Tuning Your Inner Gaze to a God-Frequency
For kriyabans, by Kriyacharya Jayadev Jaerschky
God is bliss
Yogananda’s teachings are bliss-oriented. Why? Because God comes to us as bliss. Bliss-orientation is God-orientation. In bliss-consciousness we realize Him. Bliss, the Master says, is the very proof of His existence, as He is Sat-Chid-Ananda: ever existing, ever conscious, ever new bliss. Bliss is also the essence of our soul, which is individualized Sat-Chid-Ananda.
Yogananda points out (Science of Religion, 1924):
“It is in bliss-consciousness that we realize Him.
There can be no other direct proof of His existence.
It is in Him as bliss that our spiritual hopes
and aspirations find fulfilment –
our devotion and love find an object.”
He adds: “Bliss is the universal end of religion.” Kriya Yoga is therefore essentially bliss-oriented, as it wants to take us to the end of religion, to the ultimate goal. It is, in fact, a bliss-technique, which means a God-technique.
How advanced are you in Kriya? Sri Yukteswar offers the answer:
“Spiritual advancement is not to be measured by one’s displays of outward powers, but solely by the depth of his bliss in meditation.” (Autobiography of a Yogi)
Yogananda in the same book explains what happens to the advanced Kriya Yogi:
“In deep meditation, the first experience of Spirit is on the altar of the spine, and then in the brain. The torrential bliss is overwhelming, but the yogi learns to control its outward manifestations.”
But how can we access that inner bliss during Kriya Yoga? How to accelerate our bliss-evolution? How to practice in a way to experience a “superior and lasting bliss through Kriya”?
Affirm bliss during Kriya
The answer is: don’t wait for it passively. Instead, affirm bliss as you practice Kriya, meeting it half-way. Practice with bliss. Yogananda in fact challenges us in this way:
“Pray with ecstasy. Meditate with ecstasy.”
You may answer: “How should I do that? I don’t feel that ecstasy.” But you can always follow Shakespeare’s advice: “Assume a virtue, if you have it not.” In other words, imagine that bliss, affirm it, try to feel the Guru’s bliss in your own spine. In this way you are a bliss-oriented Kriya Yogi.
Expect bliss
Throw out any inner doubting Thomas who tells you that bliss will never be yours. Rather expect bliss during your Kriya. Yogananda teaches us:
“Meditate unceasingly and deeply,
expecting nothing but bliss.”
In fact, ask yourself: “If I expect bliss in my Kriya Yoga, will I find it sooner?” The answer is, “Yes, because your inner gaze is tuned to its frequency.”
The quality of your inner gaze during Kriya – meaning the way you look into the inner world – is of immense importance. An eye tuned to beauty beholds beauty, an eye tuned to bliss beholds bliss. Bliss is in the eye of the beholder.
Kriya self-analysis
Analyze yourself for a moment: “When I close my eyes and look within in my Kriya Yoga, what do I expect to find?” A vague inner space? Or you don’t expect anything? In that case your gaze isn’t quite bliss-oriented. In other words, it’s not attuned to the bliss frequency. But if you start your meditation with the thought, “the kingdom of God is within me,” expecting to joyfully enter into its glory, you will enter that kingdom of bliss much sooner.
To deepen your Kriya self-analysis, ask yourself: “When I practice the Kriya-pranayama, concentrating on the currents in ida and pingala, what do I spontaneously associate with them?” Do you consider them simply the superficial spine? In that case your gaze, again, is poorly tuned. The bliss-frequency is absent and the bliss atmosphere is far from you.
If, however, you practice with Yogananda’s words in mind, your perception is bliss-oriented:
“When you get accustomed to the coolness and warmth in this practice, there will be nothing in the world that you will like better… There is nothing in the world to equal this sensation… That is where His favorite haunt is – in the spine.”
What inspires you during Kriya?
Is your inspiration during Kriya that you are burning off karmic seeds? Then why don’t you make this a most joyful event, almost a celebration? Kriya Yoga, Swami Kriyananda explained, helps us to experience God as joy. So let the joy-rite begin. Behind the karmic seeds in our spine is eternal ever-new joy, and that’s what we are trying to reach.
Or is your inspiration during your Kriya practice to awaken kundalini? Great. Kriya indeed is supposed to awaken the kundalini power. Concentrate on its bliss. Indeed nothing is more blissful that a strongly rising energy in the spine. Don’t wait for its joy to come to you. Practice with joy, or better, with bliss. Tune into it.
Or is your Kriya-inspiration devotional? A self-offering to God? What can be more joyful? Fill each breath with that joy.
Or is your personal inspiration during Kriya an increasing breathlessness and inwardness? This too is nothing but a direction toward soul-bliss. Joy is deep within, in silence, in our soul, in motionlessness.
Or do you have any other Guru-given inspiration during your Kriya Yoga practice? Whatever it is, let it be joy-oriented.
Absorb these words of the Master:
“The sensation of the spine awakened through Kriya Yoga: just like a paralyzed man can’t feel anything even if his flesh is burning, in that way our spine has become paralyzed. The more divine we become, the spine becomes quickened. Your whole center of consciousness is in the spine and the sensation of the spine when awakened is indescribeable. That is where your heaven is. Your whole mind will never be concentrated on anything else but that.” (Patanjali Lessons)
A Kriya-experiment
Let’s immediately try a little experiment: when you practice Kriya Yoga, inwardly watch your spine and consider it nothing but the “altar of God”, as Yogananda’s describes it.
Now ask yourself: “How does an altar of God feel like?” Describe what you feel.
Now tune your mind to Yoganandas’ words:
“Please sit upright. Feel the Spirit of God on the altar of the spine, for the spine is the altar of God and there you must feel the glory of the universe.” (Patanjali Lessons)
Again, if you tune in to these words, what do you feel? With this inner bliss-oriented gaze, what is your perception?
The higher Kriyas
Let’s say you practice the higher Kriyas, concentrating especially on the chakras. Ask yourself again: “When I inwardly look at the chakras, what is the quality of my gaze? What am I actually looking for? Colors? Sounds? Centers of energy? Places of psychological qualities?
All that is great. But now try the bliss-oriented approach: apply a bliss-gaze, meaning a God-gaze. Consider the chakras places of bliss. There is an ecstasy in each chakra, Yogananda tells us. If you look out for bliss in the chakras you will soon resonate with their depth, magic, and divinity. You are simply tuning into their deeper nature, into their heavenly frequency.
You may let Yogananda’s words from his Autobiography of a Yogi guide your practice:
“The advanced yogi, withholding all his mind, will, and feeling from false identification with bodily desires, uniting his mind with superconscious forces in the spinal shrines, thus lives in this world as God hath planned.”
Or you may use these words from his Patanjali Lessons:
“Behind the spinal centers is God. If you concentrate there, you will find Him.”
You shall be a bliss-oriented Kriya yogi.
To sum up: the way to attune yourself to divine joy in Kriya Yoga is to develop a bliss-oriented attitude. We are trying to dive deeper and deeper into the subtle spine. This is our holy inner pilgrimage. The goal is God, or bliss. Yogananda directs our steps within:
“When your consciousness withdraws still more deeply, into superconsciousness, then you are centered in bliss, in the spine.”
“The power of Kriya Yoga,” Lahiri Mahasaya points out in the Autobiography of a Yogi, “lies in practice.” May we therefore practice, practice, and practice – banat, banat, ban jai – so that our Kriya-gaze becomes ever more bliss-oriented, realizing the truth of Yogananda’s words:
“Those who conscientiously practice Kriya Yoga will never forsake this path; they will be held by their own Self-realization. The joy and realization experienced in the spine by the Kriya yogi is boundless. Every magnetization of the spine through the properly effected circulation of the cool and warm currents gives unending inward realizations and joy. This joy stands supreme in comparison with any material pleasure. You will find this superior happiness more tempting than the pleasures craved by instincts and emotions. The technique of Kriya Yoga will change your consciousness from identification with momentarily pleasure-giving bodily sensations to identification with the ever-new, ever-lasting joy of superconsciousness that reigns on the altar of the spine.”
With your bliss-oriented gaze, may you soon say with Brinda Bhagat, the humble postman described in the Autobiography of a Yogi:
“The first divine Kriya has filled me with such intoxication that I cannot deliver my letters!”