With the Winter Solstice, Christmas, Hanukkah, and the New Year approaching, Kriyananda provides a daily ritual for self improvement. It begins on December 25 and continues through January 1st. The ritual involves harmonizing your relationship with your family.
It’s Christmas Eve 1985, and Kriyananda gives a special discourse on the “secret of the blazing tree of Life.” Following his talk, Kriyananda is visited by the Christmas spirit Kriya Kringle, who has a gift for him.
In this talk by Kriyananda given at a retreat in Kauai on September 9, 2002, he discusses many aspects of stepping onto The Path. Our goal is to learn to deal with our subconscious mind in order to get to the super conscious mind. Kriyananda references Darwin, Freud, Jung and even Marx and Engel to examine ideas on how we can manage to transform our self conscious awareness into super conscious existence.
What we are today is a result of yesteryear’s thinking, saying and doing. Go within and practice Mindfulness. Open yourself to Inspiration. Think about what inspires you. Write it down and decide how to obtain it and sustain it. Be aware that Life is about the art of timing. Timing is vital. Timing is all.
Discernment is what we need to employ to know what does and doesn’t help and hurt people, and ourselves. We have a mind-body complex that is continuously ingesting. What is it that you are ingesting? Without discernment we will allow thoughts to build up in our mind into dense karmic bundles. When these karmic bundles become dense enough they will move down and manifest in our earth lives. Be aware of what you are ingesting. Use detachment to improve your discernment, which will improve your life.
One way to describe Kriya Yoga is it is the “mystical science of consciousness.” By endeavoring to be of service to others and regularly practicing the yogic sadhanas, we can remove the constrictiveness of the child mind within us. We can identify and remove the hurts of our past. Doing this will allow us to see more clearly how to appropriately conduct ourselves in our earth life, which is also our spiritual life.
This Healing Noon Meditation is from 2-7-1988. Swami Kripananda, Goswami (David Blair) provides his opening thoughts before Goswami Kriyananda speaks.
What we touch touches us in return, says the law of reciprocity. Every action we take contains a causal force. But our past actions can also be a mystical tool. We can look to them and plot a course correction for our future by using tarka (reflection) and meditation. We should row our spiritual boat to the shore of moksha (liberation) by pulling equally on the left and right oars of Ida and Pingali (feeling and logic). To over-emphasize either oar will only move us in circles.
Kriyananda points out that all of the Kriya Lineage were householders with the exception of Yogananda. Though it’s true that each soul is a universe unto himself, we are a part of Life not apart from Life. As Kriyananda has often said, “Your earth life is your spiritual life.” Therefore being a householder provides us with an excellent lifestyle framework to apply practical yogic teachings to the everyday karma of our life.
In this Noon Meditation preceding the Death, Dying and Rebirth Ritual at the Annual Blessing of the Departed on November 9th, 2003, Goswami Kriyananda asks us, “Do you have regrets?” He points out that we should have regrets if we have gained wisdom over time. Our recently departed loved ones likely also have regrets. For a time after their passing we can communicate to them and offer them encouragement and help smooth their transition to their new circumstances.
Become detached from your needs and greeds. Go deep within to find the seed state of enlightenment, the Bodi Chit. Fear of our inability to do this holds us back. The solution is to develop greater strength and faith in our ability to perform our dharma and to find that which we seek.
