It is a firm tradition, expounded in many ancient
documents, and defended in all seriousness right to the
present day by every one of India’s great teachers, that high
civilizations have existed at various times in the past, and
that mankind has repeatedly attained, and fallen from, far
greater heights of knowledge than we have reached so far in
our civilization. The science of yoga is believed to have been
handed down from such a high age. Indeed, it seems as if so
advanced a teaching, as at home as it is among realities to
which even our scientists are still struggling to adjust
themselves, must surely have been born in an age of relative
enlightenment.
The great yogis of India long
ago claimed that human enlightenment depends only partly on
the mechanical make-up of the brain and the quality of
information that is introduced into it. Most important, they
said, is the energy itself flowing through the complex circuit
of cerebral nerves. If this energy-flow is weak, no amount of
crammed information can result in great and original ideas.
This energy-flow can be
strengthened by self-effort in two ways: Blockages in the
nerves can be eliminated, and the flow of energy itself can be
increased. Both of these ends may be accomplished by the
diligent practice of yoga. It is perhaps for this reason above
all that yoga is termed a science, not merely an art.
But the wise men taught that
the strength of this energy-flow depends also on certain
external factors. Our environment, the company we keep—these
aids will be readily recognizable; it is for these reasons
that great saints have always stressed the importance of
satsanga (good company) and of living in spiritual
environments. The ancients also said, however, that our planet
receives vast amounts of energy from the surrounding universe,
and that a fine attunement with this energy can bring one
speedy inner enlightenment.
They taught that the rays of
energy are strongest at the center of our galaxy. Our sun,
they claimed, moves not only in a fixed orbit around the
galaxy, but also revolves inwardly around its dual, with the
result that it is alternately closer to and farther from our
galactic center. As it moves closer, mankind as a whole
becomes more enlightened. As it moves farther away, only those
persons who conscientiously develop their own inner energy,
and who, by sensitizing themselves, make full use of whatever
energy comes to them from without, are able to transcend
humanity’s general plunge into darkness.
The science of yoga was born
in an age when mankind as a whole was more enlightened, and
could easily grasp truths for which our most advanced thinkers
are still only groping. (I refer here to ordinary, worldly,
men, whose sole means of achieving understanding are the
clumsy tools of logic, and not to those great saints and yogis
who in any age are fully enlightened from within.) It is
because the groping for these truths has
The history of yoga, then,
must begin with its origins in the vision of great masters in
ancient times. Later masters of this science are important to
us now, not for what they did to improve on the ancient
teachings, but for what they did to preserve them. As divine
truths, the teachings of every true master are eternal, and as
worthy to be considered scripture as the writings of the most
ancient sage. As history, however, their special interest lies
in how they clarified what now have become archaic distortions
of tradition, or in how they emphasized aspects of tradition
which the people of their times were prepared to understand.
Truly, the most meaningful
second step in the history of yoga is, in every age, the very
long one from its ancient origins to the present day. More
important than this medieval saint or that are the lives of
present-day masters of yoga, whose concern is to correct
mankind’s contemporary distortions of reality, or to reveal to
man new aspects of reality for which his development has now
prepared him.
In our age a number of such
great masters have appeared. They have come with different
missions, each one to stress a different aspect of the Truth,
each aspect sorely needed by modern man in general, or by the
groups of disciples to whom they spoke in particular. As part
of this present-day renaissance of ancient teachings, one
particular line of great masters have devoted their lives to
reestablishing the original, central teachings and practices
of yoga.
The lives of these great
masters are eloquently described in Autobiography of a
Yogi, by Paramhansa Yogananda, my own great guru.
Yoganandaji, himself a perfected master, was sent to the West
in 1920 by his line of gurus (Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya, and
Swami Sri Yukteswar). Here he established thriving centers for
the practice and spread of the authentic, original yoga
science of ancient times. Since his passing in 1952 his work
continues to flourish and to grow.
Most important to the
mission of this great line of avatars (perfected beings
whose sole purpose in returning to this level of existence is
to uplift others) was the revival of the highest of ancient
yoga techniques, to which they have given the somewhat
unassuming name, Kriya Yoga. Kriya means, simply,
action. Any number of yoga practices may be, and are, called
kriya yoga.
