Yoga Poses with Breath Infusion

Meditationtime Forum Post

Date:  Posted 5 years before May 21, 2018

MiBeloved 7 years ago

During exercises this morning kundalini rose several times. There were two particular arousals which are worth mentioning. One was through the chest and then into the arms and elbows. When the energy went into the elbows it felt as micro-needles of mint bliss energy. This occurred after doing intense breathing and assuming the bow pose immediately after. Because of the arched stretch in the bow pose, kundalini shot through the chest and then shot into the arms.

Usually when one does the bow pose without first infusing breath into the system, one does feel the benefit of that stretch due to the arched back and the arched arms and elbows but one does not feel the energy of kundalini dash through the nadis. Hence the importance of breath infusion.

Kundalini also shot down through the thighs during one part of the infusion. This felt like long pointed icicle sparklets of energy which kundalini released downwards into the thighs and then pulled back to the base chakra quickly.

neil 7 years ago

In one of your posts Sri Sadhguru talked about "What kind of yoga do you teach?"  He categorized yoga into four types:

Karma (yoga of action using the body), Jnana (mind yoga), Bhakti (devotional yoga) and Kriya (using life energy).  Your

description of doing kundalini sounds like Kriya to me.

Michael, do you think that any type of yoga can be placed into one of these four categories?

MiBeloved 7 years ago

The shadguru did not go into details about those four categories by his definition. For me yoga has to be what Patanjali defined it to be which is something that has eight stages and which is sometimes called ashtanga yoga, because ashtanga means 8 when it is translated into English.

So in my books when you see the word yoga, never lose sight of that definition. Now regarding what those 8 stages are, I go to Patanjali again and he lists them as

Yama, niyama, asana pranayama, pratyahar, dharana, dhyana and samadhi.

So that to me is the definition of yoga. If someone has another definition, then that is okay but I use this definition and stick to it when I discuss or write anything.

In the Gita Lord Krishna lists only two application of yoga, namely jnana yoga and karma yoga, but he told Arjuna that he was going to teach karma yoga to Arjuna, not jnana yoga and he said that he was the original teacher of the karma yoga which was taught to yogi kings like Vivasvan and Janak. These were real people from the past of India and Arjuna knew about them. This is why Arjuna pulled Krishna up by asking how it was possible for Krishna to have taught legendary kings from the antiquity of India.

Karma yoga was taught to kings and those kings taught their sons about it. In the Gita yoga is explained in detail in chapter 6. Karma yoga means karma + yoga. If someone is saying something else about it, then that is okay but I stick to the explanation of the Gita. We have to understand that if someone uses the words karma yoga in another way, then that is okay. I do however disagree strongly if someone explains Gita and says that karma yoga as it is explained in the Gita is something other than the 8-process yoga of Patanjali + karma or cultural activities.

The same for yoga, if someone says Patanjali said that yoga was something other the ashtanga 8 process yoga, I would disagree, but I would agree if that other person laid out a new definition and said that he would use the words in the way.

Okay let us go back to the Gita. There Krishna said that he taught two applications of yogas previously and that they were karma yoga and jnana yoga but he said he would teach Arjuna karma yoga, which is the application of yoga to karma, which is social cultural activities.

Now when we go to the Uddhava Gita, we run into a bump because there at the onset in the conversation with Uddhava, Krishna said that he taught three applications of yoga, namely karma yoga, jnana yoga and bhakti yoga.

So that is a change because now another application is added. These are the only three applications of yoga, Krishna mentioned as main processes. If we check through the Uddhava Gita, we will see that kriya is mentioned but only as a part of both bhakti yoga and jnana yoga and it is mentioned as part of the mystic ritual worship acts, which are also called kriyas in the Sanskrit language.

However in the development of the history of yoga, there were different definitions. For instance nowadays in the West, people speak of Hatha yoga and what they usually mean is asanas. But actually Hatha Yoga was introduced by Gorakshnath Mahayogin, and he introduced it as the process of bringing the Ha and the tha or the solar and lunar energies in the subtle body under control, which is really kundalini yoga.

In the first place you cannot do asana properly if you have not mastered the first two parts of yoga, of yama and niyama, which includes celibacy but in the West, we are doing asanas mostly for the purpose of increasing our sex drive and making our bodies more sexually attractive. So the definitions are mixed up.

Hatha Yoga as taught by Gorakshnath originally is the same Patanjali system of the 8 process yoga but it is that with stress on controlling kundalini and making the yogi an extreme celibate.

Shadguru has given the four categories and what he said was sound.

You repeated that as follows:

Karma (yoga of action using the body), Jnana (mind yoga), Bhakti (devotional yoga) and Kriya (using life energy).  Your description of doing kundalini sounds like Kriya to me.

So I will agree with your conclusion that our kundalini yoga would come under the category of kriya yoga in his terminology.

There are many subdivisions in yoga, just like when we were in High School, they introduced Algebra even though that is still mathematics. For instance in chapter two of the Gita, Krishna speaks of Buddhi Yoga, even though he said he was teaching two applications of yoga primarily. So that means that Buddhi yoga is a subdivision.

But let me be clear. We do kundalini yoga and then we sit to meditate. When we sit to meditate, we cease doing the kundalini yoga and we then resort to samyama as it is defined by Patanjali as being the three higher states of yoga combined into one practice. (dharana, dhyana and samadhi as one flowing into the other)

So the question is why do we do kundalini yoga, why not just sit to do samyama? The answer is that we find that we are unable to horse-whip the life force into shape by just sitting and meditating, so we do the aggressive breath of fire with asana postures, first and that brings the life force where we would like it to be, and then we sit for samyama.

We are not interested in karma yoga, because that is crap from day one. Karma means that you are doing things for the sake of righteousness because if you don’t God will kick your ass and if you don’t you won’t get a nice birth in the future, you will have to come out as a poor man or as an aborigine or as an animal. So as yogis we are not concerned with that, but there is a catch, which is that if we totally ignore God, our yoga practice will hit the pits. So we agree to karma yoga, because it is a necessity not because we love God or love righteous activity or anything like that. We are doing it because there is a gun being pointed at our heads.

God told Arjuna in effect something like this, “You do not like to do karma yoga, You do not like to be my clean-up man. Then okay, go to hell instead.”

So that is a big choice isn’t it. So like that we agree to do karma yoga, but otherwise as yogis we are not interested in it. There is no spiritual benefit from it. But since providence as Krishna or providence as just plain fate will operate to mess us up in the future if we do not do it, we agree to do it.

Now I grew up under Christian influence and their idea is karma without yoga, which means that they want everybody to do righteous activities just like that. They cite Moses. The guy wrote down ten commandments and said, “Do this or hell will be your dinner.” So as yogis, we are not interested in that because that is like being a blind man and acting and hoping that the acts will be all beneficial. That cannot be because if you are blind you cannot see. So karma + yoga is the way to go because yoga gives you the long ranged perception to understand how what you are doing now will be thrown in your path in the future and how what you did in the past, is being shoved down your throat right now.

Therefore karma yoga is better than karma alone. Or stated precisely, it is better to have some spiritual insight when you are performing cultural activities, then to just go out there with some social involvement and no spiritual idea of a past life or a future life.

I always have disagreements with my relatives and most of these have to do with the fact that they have no vision of any life but this one which we are going through right now. They are into karma and I am into karma yoga and so we always are at logger heads.

Jnana yoga is explained in detailed in the Uddhava Gita. It concerns the application of yoga expertise to mental energy. Bhakti yoga concerns the application of yoga expertise to emotional energy or affection.

Kriya yoga as taught by Babaji (introduced to the West by Sri Swami Yogananda) is the Patanjali system with stress on samyama, the three higher stages of yoga.

Kriya yoga as taught to Uddhava by Krishna is the Patanjali system with stress on what Patanjali calls pranidhana which is meditative focus on the supreme divine person in the divine world.(See Patanjali Yoga Sutras: 1.23)

Bhakti Yoga is the most elusive yoga because it presupposes that one’s devotion or affection is pure. If it is not pure then that system is a farce, because the divine person cannot accept a non-divine emotion from anyone. However in India bhakti yoga is very popular and the teachers of it make large missions because of their explanations which either cheapen the purity required or just do not consider the grade of the devotion at all.

Bhakti is not bhakti yoga but mostly in India the two systems are confused into being just bhakti or devotion alone without yoga.

Kundalini yoga as I teach was given by Yogi Bhajan (Harbhajan Singh). It is a precursor to meditation practice. If it is not done then the meditation will be on a lower level. To reach the stages which are described by Patanjali one has to raise kundalini by whatever method one can, even though Patanjali listed pranayama as the method as the 4th stage of yoga.

I am instructed to raise kundalini at least twice per day but presently I am doing so once per day. This is because there is a resistance to my doing it twice per day. But in the back of my mind, I know that the resistance is there.

Such is this life, because the karma or social energy carries with it a certain power which a yogi has to work around in some way or the other. I am lucky that I can even do so once per day.

The whole plan for material existence is to remain in the dumps or to go down lower to a lower species of life, so if someone can raise kundalini once per day, then he or she is like a god on earth, because that is demonstrating much resistance to the downward movement of the evolutionary energies.

Patanjali is not dead. He is still existing. The problem is that we cannot reach him because we are on a lower plane. Since he will not come down to a lower level, the only way to reach him is to go up to his level. But just like if you do not have a high school diploma you cannot apply for college entrance, if you have not reached the stage of yoga where the chittavritti do not arise, you cannot reach Patanjali for association.

So in Patanjali’s syllabus for yoga, the second sutra is

yogah chittavrittih nirodhah

which means that before you apply to be instructed by him you have to have mento-emotional energy in your psyche completely shut down.

Patanjali does not care if you drink Coca-cola and achieve that. He recommended certain methods but he is not a bigot. If you can find another method, then okay, provided it really works.

devaPriya Yogini 5 years ago

excellent explanation, thank you for it guruji.

I did a search on kriyas and found this post~~

Alfredo 5 years ago

Tremendous explanation, deep, deep knowledge.

When you wrote: I am instructed to raise kundalini at least twice per day but presently I am doing so once per day. This is because there is a resistance to my doing it twice per day. But in the back of my mind, I know that the resistance is there.

I can say that you have instructed me to do so as many times as possible per day, for months if not years, and that the same, or similar, resistance is there when I try to go above once a day, which is daily.

This resistance is plainly Tamasic and masquerades as myriad reasons, some very plausible, such as ate too much, ate too little, did not sleep enough, once is enough, there is no hurry, and on and on.