In his Praecepta Lessons (1938), Yogananda carefully describes the sacred and ancient Kriya technique. At the end, summing it up, he lists the important KEY POINTS:
“Remember the following key points in the practice of the Kriya technique:
1. Get mentally inside the spine. Put the whole mind and feeling there….”
In other words, his very first advice for us kriyabans is to mentally enter inside the spine, as if we were entering a tunnel. It is a point to be contemplated deeply, and to be practiced daily.
Why? What is the purpose of that practice? It is to transfer our consciousness from the outer world, as perceived through the senses, to the inner world, as perceived by the inner senses, by our inner feeling.
Yogananda in this way gives us a definite direction, a path to walk on: consciously moving from the known outer world into the subtle inner world, through each Kriya breath. Yogananda explains that inner pathway to us, and its supreme goal (Praecepta Lessons):
“By Kriya practice the consciousness is transferred to the spine and brain and thus transmuted into superconsciousness and ultimately into Cosmic Consciousness.”
So let’s try to transfer our consciousness into the spine.
In short: Kriya Yoga is our efficient vehicle which helps us to withdraw from the outer world of sounds, lights, and all other physical sensations, to be able to enter the divine inner world in the spine, which, Yogananda tells us, is the “altar of God”. That divine interiorization has always been called PRAYAHARA by yogis. Yogananda explains it in his Bhagavad Gita interpretations:
“After the yogi succeeds in withdrawing life-force from the sensory motor nerves and tissues, he learns to keep his life-force and mind within the spine and brain. By this method he reaches the state of PRATYAHARA – interiorization or withdrawal of the mind and the life-force from the senses.”
The trouble is: usually we find ourselves completely living completely in our senses, which is why we identify ourselves as a woman or man, being constantly subject to heat and cold, pleasure and pain, perceiving ourselves beautiful or ugly, remaining painfully stuck in maya, illusion. Yogananda simply states:
“Man’s consciousness is ordinarily identified with the senses.”
And what happens in that state, most essentially? When our awareness is identified with the senses, we experience ourselves as ordinary mortal human beings, instead of as immortal gods. But if, through Kriya Yoga, we succeed in transferring our consciousness into the spine, it is transmuted, as Yogananda says above, into superconsciousness, and even into Cosmic Consciousness.
“The purpose of Kriya is to magnetize the spine by circulating life current lengthwise within it, thereby withdrawing life current temporarily from the sensory nerves and involuntary organs, and concentrating it in the centers of life and consciousness in the spine [chakras]. This practice helps to effect a permanent change in the center of consciousness, liberating it from preoccupation with the mortal body and establishing the mind on the spinal altar of eternal spiritual consciousness.”
So we are supposed to “change the center of consciousness”.This is exactly why Yogananda’s Nr.1 key point for our Kriya Yoga practice is so important, essential, and crucial: “Get mentally inside the spine. Put the whole mind and feeling there.”
It works scientifically: by daily magnetically withdrawing our prana from the senses into the spine and its chakras, we gradually change our consciousness, perceiving “eternal spiritual consciousness.”
Yogananda explains how it works, how Kriya Yoga takes us toward PRATYAHARA, into our inner kingdom, by withdrawing our consciousness into the spine:
“The Kriya technique given by Lahiri Mahasaya is the greatest form of PRANAYAMA; through its practice the heart becomes quiet, the energy is switched off from the five senses, and the mind attains the state of PRATYAHARA. The ultimate purpose for which these techniques are practiced should never be forgotten: nirbikalpa samadhi is the ultimate realization wherein the soul is completely conscious and aware of the ocean of Spirit and of its manifesting waves, the body, mind, and soul at the same time. The devotee should not be content to remain confined to one step, but climb to the spiritual pinnacle of Self-realization.”
The Master describes here an essential part of the ancient eightfold path of Patanjali: after YAMA & NIYAMA, (the yogic mode of living) comes ASANA (correct meditative posture); then PRANAYAMA (in our case Kriya Yoga) which leads to PRATYAHARA (complete withdrawal of the mind); the “ultimate purpose” all of this, Yogananda says, should not be forgotten: it is DHARANA (true concentration on inner experiences); DHYANA (meditation, absorption); and finally SAMADHI (first sabikalpa samadhi then nirbikalpa samadhi.)
Once again let’s absorb this Nr.1 key point of Kriya Yoga, to move toward that holy goal: “Get mentally inside the spine. Put the whole mind and feeling there.”
Here is offer a special prayer for accelerating this celestial process (from Yogananda’s Super-Advanced Course, 1930):
“Heavenly Father!
Transfer our consciousness
from the physical body to the spine
and from it through the seven centers
to Cosmic Consciousness,
where Thy glory and light reign
in the fullness of Thy manifestation;
where the life force reigns in all Thy power.
Peace!”