The Gospel of Krishna Yogi....

Hi all, I think I will introduce you today to this friend of mine who is an extremely intriguing personality. I think of him as the most interesting reclusive iconoclast on campus. He comes from a family with a history of spiritualism, witness his middle name. The first thing that struck me about him, even before I knew him, was his physique - unadulteratedly Aryan. The similarities of our experiences in the spiritual path are a big confidence-booster for me in my experiments with Sufism and Zen. And our conversations about the meaning of God and the relevance of tokens and symbols in spiritualism have afforded me more food for thought than most other people I know on campus. He wrote this at my behest as an insight into the mind of a born spiritualist and a practitioner of Kriya Yoga. I then took the thing up and filled it out and fleshed it up and rewrote it and added chunks to it, the usual bag of tricks. So, this is my second co-authorship post in a row. I present to you, "An introduction to Kriya" and my good friend Krishna Yogi Kolluru.

ROADS TO PERCEPTION

GOD

God is the most beautiful concept in all of philosophy. God is the ultimate paradigm of creativity. Witness the seeming incongruity of universes within universes. And yet the structure of the universe evinces considerable similarities at the microscopic and macroscopic levels. If this universe is created, then how infinitely creative is the mind of the Creator!

There was never a beginning, witness the insurmountability of Planck time: nor, by symmetry, shall there ever be an end. This essay takes for an axiom the active involvement of a ‘Divine Intelligence’ in the creation of chaos and its time-evolution into symmetry and order.

In Indian spiritualism, this is called ‘Leela’, a Sanskrit term. ‘Leela’ is the nature of God, vast beyond the farthest stretches of our imaginations, yet intricate beyond all hope of deterministic inspection. It is He who gave us life, He who plays with us, and He who eventually stows us away – for future use, if re-incarnation were to be admitted as valid. And yet, for all our seeming insignificance, every sentient entity, says Hindu pantheism, is equally important to the show. Going even further, it would not be too much to say that a single electron spinning in the wrong direction might lead to a collapse of the universe, as we know it. Such is ‘Leela’.

It would be a consummation devoutly to be wished for if we would all take our noses off our self-inflicted grindstones and ponder upon the wonder of it all, savor the magnificence of this moment, all the parameters that happen to be just right for it to exist!

SELFLESSNESS

Personal reflections: rising early in the morning, I see the sun, feel the cool breeze, hear the sleepy piping of birds as they arise, like me, to face what we collectively perceive as a new day. But who is it that sees? Who is it that feels? Is it I? Who am I? What am I? Try as I might I cannot answer this. What am I? What am I?

Have you ever felt the same way? Are you too all too familiar with the mental block that results? Forget about meditation, religion and Divinity. What if I do not exist? More accurately, what if whatever I think I am does not exist? Hint: think ‘The Matrix’. Now, the Matrix theory, if we may call it that, makes some kind of sense. It is not a phenomenal stretch of logic to theorize perceived reality to be illusory and the actual ego to be dormant.

Vedanta however, categorically negates the existence of the individual Self. ‘I’ – ness, ‘You’ism is the highest or the beginning of ‘maya’ – illusion. One may view the world as imparting the primary illusion of ‘being’. The illusion of identity is the most deeply-seated of all such. And once established, it leads very easily to the others.

It is when one abrogates the delusion of identity that one is faced with the real nature of Consciousness. That is when one realizes the true significance of pantheistic philosophy, the appropriateness of the fundamental credo of Vedantic thought, ‘Tat Tvam Asi’ – ‘ ‘thou art that’.

Whither the distinctions between good and evil, sin and sacrifice, black and white? Nothing exists save the Cosmic Consciousness. All discriminatory power vanishes with the individual identity. You are the ‘One’. (This, however, has nothing to do with Keanu Reeves!)

THE PATH TO PERFECTION

Vivekananda held that to walk the path to perfection was harder than walking on a sword’s edge. However, with swords being in rather short supply these days, used solely for the purpose of political gimmickry as they are, it behooves us to be more pragmatic in discussing methods of attaining perfection.

Basically, eradicating the thought of imperfection from our minds is the road to perfection. We say the earth is not a perfect sphere. But, my friends, the earth IS perfect in having its own shape. Who is to say which shape is better? Likewise, the realization that everything is perfect is concomitant with the realization that ‘This is it’. This is possible only by getting rid of illusion.

It is my contention that, after identity, the besetting illusion that plagues humanity is the concept of relative worth, things being better or worse. Why call anything good or bad when all things are truly manifestations of the One, the Divine – You.

You are the one who created this world, its transient images, its ephemeral sensations. And then you are the one who mesmerized yourself into believing that your creation is disjoint from your own Self. Therefore, you and you alone can transcend the entrapments of ‘maya’, melt all illusions in the fire of spiritual knowledge and realize your true identity. As Vivekananda said, ‘ Not a sheep thou art but a lion. Arise, awake, and roar.’

MEDITATION

Now, the only way, vouchsafed to us by five continuous millennia of spiritual quests, is by awakening the ‘Kundalini’, and causing it to ascend to the ‘thousand – petal lotus’. This can be achieved most effectively by meditation. The guiding precepts are simple. Concentrate your will on perceiving the universe as containing just two elements – you and God. Soon you will transcend this duality and attain the realization of Unity, which is the highest state of meditation, known as ‘Nirvikalpa Samadhi’. Even after setting aside the dubious claims of charlatans, we are still left with examples such as great sages like Ramana Maharishi of Tiruvannamalai, Sai Baba of Shirdi and Ramakrishna Paramhamsa of Dakshineshwar, who had attained those towering spiritual heights, proving thereby, to twentieth century cynics, the truth of the Vedantic doctrine.

SHAADCHAKRAS

The following is a brief exposition of the theory of Kriya Yoga, a powerful shortcut in the arduous spiritual trek. The ‘Shaadchakras’ and the ‘Sahastrakamalam’ together constitute the life-force. Under waking consciousness, they remain dormant. They are activated in increasing order of magnitude by:

• Sleep (Sufficient, one may note, to induce loss of spatio-temporal orientation)
• Deep concentration
• Overwhelming positive emotion
• Sex
• Hallucinogenic drugs, notably heroin
• Volitional activation via meditation/yoga

Osho’s advocacy of free sex as a spiritual practice shocked moral sensibilities around the world . It is true however, that outside of Yogic practice and drug abuse, the most perceptible rise in Kundalini is observed during the sexual act. This, however, is marginal as compared to the extreme rise experienced during meditation. In proportion, the bliss of orgasm is dwarfed by the ecstasy of meditation. Osho described the bliss of ‘Samadhi’ as a state of continuous orgasm. Not even Hugh Hefner can match that!

To continue with the theory of Kriya however, the ‘Kundalini’ present in the ‘Muladhara’ travels through the spine and reaches the ‘Sahastrakamalam’. There it ‘melts’ the ‘lotus’ causing the subject to experience an extreme state of ecstasy, followed in most cases by a blissful realization of the true nature of reality.

This process may happen, as in some historic cases, spontaneously. In most cases however, the subject is required to rigorously follow a particular Yogic practice (Raja yoga, Hatha yoga etc.) until the mind is subdued sufficiently to allow Realization.

The Indian system of Yoga is thus a far more systematized method of spiritual practice than other systems with concurrent aims. In all other cases, be it Gnosticism, Sufism or Zen, though the intellectual theory is the same, the practice is highly individualized, causing Realization to be a hit-or-miss proposition.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, I would appeal to you to give yourself a fair chance at understanding the fundamental unity of the universe and the essential purpose of existence. Of course, mindsets ossified in a colonial distaste of all things indigenous would find it unpalatable to accept the relevance of Vedanta and Yoga. My only request is that meditation and Indian spiritualism should not be dismissed as hysteria driven hoaxes. While the ultimate bliss of Realization is almost inaccessible to us common mortals, even the intermediate stages of meditative absorption are far more satisfying and fulfilling than corporeal pleasures. I leave you with one last nugget of information, which explaining the title of the essay allows me to conclude aesthetically satisfactorily: who do you think has written the introduction to ‘The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna’?

Aldous Huxley. Huxley who? Ask any druggie worth his brown sugar.