Kriya yoga is often referred to as the “Yoga of Action or Awareness”. It is an ancient meditation technique that uses pranayama (breathwork) to rapidly accelerate spiritual growth. The ultimate goal of a Kriya practice is to achieve spiritual awakening. Kriya yoga is a great way to walk the spiritual path. People who have come up on Kriya have a completely different kind of presence about them.

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Paramahansa Yogananda often referred to the Kriya Yoga path, with its scientific techniques of meditation, as “the highway to the Infinite.” Instead of wandering on byways of intellectual curiosity or wasting time on any other spiritual side roads, we should seek the way that will lead us directly to experience of the divinity within ourselves.  Kriya Yoga is part of a comprehensive spiritual path, which includes meditation practices along with right living.

The benefits of Kriya Yoga include: experiencing calmness and joy in your life, increased focus and concentration. Although an ancient technique practiced in India for centuries, Kriya Yoga was not introduced to the west until the 1920s by Paramahansa Yogananda. The practice gained worldwide attention when mentioned later in his book, Autobiography of a Yogi.

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There are quite a few Kriya Yoga organizations around India and the West; of which the well-known ones are Self-Realization Fellowship (aka SRF) (https://yogananda.org/), and Kriya Yoga International (aka KYI) (https://www.kriya.org/).

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SRF (and its counterpart YSS in India) host in-person and online general meditations on a weekly basis.  KYI currently has bi-weekly talks and general guided meditations (Sundays) via Zoom; and some US centers are currently hosting in-person Kriya meditations.

Learning Kriya / getting into Kriya Meditation.

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There are no prerequisites for having prior knowledge or practice of meditation to get into Kriya Meditation from that lineage. However, please contact the appropriate center to get directions to the location offering the Kriya meditations or initiations. Kriya Yoga is not a religion; is a spiritual path that brings us home to our own souls and to God. Through the practices of meditation, prayer, healthy, purposeful living, and the blessings of the Gurus, we realize that we are more than our bodies, personalities, thoughts, and feelings. Practitioners of Kriya Yoga include people of all spiritual backgrounds or of none.

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For learning Kriya Meditation through Gurudev Hariharananda’s lineage (India, Europe and the US), the calendar of events for Kriya can be found through: https://www.kriya.org/events/worldwide/recent/en

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For learning Kriya Meditation through the Self-Realization Fellowship (US) or YSS (India), one may need to subscribe to SRF lessons before “qualifying” for Kriya Meditations. For this, please contact the YSS center in Ranchi (India) or the SRF main center in San Francisco (California, USA).