A Revolutionary Approach
For kriyabans, by Kriyacharya Jayadev Jaerschky
Where do you approach God?
We usually think of God as being outside of ourselves: we lift our eyes, praying to the Heavens; we invoke an outer infinite Force, a cosmic Intelligence, or a loving Presence or Form; we bow down to a statue, or to a symbol; we expect miracles and grace to come to us from the outside.
Yogananda too teaches such kind of devotional prayer. But for the Kriya Yogi his instructions on how to approach God changes completely, taking us into the opposite direction: within.
– He teaches us to worship God on the altar of our own spine.
– He tells us that we shall find Him in the greatest measure within ourselves.
– He guides us to enter into communion with Him inwardly, in our chakras.
This, at least for the Western mind, is a revolutionary approach to God. Who else teaches that we will find Him on the “altar of the spine”? Not any mainstream religion, that’s for sure, even though Christ and other prophets have taught that “the kingdom of God is within you.”
First within, then without
Yogananda adds that once we experience Him within, then, with transformed vision, we will also behold Him without, everywhere.
Think about it: if you haven’t ever experienced something within, are you able perceive it without? For example, let’s say you have never tasted an orange. Would you understand its taste when you see one in your kitchen? No. Or let’s say you have never felt any love at all. Would you able to perceive the love between two lovers? Not at all. Or, let’s say you have never had a depression. Will you ever truly understand a depressed person? No.
The same is true with God. If we don’t perceive Him first within, outwardly we are simply blind to His living presence. Yes, we can believe in Him, theorize about Him, and be devotee of our imagination of Him. But we don’t really know Him or see Him.
We can’t even glorify Him, as Sri Yukteswar explains in the Autobiography of a Yogi:
“No mortal can glorify God. The only honor that man can pay his Creator is to seek Him; man cannot glorify an Abstraction that he does not know.”
This is why we read in Metaphysical Meditations:
“Finding Thee within,
I shall find Thee without,
in all people and all conditions.”
Worshipping God within the spine
Yogananda offers us the following enlightening words which all devotees should assimilate deeply (from his Praecepta Kriya-Lessons). They teach us how we, as Kriya Yogis, can search and worship God inwardly.
The Kriya Technique transfers the attention from the sensations of sight, smell, sound, taste, and touch to the spine and brain where, by the intuitive perception of the soul, the yogi perceives God reigning in all His glory. The distractions of sensations and the resulting thoughts they evoke bar God-contact by diverting the life force from the spinal altar of God-perception and directing it outward through the senses toward matter. But when the yogi returns the life force to the spine by Kriya practice and becomes concentrated solely on the subtle spinal perceptions, he is blissfully unaware of the body, his consciousness having become established once again on the spinal altar whereon he is aware only of his soul and God.
As we concentrate on the “spinal altar”, then, let us expect to find God and the soul there. Right in our own “spine and brain” we “perceive God in all His glory.” As Kriya Yogis we are therefore asked to train ourselves constantly to “become concentrated solely on the subtle spinal perceptions.“ With such inner subtle awareness we shall discover a “spinal altar of God-perception.” God lives in our spine and brain. We simply need to go deep enough, and become aware enough, to find Him. Yogananda explains further:
“In your search for God through past incarnations you may have passed through states of worshiping idols or other material symbols, and may have pursued many paths of blind belief. But at last you see that the highest truth actually is to be found only within yourself.
At last, perhaps after eons, you have been led to a guru who can show you how to find God within yourself, in the centers of life force and consciousness in the spine [chakras].
This great initiation is given to you so that by Kriya Yoga you may awaken the divine consciousness in the spine and create there an altar of God-perception. Then you will understand that although God dwells even in restless and changeable material forms, He is to be found in the greatest measure within yourself, in the calm stillness of your eternal soul.
Worship God on the altar of the spine; then you will behold Him in the temple of every thought, every activity.”
Are you ready, then, to “worship God on the altar of the spine”? When you practice Kriya Yoga, try to do so. It is a glorious way of practicing Kriya. There, right within your spine, you will find Him, touch Him, love Him, and meet Him. Then you can sing with Yogananda:
In the temple of silence, in the temple of peace,
I will meet Thee, I will touch Thee, I will love Thee,
And coax Thee to my altar of peace.In the temple of samadhi, in the temple of bliss,
I will meet Thee I will touch Thee, I will love Thee,
And coax Thee to my altar of bliss.