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Date Posted:23:00:20 05/19/04 Wed Author: Hendrik - 16 Apr 2004 Subject: Re: debate on numbers of kriya In reply to:
Sundarar - 16 Apr 2004
's message, "debate on numbers of kriya" on 22:59:49 05/19/04 Wed
Hi Sundarar, here are just some thoughts coming to my mind:
Durga Mata was asked to do only few Kriyas because of her poor health I suppose. Some people have a weak respiratory system. I knew a girl who took Kriya at age eighteen but due to excessive activity as a professional dancer had such weak lungs that it took her several months to achieve performance of merely 12 pranayams at a stretch. Another incident is Tinkori Lahiri teaching a group of miners only mental pranayam because due to their their diseased lungs they were not able to perform pranayam with lungs involved at all.
About numbers in yoga I already said that I take them to be of symbolical value, which may have a worth of its own but surely not a 'scientific' (exact) one as we would like them to be. One more example for blurring of numbers: In one publication I read that the Maharashtrian yogi Samarth Ramdas did 13 crores of Ramanama until he got Lord Rama's Darshan, in another publication the number given was 13 lakhs. One lakh is 100,000, one crore is 10 million. As you like! Let us assume that 13 lakhs of a Mantra practiced for 10 hours a day may take 3 months (just to give an example) then 13 crores will take 25 years. That's a difference!
When did Doctor Lewis start to pratice 1000 kriyas a day? I remember sometime, possibly in the 1940's, Yogananda told him, "No more dentistry!" Perhaps the frequency of 1000 kriyas a day belonged already to the period when Doctor used to stay in a place in the desert, practicing Kriya practically around the clock, with darkened windows.
He must have earned well as a dentist right from the beginning as he was able to afford a house, pay for the needs of his wife and raise children, in addition taking care of Yogananda and financing some of his early tours in the 1920's. So perhaps 20 years later he was probably well-off, his kids almost grown-up, himself living in early retirement, and assisted by a wife who assisted him in his spiritual quest, being a disciple of Yogananda, too. He was not the average householder of today - working for 10 hours, exposed to TV, and his psychological health ruined by a troublesome relationship.
I do not know whether one Kriya is better than the other, but I liked SRF's pranayam more than Shibendu's (which I believe is largely identical to the majority of 'traditional' lines). There are also several elements in the latter variant that will not be practicable for all people.
A friend of mine suggested that Yogananda may have omitted the om japa deliberately because of its energizing effect, as he may have found that people in America generally were much more agitated than his own people, so he shifted the om japa to a later stage when kriyabans should already have attained to a more sattwic stage. Don't know if this is correct, but it is an interesting idea.
As we see Yogananda also did not easily presribe high numbers of pranayam (in his Gita he emphasizes several times that as a rule 108 SHALL NOT BE EXCEEDED, except on special occasions which require special preparation), which means that high quantities of pranayam must have been of secondary importance to him. -- More often than not yogis warn against the dangers inherent in pranayam, and this may also be applicable to Kriya if the numbers are too high, or the performance is incorrect, or you are not the right type for it. As Yogananda so decidedly spoke against doing more than 108 at a time, and even discouraging a number of people to do more than a few dozen, he will have had his reasons. Perhaps except in a limited number of special cases a high number of pranayams will be harmful to sadhana, for whatever reason. Generation of shakti is not equivalent with inner progress. I noticed that in Mejda Sananda writes that Yogananda even after many years took care to check whether he did his pranayams correctly. This seems to be of prime importance.
I want to add that I am not sure that most people practice their pranayama correctly nowadays. I got Kriya pranayam taught by four different SRF ministers, but what was considered right by one was not considered right by the other. Perhaps they had a similar concept, but they failed conveying it to me effectively. Shibendu's pranayam is somewhat different but he failed to be consistent, and from own experience I would go as far as saying he will let a normal deep breath pass for pranayam. But then the efficacy will rely just on a combination of faith (breathing) and imagination (mental pranayam, om japa).
