~ 18 Sacred Days For Kriyabans ~
The following snippets of Yogananda’s talks come from recordings copyrighted by SRF. If there should be any complaint, the audio files here will promptly be removed and the quotes paraphrased. OM.
Kriya-Day 1
Milking the Lord
I see the olive, but not the oil in the olive. I see the cow, but not the milk in the cow. I have to milk Thee, Lord, from the moon and the stars and the hearts of men, and through yoga, and through the practice of Kriya Yoga. You have the key in your hands – the greatest of all. You can test it – anything you want, anything that you love as your sense attraction. You do that, and you do Kriya Yoga, and you will see there is no comparison.
Listen here:
From: Awake In the Cosmic Dream
Inspiration for your Kriya Yoga practice:
Today try to “milk the Lord” through Kriya Yoga, extracting from Him a joy so deep and enjoyable that is more enjoyable than “anything that you love as your sense attraction.”
~~~
Kriya-Day 2
The Grace Afterwards
The magnetic sincerity of your heart, the sincere prayer, and prayer after practicing Kriya Yoga; not to just run away after practicing. It’s when you sit there – if you eat the dinner and run, if you have a little siesta then you enjoy the dinner more. So when you sit still, long time after Kriya Yoga. And pray. And say: Lord, 25% is my effort, 25% is Guru’s effort and 50% is Your grace. Your grace is everything.
Listen here:
From: Awake In the Cosmic Dream
Inspiration for your Kriya Yoga practice:
Today emphasise the time after the technique when you sit in silence: concentrate on God’s grace shining on you.
~~~
Kriya-Day 3
Entering the Altar of Spine and Brain
And it is to those that even a little while practice Kriya Yoga, even one hour – deeply if you practice and sit still after Kriya Yoga, prayer is doubled, trebled, hundred times more powerful. When you go to the altar of God and pray and call Him then He comes quickly. Altar is the spine and brain. When your consciousness is centralized there and not on the surface of the body then He listens to you quickly.
Listen here:
From: Awake In the Cosmic Dream
Inspiration for your Kriya Yoga practice:
Today consciously move your consciousness into the spine, perceiving it as an altar of God.
~~~
Kriya-Day 4
Breaking the Hypnosis of Maya
Under hypnosis you can eat salt and be made to think it’s sugar. That’s what God is doing to us – it’s a cosmic hypnosis. And when you remain in AUM, when you practice Kriya, you are no longer in that hypnosis. That’s much more enjoyable than this terrible hypnosis which God has subjected us to.
Listen here:
From: Awake In the Cosmic Dream
Inspiration for your Kriya Yoga practice:
Today feel that by perceiving God’s presence, you awake from the hypnosis of maya.
~~~
Kriya-Day 5
Increasing the Intensity
So it is that you don’t mind your body or anything when you have that great happiness within you. You want to give back to all and I do hope that you intensify the depth of your practice of Kriya and prayer.
Listen here:
From: Awake In the Cosmic Dream
Inspiration for your Kriya Yoga practice:
Today emphasize intensity of technique and prayer.
~~~
Kriya-Day 6
Burning Evil Karma
The forest of ignorance and bad habits of incarnations and the jungle of the human mind where ferocious animals, worse than tigers, live there. Jealousy, greed, anger, selfishness – these all can be destroyed by the match of meditation and Kriya Yoga. If you light that match every day, the whole mind’s forest will be ablaze and all the animals of worst habits of incarnations, they will fly away from you.
Listen here:
From: To Make Heaven on Earth
Inspiration for your Kriya Yoga practice:
Today feel that the inner current purifies you.
~~~
Kriya-Day 7
Become A God All the Time
The true happiness of meditation, the ever increasing happiness of meditation produced by Kriya Yoga is the proof of the existence of God. This was the greatest thing Master [Sri Yukteswar] told me. When I asked, “What is the image of God?” he said, “Right when you are asleep, you are formless, you are sleeping in space, you are the image of God. The daytime you become a man, nighttime you become a God. Be a God in ecstasy, with ecstasy in the daytime and you are God all the time”. I said, “That makes sense”. When I practiced Kriya Yoga and was filled with ecstasy, the joy that I couldn’t find eating ice-cream or having an automobile ride, or talking to people, or playing… when I sat and practiced I found the presence of God.
Listen here:
From: To Make Heaven on Earth
Inspiration for your Kriya Yoga practice:
Today feel that by going within you draw closer to God and His ecstasy.
~~~
Kriya-Day 8
True Christmas Celebration
And don’t be satisfied until you have seen Christ and the Masters and God. Unceasingly, pray unceasingly. Follow Kriya Yoga, that’s the easiest and the highway to God. So Christmas celebration means being with Christ, being with the great Ones.
Listen here:
From: To Make Heaven on Earth
Inspiration for your Kriya Yoga practice:
Today practice in the presence of Christ or one of the great Masters.
~~~
Kriya-Day 9
Disconnecting the Life-Force
And I go beyond the state of sleep. A thousand, million joys come. That comes by pranayama. That won’t do just by little mental chanting and prayer. You must know how to disconnect the life force from the nervous system. That’s what Kriya Yoga is. It has been simplified as no prophet ever did as Lahiri Mahasaya and Babaji and Sri Yukteswar gave to the world. Kriya Yoga is the greatest way.
Listen here:
From: Removing all Sorrow and Suffering
Inspiration for your Kriya Yoga practice:
Today consciously disconnect your life-force from the body, from the nervous system, entering the inner space of “a thousand, million joys.”
~~~
Kriya-Day 10
The Body-Temple of God
If you master your body by yoga practice and Kriya Yoga, then your body will be steady and a fit temple of God.
Listen here:
From: Self-Realization – The Inner and Outer Path
Inspiration for your Kriya Yoga practice:
Today feel your body as a still temple in which dwells the presence of God.
~~~
Kriya-Day 11
Beholding the Maker in the Spine
So get to the soul. Get beyond the subconscious. That’s the purpose of Kriya Yoga. Read your Praecepta every day a little bit, and meditate. Meditation is practicing the presence of God. Kriya Yoga is the highest practice in the presence of God: how the soul descended into the body and how to take it back to the spine and the brain, beyond the confines and the prison of the body into the vast Infinite. And that’s what you are trying to do. Your mind is on the surface of the body. You like to see what is good; hear, smell, taste, touch. And that’s why you are locked up. Your consciousness is locked up. But you have to withdraw it. Dim it away from there. And gradually take it beyond the muscles and settle it in the spine – that is what Kriya Yoga does. Spine and the brain are the altars of God. That’s where the electricity of God flows down into the nervous system into the world. And the searchlights of your senses are turned outside, outwards; and that’s why you love the senses. But when you will reverse the searchlights through Kriya Yoga, and be concentrated in the spine, you will behold the Maker.
Listen here:
From: The Great Light of God
Inspiration for your Kriya Yoga practice:
Today reverse the searchlights of the senses more strongly: look inside, not outside, as you practice. Touch the spine inside. Listen inside. There, in the spine, try to “behold the Maker.”
~~~
Kriya-Day 12
God-Joy in the Spine
So you must practice the presence of God and Kriya Yoga is one of the greatest proofs of the existence of God. Practice Kriya and you will not suffer from moods. You who love experimenting with so many things, why don’t you experiment with yourself, and Kriya Yoga? In the calm, concentrate your mind in the spine and there you will find, as one person wrote to me:” I suddenly found my breath gone and I settled myself in the spine and had the great visitation of the almighty, ever-new joy of God. God is ever-new Joy. In the mirror of His sphere you will find the universe glimmering.
Listen here:
From: The Great Light of God
Inspiration for your Kriya Yoga practice:
Today “concentrate your mind in the spine,” trying to find there “the great visitation of the almighty, ever-new joy of God.”
~~~
Kriya-Day 13
The Key to Heaven
We have started a great movement and I came for a special dispensation: the interpretation of the scriptures and giving the Kriya Yoga – the key to Heaven. This is Peter’s key to Heaven.
Listen here:
From: The Great Light of God
Inspiration for your Kriya Yoga practice:
Today feel that your technique is a key to heaven.
~~~
Kriya-Day 14
Transcending Body Consciousness
Yoga means union, scientific union with God. That you are receiving. Dump your body in the superconscious. That’s all I do. I practice a few times Kriya and I dump my body and the body is gone and I am in the infinite Bliss – the bliss that surpasses any description.
Listen here:
From: The Great Light of God
Inspiration for your Kriya Yoga practice:
Today try to pull away from body-consciousness. Remain in a formless inner space of joy.
~~~
Kriya-Day 15
Toward Breathless Joy
The deeper you practice and the more you practice your Kriya Yoga. But don’t be in a hurry to practice it. Practice it slowly until breath becomes mind. When you sleep you don’t remember your breath, because as soon as you remember breath you come back to the conscious world. So Kriya Yoga takes your breath away and you feel so happy that you have drunk your breath away and you will jump into the superconscious and you will drink the thousand-million cocktails of the joy of sleep, the joy of the Eternal Father from which you came.
Listen here:
From: The Great Light of God
Inspiration for your Kriya Yoga practice:
Today consciously move toward breathlessness. Begin with deeper breaths, oxygenating the blood, and gradually diminish it until “breath becomes mind.”
~~~
Kriya-Day 16
Self-Realization
And practice Kriya Yoga. And then you will know who you are. You are not a man. You are a wave of the sea, the bliss of the cosmic sphere of Bliss, the ray of the cosmic Light, the wave of bliss of the cosmic Ocean.
Listen here:
From: The Great Light of God
Inspiration for your Kriya Yoga practice:
Today try to feel you are not a body, a man or woman, but a wave of the sea of Spirit.
~~~
Kriya-Day 17
Becoming a Spiritual Alcoholic
Every night God reminds you in the subconscious: you are joy, sleeping in space, ever conscious. Go a little beyond – dump your body in the superconscious through the technique of Kriya Yoga. This is my greatest present to you. Learn that, until you get there, until you become a spiritual alcoholic.
Listen here:
From: The Great Light of God
Inspiration for your Kriya Yoga practice:
Today move toward becoming a “spiritual alcoholic.”
~~~
Kriya-Day 18
Becoming the Ocean of Spirit
So you shall say, through Kriya Yoga – as I awaken you – that you are no longer a man or a woman, but you shall keep on and remain awake by practicing Kriya Yoga and dumping your body into the supernal bliss which lies beyond the subconscious. And find yourself. You are the image of God. You are the wave of the sea. You are not a mortal sinner – it’s a sin to say you are a sinner. You are a wave of the sea. You are going to be one with the sea. You are a ray of the cosmic flame. I, a tiny bubble of laughter have become the sea of mirth itself.
Listen here:
From: The Great Light of God
Inspiration for your Kriya Yoga practice:
Today feel you are not only a wave, but one with the Ocean of Spirit.