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Date Posted: 03:16:59 04/25/04 Sun
Author: Hendrik - 1 Apr 2004
Subject: Re: 'completing' the kriyas
In reply to: Sundarar - 1 Apr 2004 's message, "'completing' the kriyas" on 03:10:44 04/25/04 Sun


Swami Sivananda and Swami Rama write about making a puruscharana of a certain mantra to get the siddhi of the mantra. For instance, to get the siddhi of gayatri one is supposed to repeat it 10 hours a day for 16 months or something. This is in Swami Sivananda's "Japa Yoga" book. It's all about numbers. Once the number is finished you go on to another mantra.

I take these numbers as symbolic, because Sivananda writes something else in the same chapter:

"Only Yoga-Bhrashtas and pure-minded persons can have Darsana of Gayatri by doing only one Purascharana. As the minds of the vast majority of persons in this Kali Yuga are filled with various sorts of impurities, one has to do more than one Purascharana according to the degree of impurity of the mind. The more the impurities, the greater is the number of Purascharanas. The famous Swami Madhusudana Saraswati did seventeen Purascharanas of Krishna-Mantra. He did not get Darsana of the Lord Sri Krishna, on account of the sins committed in killing 17 Brahmins in his previous births. But he had Darsana of the Lord when he was on the half-way of the eighteenth Purascharana. The same rule applies to Gayatri-Purascharana also."

He furthermore adds that doing Puranascharana one must observe strict celibacy, may live on milk and fruits, may practice unbroken silence etc. -- an austere life-style.

Hence I take the number as a symbol. Normally it would take somewhat more than a year to finish one cycle of Gayatri as you say. But owing to my personal impurities and present conduct it may also take seven years, or 50 years, or more.

Likewise Yogananda writing in his Gita that Kriya can be completed in 12, 24, or 48 years, or in several incarnations only, depending on the pace of spiritual progress of the practitioner and his past-life Karma. On the other hand with swift progress it may be also possible to attain realization in merely 6 or even 3 years. What to make of it? Why always multiples of 3 or 12?? Probably because they are holy numbers handed down by tradition.

And Sivananda mentioned Swami Madhusudan took about 17 1/2 cycles to attain Darshan of Lord, which is not an even number. The story with the slaying of 17 Brahmins may be a common explanatory statement (made in hindsight) in order to give the duration of his sadhana a religious significance justified by tradition. According to the Law of Manu for instance it takes 12 years of austerities and righteous living, or otherwise walk 3,000 miles, or do Ganga worship etc. to remove the guilt incurred by slaying a Brahmin. Something like that.


knonymous explained already that in Shibendu's system 1st Kriya is upheld in later stages.

The higher Kriyas constitute Shibendu's "process" -- but apparently only one at a time is being practiced, adding to the First Kriya which goes on as usual. After a certain number of a Higher Kriya or sub-Kriya is finished, it gets replaced by the next higher one, meaning you always have First Kriya plus ONE higher Kriya. At least that is how I understand it and how it works with Second Kriya.

Shibendu, like Sivananda and many others, is also deep into symbolic numbering in spite of his partly modernistic outlook. For instance he teaches that Kriya pranayam shall take 45 seconds, but if that is not practicable, 22 seconds will also do. Why 22 and not 30 or 35??

Or he teaches to increase pranayams by twelve, like Yogananda does, up to 144 which is the maximum. Nevertheless I heard him advise, "Why not do more than 144?!"

I believe what is behind it is the demand to first assert what tradition teaches, without any modifications, and then only, if necessary, make adjustments, and these also in line with tradition if possible.


Lahiri Mahasaya's teaching of Higher Kriyas must have been different from that of Shibendu's, because the Patravali letters are there and show that advanced disciples of LM practiced up to half a dozen or so different Kriyas, pertaining to several stages, simultaneously i.e. within one session, not one being discarded for another. This seems to have been the rule.

Hendrik

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