As a sadhak living the way of the kriya breath and sharing this with others for over 20 years in this life, I am often asked this question in my teaching tours – Is kriya yoga the best and only path? My answer to this question is always the same…Yes it is, for me! Every sadhak has to determine for themselves the path most suited for them.

To clarify, when I speak of Kriya Yoga it is specifically referring to the Kriya Yoga of the lineage of Mahavatar Babaji, with a very unique, codified and specific technique for speedy spiritual evolution and self realisation of the human soul.

Masters come from time to time to enliven and initiate sincere seekers into this evolutionary practice. Yogiraj Siddhanath is one such master who initiated me into this practice in 1998 and authorised me as a teacher to share it with others in 1999. Some other masters of this lineage who preceded him are Lahiri Mahasaya, the foremost to share this technique with householder practitioners, Sri Yukteswar Giri and Paramahamsa Yogananda who made this practice a household name in the east and west with his book Autobiography of a Yogi. All of the above have had their personal experiences and darshan of the Mahavatar, as has my Satguru, who writes about this in his book Babaji, the Lightning Standing Still. In this book he has revealed Babaji to be none other than Gorakhnath a spark of the Divine Cosmic phenomenon of Shiva.

The 3 Margs and the 4 Yogas

The Spiritual path is broadly divided into the Karma, the Bhakti, and the Gnyana marg as the three paths for seekers to walk on as per their predominant individual nature. For me the path of Kriya Yoga includes all three, the path of devotion, the path of right action and the path of realised knowingness. This makes it a universal practice for anyone to explore for final salvation.

The four paths of yog or union to realise moksh– enlightenment are the Bhakti, Karma, Gnyana and the Raja Yoga. Once again for me, Kriya Yoga is inclusive of all four yoga. Kriya Yoga is a kingly offering of the eight fold path of the Patanjali yoga sutra, the Raja Yoga. In the practice of Kriya Yoga is included the means to inculcate the qualities of love and devotion -Bhakti, of executing the right action -Karma and unblemished gnosis- Gnyana. In Kriya Yog all four flower majestically leading the individual spirit of the practitioner to merge into the divine spirit effortlessly.

Kriya Yoga the spiritual expressway

Humorously, to me spirituality and pop yoga today often feels like the Indian traffic, there’s a lot of noise and honking, blowing the trumpet of their own schools of thought; jostling for space by ‘gurus’ of all hues; unexpected roadblocks on the path set up by fear of sharing authentic information; bullying by bigger vehicles read mightier well heeled organisations; and the fear of meandering into narrower and narrower bylanes of spiritually arid and bigoted mindsets with no possibilities of u-turns; add to this a complete disregard for traffic lights signalling no discipline and you get the picture of the chaos. Of course some would love to immerse in this scenario and may even benefit from it to glean some nugget of spiritual spark. My hats off to them and the best of wishes.

But for others bent on a more direct path discovering the practice of authentic yog sadhana comes as a relief and a means to rise above this melee onto a highway for a smoother less hindered flow. The practice is relatively individual and requires less props.

Now taking this to another level imagine being suddenly released from all restraints of traffic and moving into a fast lane bullet expressway with extremely few regulations, what a relief that would be for some! For me the practice of Kriya Yoga is that super expressway, the autobahn of spiritual path, where ensconced alone in my body temple I am free to move unhindered, propelled by the technique and grace of my satguru towards the goal of self-realisation. Never a fan of intellectual dissemination minus spiritual experience I am happy to stay well above the traffic snarl of the textually intelligent.

Why I practice Kriya Yoga

(The following is an excerpt from my book One Master one disciple- peeling of an onion, Chapter 10, Kriya Yoga The Antidote)

The essential appeal

There are some core fundamentals of Kriya Yoga that attract me personally and which as a teacher helps me to guide students into a practice that is so universal.

One, the simplicity of the initiation took my breath away at my first introduction to this practice by Gurunath. Coming from a brahminical background where much ado is made of secretly giving the gayatri at the overlong upanayanam ceremony, mind you only to the boys, I found the simple introduction by the master into such a powerful path refreshing. Kriya yoga does not discriminate; it’s given freely to all who want to invest their time in pursuing this yogic path. This simplicity in fact flows into all the other aspects that follow.

Two, I see Kriya Yoga as an inner discipline where the yogi practitioner contained in the physical body temple realises themselves to be the immaculate spark of divinity. External forms of worship are redundant and Kriya Yoga does not demand any external ritual to be effective. Practicing the technique is most supreme and keeps the disciple truly attuned with the master.

Three, Kriya Yoga stands alone needing no other supportive practice to take the disciple to the highest states of enlightenment.

Four, the energy of Kriya Yoga is love, its practice supports ones becoming love and radiating love. Gurunath leads us into this state by connecting us with our inner fountainhead of love. The advanced seeker knows the quality of this love is not conditional, regional or limited and transcends human frailties.

Five, by dedicated sadhana, the disciples increase their gravity and move gracefully through life. As the disciple becomes more constant life under any circumstances becomes more full of ease for them. Ishwar pranidhan the surrender to the guru comes naturally to them. Mind you this surrender is not the mindless abject surrender of the piteous rather a surrender in full realisation.

Six, by steadfastness in practice and utter connection with the master the disciple becomes self-reliant and connects with the core of their inner knowingness as Gurunath calls it. The external physical master introduces the disciple to their inner essential master. This is an advanced stage that I know comes to all disciples eventually. As disciples we just need to keep the connection with the satguru as this process can go on for a while as layers upon layers of ignorance are peeled away, hence the peeling of an onion.”

End of quote.