Sathya Sai Baba Condemns Kriya Yoga
by Dennis J Hanisch

This author distinctly remembers a major red flag he encountered when a devotee, wherein SSB condemned Kriya yoga in a discourse printed in the Sanathana Sarathi magazine. As I remember, SSB indicated that those who practice Kriya were only satisfying their ego. Unfortunately, I discarded the publication. However, research shows SSB has condemned the practice of Kriya and other Yogic practices on many occasions. This shows his utter duplicity.

The purpose of this article is to verify SSB's disparagement of Kriya, etc., and to show this contradicts Indian scripture and the teaching of respected saints of India. The point of the presentation is not to promote any guru or teaching. Extracts from SSB's discourses follow. First I want to say, however, that recognized masters including Paramahansa Yogananda (PY) indicate that certain yogic practices take you to the door of God-realization, but devotion and the willingness to ask for help are needed to pass through the door.

"There are many nowadays who go about with various short-cuts to liberation, paths which they have marked out and determined to preach, attracting disciples and forming groups; they concoct these out of Hatha yoga, Kriya yoga, Raja yoga.... But the fruits they convey are only flippant and flimsy; they are not lasting or truly liberating. Bhakthi yoga alone, as laid down and practiced through the centuries, can save and sustain.... Other paths develop conceit, separate man from man, man from beast. They contract, they do not reach out; they shrink your sphere of awareness of the Divine!" Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. 10 [New ed.], 259.

"There are some who are attracted by various systems and methods, like Hatha Yoga, Kriya Yoga, or Raja Yoga, which claim to help people to realize the Self. None of these can make you realise God. The Premayoga discipline of Love alone can lead to God. These yogas may calm the mind's agitations temporarily and may improve health and prolong life for a few more years, but that is all they can do." Sathya Sai Baba - Part 3, 41, Sadhana.

"As regards Yoga, people speak about Hatha yoga, Kriya yoga, Transcendental meditation and some new-fangled ideas. All these are not yoga. Yoga is the control of the vagaries of the mind." “True yoga is control of the senses. One should treat alike both praise and censure, pleasure and pain. This kind of self-restraint is yoga." Sanathana Sarathi, Feb 1995, 39 - and Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. 28 [New. ed.] 5.

Most of the references used to paint the contradictions of SSB are from Chapter 26 of Paramahansa Yogananda's  famous classic Autobiography of a Yogi and from PY's interpretation of the Bhagavad Gita: God Talks To Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita. These books are published by Self Realization Fellowship (Yogoda Satsanga Society - India).

I want to include extracts written by a disciple of PY, Kamala Silva, who was a devotee of him for over 55 years. She spent 40 years imparting his teachings after PY ordained her a minister in 1936. From her book, Priceless Precepts, (1969 - 1979, Published privately), Kamala states:

"Paramahansa Yogananda wrote: 'The mystery of breath holds the solution to the secret of human existence.'  Kriya Yoga 'teaches man to untie the Cord of breath which binds the soul to the body....'

There are two currents flowing in the body. One current flows downward; the other flows upward. The down-flowing current distributes energy into the sensory nerves and keeps man tied to the body. It keeps man restless and engrossed in sensory experiences. The up-flowing current is calm. This draws the attention inward, and unites soul with God .The up and down flow of the currents cause a tug-of-war; to take the soul’s attention up or down....

The function of Kriya Yoga is to neutralize these two currents, through direction and will, into One Sphere of Light. This is called PRANAYAMA or Pranayam; prana meaning "life" and "ayam" meaning control. Control of life.’ Patanjali gives the definition of pranayama as: ‘The gradual, unforced cessation of breath.’....

After Kriya has been practiced over a period of time the prana in the spine is lifted. This magnetizes the spine into a dynamo. Of this our Guru said: ‘The torrential bliss is overwhelming, but the Yogi learns to control the outward manifestation. Kriya is the sure and gradual way to bring the Bliss of God.’

Paramahansaji’s precepts include Yoga paths of wisdom, devotion, and activity, but are primarily based on the application of Raja Yoga**, the most profound of the ways of Yoga. This gives specific concentration and meditation procedures. (**Our guru also taught Mantra-Yoga of chanting and affirmations.)

In addition, Sri Swarupananda states in his commentary on the Bhagavad Gita: 'Men of supreme illumination are One with the truths they describe. A man of highest Realization can at any moment shake himself clear of the sense-world and go into Samadhi with the natural ease of a tortoise withdrawing within itself.' Commentary on words of Krishna by Swarupananda in his Bhagavad Gita translation, first edition and reprinting, 1909-1967."

PY explains in his autobiography: "The science of Kriya Yoga mentioned so often in these pages became widely known in modern India through the instrumentality of Lahiri Mahasaya, my guru's guru.... Lahiri Mahasaya received it from his great guru, Babaji, who rediscovered and clarified the technique after it had been lost in the Dark Ages....

'The Kriya Yoga that I am giving to the world through you in this nineteenth century,'  Babaji told Lahiri Mahasaya, 'is a revival of the same science that Krishna gave millenniums ago to Arjuna; and that was later known to Patanjali and Christ, and to St. John, St. Paul, and other disciples.'

Kriya Yoga is a simple, psychophysiological method by which human blood is decarbonated and recharged with oxygen. The atoms of the extra oxygen are transmuted into life current to rejuvenate the brain and spinal centers. 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 energy. Elijah, Jesus, Kabir, and other prophets were past masters in the use of Kriya or a similar technique by which they caused their bodies to materialize and dematerialize at will." Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yoga. (Los Angeles: SRF, [Paperback Edition 1972]) 275, 276.

Yogananda states that Kriya  is twice referred to by Lord Krishna in the Gita. For example we find in PY's commentary on the Gita (IV: 29) wherein the avatar says, "Other devotees offer as sacrifice the incoming breath of prana in the outgoing breath of apana, and the outgoing breath of apana in the incoming breath of prana, thus arresting the cause of inhalation and exhalation (rendering breath unnecessary) by intense practice of pranayama (the life-control technique of Kriya Yoga).

By the concentrated practice of Kriya Yoga Pranayama--offering inhaling breath into the exhaling breath (prana into apana) and offering the exhaling breath into the inhaling breath (apana into prana) -the yogi neutralizes these two life currents and their resulting mutations of decay and growth, the causative agents of breath and heart action and concomitant body consciousness. By recharging the blood and cells with life energy that has been distilled from breath and reinforced with the pure spiritualized life force in the spine and brain, the Kriya Yogi stops bodily decay, thereby quieting the breath and heart by rendering purifying actions unnecessary. The yogi thus attains conscious life-force control.

....Kriya Yoga pranayama or life control teaches man to untie the cord of breath that binds the soul to the body, thus scientifically empowering the soul to fly from the bodily cage. No flight of fancy, this is rather the singular experience of Reality: the knowing of one's true nature and the recognition of its source in the bliss of Spirit. By Kriya Yoga, pranayama or life control as described in this 29th stanza, the soul can be  released from identification with the body and united to Spirit." Paramahansa Yogananda, God Talks With Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita. (Los Angeles: SRF, 1995) 496, 497.

Referring to another stanza in the Gita (IV 1-2) written in his autobiography with comments, PY says, "That meditation-expert (muni) becomes eternally free who, seeking the Supreme Goal, is able to withdraw from external phenomena by fixing his gaze within the mid-spot of the eyebrows and by neutralizing the even currents of prana and apana, [that flow] within the nostrils and lungs; and to control his sensory mind and intellect; and to banish desire, fear, and anger.

Kriya Yoga is mentioned twice by the ancient sage Patanjali, foremost exponent of yoga, who wrote: ’Kriya yoga consists of bodily discipline, mental control, and mediating on Aum.’ Patanjali speaks of God as the actual Cosmic Sound of Aum that is heard in meditation....(Yoga Sutras II.I)

Patanjali refers a second time to the Kriya technique or life-force control thus: 'Liberation can be attained  by that pranayama which is accomplished by disjoining the course of inspiration and expiration. (Yoga Sutras II. 49)"  Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yoga. (Los Angeles: SRF, [Paperback Edition 1972]) 278.

Yogananda states that St. Paul knew Kriya or a similar technique, by which he could switch life currents to and from the senses. Quoting Corinthians 15:31: "I protest by our rejoicing which I have in Christ, I die daily."

PY explains: "In the initial states of God-communion (sabikalpa samadhi) the devotee's consciousness merges in the Cosmic Spirit: his life force is withdrawn from the body. which appears "dead," or motionless and rigid. The yogi is fully aware of his bodily condition of suspended animation. As he progresses to higher spiritual states (nirbikalpa samadhi), however, he communes with God without bodily fixation; and in his ordinary waking consciousness, even in the midst of exacting worldly duties.....

The body of the average man is like a fifty-watt lamp, which cannot accommodate the billion watts of power roused by an excessive practice of Kriya. Through gradual and regular increase of the simple and foolproof methods of Kriya, man's body becomes astrally transformed day by day, and is finally fitted to express the infinite potentials of cosmic energy, which constitutes the first materially active expression of spirit....

In men under maya or natural law, the flow of life energy is toward the outward world; the currents are wasted and abused in the senses. The practice of Kriya reverses the flow; life force is mentally guided to the inner cosmos and becomes reunited with subtle spinal energies...." Ibid, 278-281.

The contradictions are obvious. Why does SSB say Kriya and Raja are not yoga and that these practices are "flippant and flimsy." Why do they "shrink your sphere of awareness of the Divine?" Kriya and Raja DO control the vagaries of the mind. The life force in the body is controlled and the meditator DOES switch off the senses. THE SENSES ARE THUS CONTROLLED! And why does SSB contradict Krishna, whom he claims to embody, and Patanjali, a revered sage of ancient India?  And PY devotees know that Mahavatar Babaji sent PY to the West to teach Kriya Yoga.

The tens of thousands of testimonials regarding changed lives with the practice of Raja and Kriya will need to be in a possible future treatise. By the way, I suspect SSB developed his powers by some practice of PRANAYAMA--check this article by Sanjay Dadlani:
http://www.rfjvds.dds.nl/ex-baba/engels/articles/sanjay.htm

Dennis J Hanisch