Breathlessness Is Deathlessness
For kriyabans, by Kriyacharya Jayadev Jaerschky
Dear blessed Kriyaban,
We are all so fortunate – such good karma! – to be part of a sacred tradition, which has its roots in the glorious golden ages. Our Kriya-ancestry is more than illustrious: we are walking in the footsteps of Sri Krishna, Patanjali, Shankaracharya, Kabir, and countless other nobel Kriya Yogis. Kriya Yoga has shone its light on our planet throughout the centuries, nay, millennia.
Yogananda in fact informs us in his Autobiography of a Yogi: “Krishna also relates that it was he, in a former incarnation, who communicated the indestructible yoga to an ancient illuminato, Vivasvat, who gave it to Manu, the great legislator. He, in turn, instructed Ikshwaku, the father of India s solar warrior dynasty.” We are talking about the Vedic period, or before. The Indian Scriptures in fact relate that Krishna, in his “former incarnation”, was Narayana, who is said to have lived in Satya Yuga.
Only when Kali Yuga approached, the luminous practice of Kriya Yoga was gradually forgotten. Yogananda reveals in his Autobiography of a Yogi:
“Kriya Yoga is an ancient science. Lahiri Mahasaya received it from his guru, Babaji, who rediscovered and clarified the technique after it had been lost in the Dark Ages.”
It was the revival of the highest of ancient yoga techniques, to which Mahavatar Babaji now gave the somewhat unassuming name, Kriya Yoga. In the golden yogic past Kriya Yoga was known by a different name. In his Bhagavad Gita interpretations Yogananda tells us more:
“Kriya Yoga is described in certain scriptures as Kabali-pranayama, considered to be the greatest of all techniques in controlling prana (life force) by distilling prana from the breath and thus recharging the body cells. In this way exhalations and inhalations become unnecessary; the cells are recharged by the reinforced bodily life-force and the cosmic life; the physical cells therefore neither change nor decay.”
Kabali is the Bengali spelling. The common Sanskrit word is “Kevali”, or “Kevala”. “Kevala” means alone and refers to the Self, or soul. It is a synonym for kaivalya, which is a central concept in Sri Yukteswar’s book The Holy Science. In fact, originally his book was called Kaivalya Darshanam, which might be translated freely as “Vision of the God-united Self”. Each of the four chapters ends with the central concept of Kaivalya:
– Chapter 1: “This unification of Self with the Eternal substance, God, is called Kaibalya.” (Taken from the original book, where the Bengali spelling was used.)
– Chapter 2: “This unification of Self with God is Kaivalya, which is the Ultimate Object of the created Being. (Here Sri Yukteswar uses the Sanskrit spelling Kaivalya – it’s Indian freestyle!)
– Chapter 3: “This unification is called Kaibalya, the only Self.”
– Chapter 4: “This unification with God is Kaibalya, the ultimate object of this treatise.”
Kevala pranayama: Kriya Yoga
Kaivalya was taught to be attainable through Kevala pranayama, which can be translated as “the pranayama of the soul”. This, as we said, was the ancient word for Kriya Yoga. Kevala pranayama leads to Kevala kumbhaka, the natural state of breathlessness, which is the goal of all deep yogis. Kevala pranayama – or Kriya Yoga – is the science of breathlessness. Breathlessness is deathlessness, as Yogananda used to say. Breath is the cord which binds the soul to the body. Once that cord is broken, the soul becomes free.
But where is the ancient Scriptures is Kevala pranayama described? For example in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika (2,73-74):
“In the practice of Kevala pranayama, when it can be performed without rechaka (exhalation) and puraka (inhalation), then it is called Kevala kumbhaka. There is nothing in the three worlds [material, astral, causal] which is difficult to obtain for him who is able to keep the air confined according to pleasure, by means of Kevala kumbhaka.”
The Gheranda Samhita explains it with a special visual image (5,89):
“When the breath is confined to the ‘pot’ [the body], this is Kevala kumbhaka.”
The Vashishta Samhita expresses it more plainly:
“When after giving up inhalation and exhalation, one holds his breath with ease, it is Kevala kumbhaka.”
The advanced yogi who had reached that breathless state was called, in ancient times, a kevalin: “he who is alone”, or “he who is in the Self”. The Yoga Bhashya (1,24) for example states that there are numerous kevalins who have severed the three “fetters” (bandhana), meaning the three bodies and worlds. They rose above them, into kaivalya.
The key to this exalted state, as we said, is breathlessness. Yoganada explains in his Bhagavad Gita interpretations:
“The purpose of Kriya Yoga is to scientifically empower the soul, that it fly from the bodily cage into the skies of omnipresent Spirit, and come back, at will, into its little cage. Kriya Yoga–pranayama, true life-control, thus teaches man to untie the cord of breath which binds the soul to the body.”
He uses the word “scientifically”. How, then, does the ancient science of breathlessness work, which the Kevala-pranayama-yogis of old applied, and which we Kriya Yogis apply today? There are two mechanisms.
The physical mechanism
The Kriya Yogi strongly oxygenates his system through deep Kriya-breaths, initially. The breath naturally and gradually diminishes until “breath becomes mind”. Yogananda teaches us, again in his Bhagavad Gita interpretations:
“By Kriya-Yoga pranayama, when the breath is scientifically stilled by recharging and oxygenating the fleshly cells, the body dream dematerializes into the reality of God…. The Kriya Yogi is able to oxygenate his blood scientifically and thus remove from it most of the carbon; he requires little breath. His is the real way of controlling the breath….”
In his Autobiography of a Yogi he describes this physical method of breathlessness with these simple words:
“Kriya Yoga is a simple, psychophysiological method by which the human blood is decarbonized and recharged with oxygen. The atoms of this extra oxygen are transmuted into life current to rejuvenate the brain and spinal centers [chakras]. By stopping the accumulation of venous blood, the yogi is able to lessen or prevent the decay of tissues; the advanced yogi transmutes his cells into pure energy…. The Kriya Yogi uses his technique to saturate and feed all his physical cells with undecaying light and keep them in a magnetized state. He scientifically makes breath unnecessary, without producing the states of subconscious sleep or unconsciousness.”
Gradually our deep oxygenating Kriya-breath turns into breathlessness:
“The ancient yogic technique converts the breath into mind. By spiritual advancement, one is able to cognize the breath as an act of mind a dream-breath.”
The energetic mechanism
Oxygenation is the physical process of breathlessness. In addition there is the deeper energetic Kriya-method. Yogananda describes it again in his Autobiography of a Yogi:
“Kriya Yoga is referred to by Krishna, India s greatest prophet, in a stanza of the Bhagavad Gita: ‘Offering inhaling breath into the outgoing breath, and offering the outgoing breath into the inhaling breath, the yogi neutralizes both these breaths; he thus releases the life force from the heart and brings it under his control.’”
The words used in the Bhagavad Gita (IV:29), however, are not really “inhaling breath” and “outgoing breath”, but prana and apana, which, as you know, refer to the inner currents flowing up and down the spine as we inhale and exhale. With Kriya Yoga we first strengthen and finally neutralize these currents.
Yogananda explains this process his Bhagavad Gita interpretations (in his East-West Magazine):
“By the special technique of Kriya Yoga, the inner breath of prana and the outer breath of apana are converted into cool and warm currents. In the beginning of the practice of Kriya Yoga, the devotee feels the cool current going up the spine and the warm current going down the spine, in accompaniment with the ingoing and outgoing breath. The advanced yogi finds that the internal breath of prana and the external breath of apana have been “evened” – neutralized or extinguished; he feels only the cool current of prana going up through the spine and the warm current of apana going down through the spine… The Kriya Yogi converts the two distinct impulses of inhalation and exhalation into two life currents, the cool prana and the warm apana, felt in the spine. He then realizes the truth of Jesus’ saying–that man is not required to depend on external breath (or on “bread” or on any other outward sustenance) as a condition of bodily existence.”
Breathlessness is the desired result. In his Autobiography of a Yogi, Yogananda explains:
“Untying the cord of breath which binds the soul to the body, Kriya serves to prolong life and enlarge the consciousness to infinity.”
This divine practice takes us to kaivalya, to our goal. It is a blissful cosmic union, as Yogananda tells us in his Bhagavad Gita commentaries:
“The real yogi knows God as the ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new Bliss; he perceives all creation as God’s dreams. The true follower of Kriya Yoga is the highest yogi, and Kriya Yoga is the greatest yoga technique ever developed in man’s search for the Infinite.”
Its power lies in practice, as Lahiri Mahasaya tells us.
Banat, banat, ban jai!