, I would stand fast anyway, not because I have faith
in one day obtaining the coveted good effects from it, but because Kriya has
already given me something incomparable. I don't need a recharge of
motivation by turning back to the old readings of spiritual fiction: it is the
radiance of my memory that saves me each time, every day.
An irrepressible joy spread, like a thrill, through my skin: I clearly saw that
Kriya has the potential to dispel the clouds in any person's mind. We float on
an ocean of bliss but – this is the power of illusion - we feel separated from it,
like oil on water; we need only a change of perspective to turn our life into a
heaven.
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I have already written that I gave lessons on the history of the mystical paths
at a local cultural institution. This was repeated some years later. I proposed
adding some information about the most known esoteric movements to our
study. My purpose was to compare them with the New Age tendencies and
show where, inside them, the boundary line between the genuine mystical
quest and the cultivation of magic ambitions lay. It was not difficult to see the
devastating theoretical inconsistencies of many esoteric movements, widely
recognized as demanding and elitist. An incredible amount of magnificent
terms, which would have once allured me, filled me with nausea as if they
were an obscenity brought forth by a monster. I was more and more stricken
by the weakness of the minds of so called researchers of truth, up to the point
of feeling a pessimistic sense of discouragement about the possibility they
would succeed in dissolving glaring deceptions and fallacies. I inevitably
drifted into that most interesting field of studies: the human psyche, its
suggestibility and vulnerability when it deals with approaching the spiritual
path.
I saw the interest of my students about this subject was almost nonexistent.
I was aghast at realizing that most of them came to my lessons in order to
receive support and fuel for their illusions. Despite all my explanations they
had not yet understood, in a practical sense, what a mystical path really is, and
above all, what an infinite amount of joy and meaning it could bring into their
own existence. It was on that occasion that I developed a keen awareness of
how improper the attitudes were towards Kriya to which many researchers
stubbornly attached themselves.
I understood the importance of clarifying to every person who would come
to me to learn Kriya a fundamental point: Kriya has nothing to do with
paranormal studies, or fruitless attempts in developing the latent powers of the
mind.
If in some context the word mystic evokes a relationship with the mystery,
with the concept of initiation (from the Greek μυστικός [mustikos], an
initiate) into secret religious rituals (also this from the Greek μύω, to conceal),
a mystic is one who tries sincerely (adopting any form of mental and or bodily
discipline) to surrender themselves to something which lays beyond the
territories of the mind - unattainable by the sheer power of will and
imagination, which is the quintessence of supreme comfort.
Unfortunately, many harbor the illusion that Kriya is a series of secrets (of
growing effectiveness as soon as one moves towards the Higher Kriyas) to be
exploited in the most cunning possible way – while virtually remaining the
same Ego. They practice very little, while they pretend to practice a lot. They
have often heard that Kriya is "the supreme among all the spiritual techniques,
the airplane route to God realization". It seems that "... supreme among all..."
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triumphantly enters their brain but "... God realization..." is left outside. They
essentially fantasize about that which does not exist. They are tied to a magicesoteric
conception of Kriya which is obviously a caricature of Lahiri
Mahasaya's Kriya. This frenzy may last forever or suddenly disappear for
reasons of a chilling banality, like meeting a kriyaban who suffers from a
serious ailment. "How is such a thing possible! Kriya has no value!"
Subsequently they began another practice, by hearing whose name and
definition from their lips, it was a miracle you didn't begin to laugh --
however, you could not avoid collapsing into giggles for the rest of the day.
The spiritual path is for those who, even if they have done all that human
folly can conceive and wasted years in exhausting their vital energy and from
a certain moment onwards they decide to turn over a new leaf and seek no
"powers" anymore, but instead seek the peace and comfort which are revealed
by the process of interiorisation.
Appendix: examples of problems I had been confronted with
Despite repeating these explanations endless times, some little quirks remained –
impossible conceptions that ruined everything. They arose and became virulent after
reading some books, listening to friends' opinions, having received apparent delusions...
A great inquietude arose, which encouraged one to plan trips to contact this or that
personage, eagerly embarking on vast esoteric studies, to do voluntary work - which is
not negative in the least but could be very distracting. After this waste of time, the
heavenly harmony which was established at the beginning was soured and lost.
[a] A difficult, enervating, almost impossible case to cope with is that of those who have
conflicts with their native religion. During our childhood, almost all of us received
spiritual instruction inside a structured religion. Great was the strength with which some
religious myths were embedded into our consciousness. Introduced through tales and
made more real by some pleasant depictions, those myths were invested with a
particular soundness especially if they contained a vivid description of some ideal
character that was missing or weak in our family constitution.
Although during our adolescence those myths were questioned, at full maturity we
felt again their enchanting charm - they embody a part of our past. The perfume of those
old tales is like an incense of nostalgia, like a balm of infantile joy spreading on the
never-healed wounds of our existence. If we take part in religious rites, a chain of
memories of lost times and passed loved ones starts … the heart is affected, deep
feelings are involved.
For some people, infancy’s conditioning results in an unassailable solidity and turns
into a set of fixed elements in their way of thinking. In their subconsciousness an iron
intention takes shape: "The dimension of faith which I received from my parents is
distilling for me the perfume of the most beautiful time of my life. I have to defend it at
any cost".
Now, let us understand what happens when a person, who is living this experience,
decides to learn a discipline like Kriya. At the very beginning, one is elated by its
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efficacy. One has the feeling that one's religious life has received a powerful recharging
of enthusiasm and has become one-pointed. Even if it is difficult to conceive the idea
that the "strange" exercises are in themselves a self-sufficient mystical path, one will
start to look at them with increasing attention and growing respect. The problem occurs
when one deems it necessary to talk about their choice and efforts with a spiritual
director. The risk of yielding to restricting and narrow suggestions is very strong. It is a
pity that this event may create a total shipwreck of one's venture into Kriya. Ministers
of a religion might not be even informed about the practices of the mystics of their own
religion. They might not grasp the genuine meaning of a meditative practice. The vice
of studying too many books could have choked their instinctive innocence; there are
books that muddy the conscience and impair the intellect from its natural
discrimination.
The continuous effort of replying with clever answers to other people's existential
questions and sighs — answers so nice as to even stun the same person who
pronounced them — wears out one's sense of proportion. While receiving the
confidences of a kriyaban, a Minister might articulate utter absurdities: that our desire
to proceed along the mystical path is a dangerous fixation born from unresolved
psychological problems; that the prayer has a worth only if it is done in community;
that the only valid form of meditation consists mainly in studying and meditating upon
the Holy Writings, and the list goes on… They are inclined to judge spiritual
experiences as self-produced hysterical imaginations. It is sad to see that the most part
of so-called religious persons are convinced that the mystics were men chosen by God,
to whom a particular grace was granted - "we should by no means try to follow their
footsteps, lest we become mentally unstable!" some would say.
The emotional implication of their words can overcome wisdom’s reason and
completely diminish the aspiration of a researcher. One might be thus convinced that
their main duty is to achieve a solid doctrinal formation. Obviously there is nothing to
say against the study of the tenets of a religion, provided that it is integrated with the
study of the works of the great mystics. A merely rational study of theological truths
may not be in harmony with the sensibility a researcher is laboriously developing. At
some point one will probably be thrown into crisis and will experience guilt as a result
of this disharmony. We know that the strength with which one can withstand any
contrary suggestion is directly proportional to the experiences of divine joy met in
meditation - but here we are considering a beginner. The anguish of being on the wrong
path, not appeased by the strength of the contrary idea, creates a hardening of one's
heart: the splendid adventure may come to a abrupt standstill.
I knew persons who were kriyabans for years (and were really dogmatic) who turned
against Kriya as if it was a demonic product. It was not a pretty sight to observe their
behavior and listen to their words, where surely equilibrium and objectivity was
lacking. One wondered if their emotionalism was polluted by superstition or by an
intellectual dishonesty. Who might say if, during a sunny day, in the middle of nature
(which is, indeed, a great teacher – perhaps more so than books), in front of a
boundlessly extending panorama, they can feel the desire of practicing a meditation
technique once again. Goodness knows if the naturalness of such a practice will succeed
in melting the choking hold of their fear, and if the splendid adventure will be rekindled
again!
[b] Some feel they are unworthy: they apply conscientiously the Kriya techniques but
are convinced that they have to carry on with formidable work on the
mental/psychological plane in order to "grow" on the spiritual plane. They brood over
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one single worry: "What can I do in the domain of my mind, of my habits, in order to
ameliorate myself?" Their basic idea is that the Divine resides outside our human state
and that an individual can come closer to It only if they have gained some merit. They
are convinced that by working very hard through self discipline and hard renunciations
it is possible to destroy in their consciousness the roots of iniquity and egoism. They
don’t trust the sheer employment of a technique unless it is coupled with a toilsome
effort of tormenting their psychological structure. Kriya is only a corollary of this
pivotal work. They want to build brick by brick, fatiguing at the extreme, just as if it
were a complex construction, their Redemption.
Such an attitude makes, on principle, any progress on the spiritual path virtually
impossible. The mystical experience happens when one is totally relaxed and at peace
with oneself. Only then something tremendously vast, beyond the mind, manifests itself
suddenly and overwhelms the dichotomy of worthy or unworthy. Now, if during one's
own meditative practices, breath and heart pulse seem to disappear, these researchers,
being always on the alert, instead of relaxing, block the experience. There may be only
one way out: that the spiritual experience may emerge when they are too tired or sleepy
to react, and sweep their resistances away. If this doesn't happen, in time they get tired
of their efforts and Kriya disappears from their life without regret or afterthought. This
disappearance is perceived as a rebirth and they live happily from then on.
[c] Some conceive Kriya as a philosophy which in itself has the power of redemption.
They love to cultivate purely esoteric-occult knowledge. They are familiar with some
methods of spiritual investigation, but as far as the concrete use of the techniques is
concerned, they bring ahead only a timorous, hasty experimentation. Usually they place
a great emphasis on ethics. It is difficult to find a plausible reason that clarifies how an
endless wealth is waiting to manifest behind the screen of their mental revolutions, still
they don't make the least step to seize it or to allow its radiance to clean the dusty cellar
where they prefer living.
They spend all their time reading spiritual books and getting involved in endless
discussions with some friend of similar interests. There are good books from which they
could draw benefit, but it seems that they prefer to keep them at a distance; they state
they have already read them all, but it is a lie. The books they warmly recommend
surprise us for the quantity of information they contain. While reading it we enter an
almost hypnotic state and don't immediately realize that each chain of ideas therein
contained is without support, is the offspring of the unbridled imagination of the author.
We are amazed to see how, through an intoxication with words, the author's imagination
dares to develop free from the relationship with reality and from the rules of logic. The
whole thing seems to us pure fun - comparable to that of reading thrillers. We wonder
how a researcher can think, by studying such junk, to evolve somehow. At least in one
case, I understood the reason accountable for this behavior.
I suppose that it was an unresolved guilt complex that stopped the Kriya efforts of a
friend of mine and turned him into a lazy reader. He was really a good person; in his
youth he lived passionately with the intent of doing some good to humanity. He was full
of a sincere respect toward all people. Sometimes he was embittered in seeing how his
disinterested actions clashed with the ignorance and the coarseness of people. He
ardently aspired to follow the path of Enlightenment. We shared a passion for esoteric
knowledge and for books. Actually, we read too much junk literature: instead of feeling
a repulsion for all those deformations, we enjoyed being enthralled by the imaginations
of the most varied authors. It is hard to believe what enormous impact it had on us
104
when a book title or the four lines of introduction made us guess that it contained the
key of the hidden mysteries!
Together we shared the enthusiasm for the discovery of Kriya. While waiting to be
initiated in it, he practiced some form of Pranayama. One or two weeks of practice was
enough to produce a spiritual awakening experience whose intensity deeply disturbed
him: the Spiritual Reality manifested to him as Immutability itself. He used these very
words, talking with me. As the days went by, I saw that he was frightened that the
practice, putting before his eyes the dark side of his personality, might jeopardize his
psychic poise. His religious ideals caused him to not accept what could emerge from
the depths of his personality; well enough disguised, an unhealed wound held him back.
Extolling the value of the ethical principles and insisting that no one should practice
any technique of meditation without having first achieved a perfectly moral life, I felt
like he was indeed addressing only himself. "It is better that I don't start practicing
techniques of whose effect I am not sure" - he said to me - "it is better I wait until I am
totally sure that I can handle what I am about to attempt".
He adopted such an extreme prudence that he seemed prematurely aged - even his
walk appeared trembling. Assuming that he was sincere, I tried many times to open his
eyes, making him aware that his objection was absurd. At last I acknowledged my
failure. It was not of use to waste my time forcing him to build complicated pretexts to
consolidate his decision. I stopped "tormenting" him and made our usual banquet of
words cease. The duty toward my soul had to prevail over that of courtesy. The force of
mutual excitement born from our lofty interests was a sort of aspiration toward an ideal
soul-friendship; but through it I wouldn’t get to anything, rather, in a dangerous way, I
could have been estranged from my soul.
After years of separation we met again and he seemed the quintessence of a sage. In
his beautiful eyes I read the joy of our meeting and a warm message: "As you see, I
have not yielded to the common way of living!" He had the past enthusiasm, intact, but
perhaps either his mind was opaque or he did not permit me to enter it. He went on
reproducing, with varied words, old basic beliefs – I admired the widening of his
lexicon.
Observing the sunset and talking peacefully, I was sitting with him when, at a certain
point, it dawned on me that he was doing nothing but defending himself from me. He
guided the talk in such a cunning way, that it was impossible that I could remind him of
his past and that great experience. He promised he would call on me, but he has not
come and it is unlikely he will ever do so.
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