Unconditional Love

Wikipedia defines Unconditional Love as love which has no bounds and is unchanging, so in the eyes of unconditional love there is no right or wrong, good or bad, or judgement of any kind. This is the most important thing to understand, know, remember, experience and become, and regardless of whether they know it or not, everyone is on the path to becoming pure unconditional love. The purpose of spiritual practice is to simply accelerate your journey along that path.

My introduction to yoga came in the form of Raja Yoga where the student is first taught to adhere to the Yamas and Niyamas. I rejected this notion, as even when I started, the strongest value I had was for freedom, and the yamas and niyamas seemed to be about taking away my freedom. Thankfully, I soon afterwards discovered Tantra, which has freedom as its core value, and I was in complete alignment with that.

For the beginner, Tantra starts out with Panchamakara where the practices include madya (wine), māṃsa (meat), matsya (fish), mudrā (parched grain), and maithuna (sexual intercourse). These are all things that the average person understands and likely consumes or engages in, but also mistakenly assumes excludes them from spiritual practice (as per the yamas and niyamas), but this is simply not true.

By turning the mind inward during the consumption/action of these five m's, spiritual knowledge is gained and spiritual advancement takes place. This is the beauty of Tantra, as it makes spiritual practice available to all.

In this post on diet, I explain how a natural evolution in diet takes place in conjunction with spiritual advancement, but even after reaching the breatharian state, your freedom is not limited, as you may still choose to consume wine or meat if you so desire without experiencing any negative effects. Trailanga Swami was famous for even drinking deadly poison without experiencing any negative effects.

Perhaps you are vegan and never consume alcohol, but with other friends you end up visiting the home of someone with a vineyard. The owner talks so passionately about his vineyard and the extreme care and attention he gives to growing his grapes and making his wine, that his love is clear for anyone to see. When he then offers a glass of his wine to you, what do you do? Do you look at the wine as if it is poison and refuse? Do you try to explain your spiritual goal of avoiding alcohol and then refuse? Do you lovingly accept it, but then pour it down the sink when no one is looking? Or do you lovingly accept it, drink it and savor every last drop, while imagining being filled with the love that went into growing the grapes and making the wine?

Certainly if you are going to be visiting the vineyard owner often due to perhaps a common interest in ecovillages, then you will need to explain your spiritual goals regarding alcohol, but is it appropriate to do so the first time you meet someone new?

During my first year of yoga practice (2001/2002), I followed the path of strict discipline and refused all food and drink I was offered, eating only what I had prepared myself. This behavior pretty much alienated almost everyone in my life. However, I did have many powerful experiences as a result, including being flooded with unconditional love in the summer of 2002, while meditating on the anahata kshetram.

I experienced a sensation of intense beauty that I reveled in for some time, and even though the experience seemed to refuse to end, I decided it was time to stop meditating. As I opened my eyes and began to move, I realized my shirt was soaking wet and I began wondering where the water was coming from. I soon realized it was dripping off my cheeks and chin, and that I was still weeping uncontrollably.

I got up and walked around, tried to think of something else, but this intense sensation of beauty, love, and joy that was making me weep, refused to leave. Finally, after about an hour, it abated, but I was forever changed. So while it was strict discipline that got me to this experience, it is unconditional love that has guided me ever since.

Be Food Free

Swami Nithyananda has another interesting web site that I took a look at recently called Be Food Free. As regular readers of my blog will know, I believe that 15 to 30 million people will become "food free" breatharians over the next 15 to 20 years. This is a prerequisite for ascension (see my post Diet for Ascension), so I find it interesting that Swami Nithyananda is also working towards making this happen.

Once again, Swami Nithyananda is fairly open regarding the technique for becoming food free.

What is Nirahara Samyama?

Samyama means exploring and discovering your various possibilities and powers being centered on certain technique or spiritual process. Nirahara Samyama means exploring and discovering our body's possibility without having any external input like food or water.

The purpose of the Samyama is to awaken our own natural intelligence of making food out of natural resources like sun rays, air and the praana which is directly available to us from the space. Swamiji says if fish can swim, we can swim, if bird can fly, we can fly and if plants can make food directly from the air and sun rays, our body can also do that. Every extraordinary capability and possibility is inside our bio memory.

When our bio memory is awakened, we don't need a will. We just like that feel highly energetic and highly feeling excited. Mainly we get liberated from many patterns that got created with food. Every human being associates his fears, greed, attention need and idea of love with food. All patterns associated with love and attention need is connected with food. Food is a very emotional zone. Now when we are liberated by master from food and patterns created by food, the first thing that will happen is the unnecessary emotions and sentiments associated with food will break. So the reasonless excitement, kind of subtle joy will be constantly happening in our system.

Technique (EFU):

eN-Chanting - Ajapa japa
Feeling Connection - Mahabhava
Unclutching - Sahaja Samadhi

Ajapa Japa is one of the most powerful process and technique. It releases certain kind of energy from our body, nectar from the throat. Shakthi sanchaalana happens through Ajapa Japa means constantly the Kundalini is awakened but never allowed to go out of the body and it stays inside the body. Japa means just the voice coming from the naval through the throat and tongue and leaving, a continuous linear movement of air getting converted to sound is Japa. In Ajapa Japa, the Guru Mantra: "Oh Hreem Nithyanandaya Namaha" mantra is repeated constantly with the visualisation of the mantra moving in circular direction around the throat. A prayer wheel with the mantra written in it will help in Ajapa Japa in the initial levels It helps in getting inside our inner space and unclutching becomes easy. Feeling connection - meditating on the Anandha Gandha Chakra remembering the master, being in Bhakti, the joy of looking for him and remembering him. Unclutching - Being an observer of all the thoughts that arise by just witnessing them, neither encouraging them nor suppressing them.

I had practiced Japa seriously back in 2008 while working through the Systematic Course book and the experience I had was similar to what's described "Kundalini is awakened but never allowed to go out of the body". After about a month of practice, I experienced a sudden surge that filled my stomach. I couldn't eat for 3 days and only sipped water. I didn't feel the slightest bit hungry (I felt full in fact) and had plenty of energy, but discontinued the practice as I still had many more lessons to try out in the book, and after the aforementioned 3 days, the energy dissipated and my appetite returned to normal.

I've started practicing again according to Swami Nithyananda's instructions and have found them to be very effective. Most important is visualizing your mantra moving in a circular direction around your throat, passing through the Vishuddhi kshetram and chakra. The movement may be in either direction. The video below provides more details of the practice.

Video Project

I've been busy since February working on a video project for my cousin's wedding. That project is now coming to an end, but I'll be busy with other activities until the end of April. My schedule should get back to normal by May, so I'm hoping I'll be able to write a new blog post and film another yoga video and get them up before the end of May. Thanks.

Behind the Scenes

In my first video for Kriya Yoga Course 4, it appears as if I'm sitting outside in the snow, but I'm actually warm inside and have just superimposed myself onto the frozen lake behind my parents' house. This was accomplished by placing a green screen behind and under me when filming inside and then using software to replace the green with the background image. I purchased a Cowboystudio Chormakey Green 9 x 15 ft Muslin Backdrop for this purpose.

Separately, I went out onto the frozen lake and shot the footage for the background. We had shovelled the snow off part of the lake for the kids to skate on, so this is where I filmed. I'll also mention that I purchased a new Canon VIXIA HF R30 Full HD Camcorder which films at a resolution of 1920 x 1080, which is far superior to my old camera's resolution of 720 x 405.

After filming all of the footage and transferring it onto my computer, I noticed that the playback was very choppy as my old computer couldn't handle the HD picture resolution, so I then had to purchase a new computer too. This was turning into a more expensive venture than I had anticipated, but I was able to find a Lenovo G505s 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black) on sale which was able to play the HD footage smoothly.

I now needed some software that could produce chroma key green screen effects. I had been using the free tool Avidemux for some simple editing of the footage from my old camera, and while it worked great it didn't have a chroma key function. After searching a bit I discovered another free tool called Wax 2.0 which could do the job. Upon trying to load my video footage, it immediately crashed. I eventually figured out it only supported the wmv file format. After converting my footage, and then trying to apply the chroma key effect, it crashed again. I eventually figured out that if I removed the sound from my footage, the tool would finally produce the chroma key effect I was looking for.

It was quite a painful process for just this one function, so in the end I decided to buy PowerDirector 12 Deluxe which works really well, and I would highly recommend it to anyone wanting to create more professional looking videos. It supports many file formats, has many special effects features in addition to chroma key, however, I discovered that when I mixed chroma key with fades the end result was a bit choppy. To solve this, I had to create an intermediate video which just applied the chroma key effect, and then used that video to create another video which added the fade in/out effects on scene changes, along with beginning and ending titles. My video footage was now complete.

The soundtrack was another story. Many people had complained to me about the low audio level in my videos, so I was eager to solve this problem. The soundtrack editing and mixing features in PowerDirector are pretty good, but in this case I found a free tool that was even better: Audacity. With just one click of the "Compressor Effect" the audio level in the entire soundtrack was raised to an optimal level without causing clipping.

Finding music for the soundtrack was far easier than I expected. From within PowerDirector I was able to search for sitar music, listen to different samples, then directly add the one I liked to my video. However, mixing the music with my voice was most easily done with Audacity. In this case I used the "Auto Duck Effect" which automatically lowers the music volume level when I'm speaking. I exported the video with the mixed soundtrack to my computer and was quite pleased with the final result.

All I had left to do now was upload my video to YouTube. PowerDirector will do this for you automatically, so I expected this to be a breeze, but my first attempt caused PowerDirector to crash. I suspected I was again trying to have PowerDirector do too many things at the same time, so instead of loading my project file, I imported the finished mp4 video and tried again. This time it looked like everything was working, except it got stuck at 100% complete and eventually spit out an error saying the upload failed. I tried to directly upload my mp4 file, but YouTube complained about that format. Using PowerDirector, I tried converting the file into different formats until wmv finally worked. The quality is not as good as the original mp4, but the video is now finally up at YouTube. Check it out below. I have also made the original mp4 available at Sellfy to download for $0.95.

Lastly, I just wanted to thank everyone that has sent me donations, either here at my blog or at my YouTube channel. I'm currently just collecting the money, but once I have enough I'll set up a non-profit dedicated to spirituality and sustainability. Thank you with all my heart.

Kundalini Syndrome

I'm often asked if Kriya Yoga is dangerous. So just like driving a car or anything else, it isn't dangerous if you learn it thoroughly and practice it carefully. With a car, if you try to drive on a highway at high speed without first learning how to maneuver at low speed, you will increase your probability of having an accident, or if you are sleepy or there is bad weather or you are being distracted by a passenger or many other situations can also increase your likelihood of having an accident. Kriya Yoga is no different, just learn it thoroughly and practice it carefully and you will be fine.

I was motivated to write this post after reading JCS's and SNG's books on the original Kriya Yoga (as opposed to Swami Satyananda's variant), for I feel these books are lacking in terms of the necessary theory and practice required for someone to practice Kriya Yoga safely. These books give me the impression that any person off the street can start practicing Kriya Yoga directly without having any issues. In my opinion, this is akin to giving someone a million dollar supercar to drive on the autobahn at 300 km/h (190 mph) and expecting them to have no issues.

There are two types of problems I hear about from people practicing the original Kriya Yoga: either they have been practicing for a long time and have not experienced anything (i.e. they are stuck in 1st gear at 30 km/h since they never learned how to use a clutch); or they have had an extremely powerful experience that has left them feeling terrified (i.e. 300 km/h is way faster than they can handle).

The most important thing that anyone wishing to practice Kriya Yoga needs to know, is that it leads to Kundalini awakening, so before starting to practice you need to fully understand what that entails or you may end up with Kundalini syndrome instead (i.e. turning a positive awakening into a negative syndrome). Here is the list of possible "symptoms" from the Psychology Wiki:

The Physio-Kundalini Syndrome Index

Category	Symptoms
Motor symptoms	1. Body assuming and maintaining strange positions for no apparent reason.
	2. Body becoming frozen or locked into strange positions and immovable.
	3. Breathing spontaneously stopping or becoming rapid, shallow, or deep for no apparent reason.
	4. Spontaneous involuntary bodily movements.
Somatosensory Symptoms	5. Spontaneous deep ecstatic tickle or orgasmic feeling.
	6. Physical sensations starting in the feet, legs or pelvis, and moving up the back and neck to the top of the head, down the forehead, over the face, then to the throat, and ending in the abdomen.
	7. Extreme sensations of heat or cold moving through the body.
	8. Moving pockets of bodily heat or cold being extreme enough to burn or otherwise affect someone else or an inanimate object.
	9. Pains in specific parts of the body that begin and end abruptly.
	10. Tingling, vibration, itching or tickling on the skin or inside the body.
Audiovisual symptoms	11. Internal noises, such as whistling, hissing, chirping, roaring or flutelike sounds.
	12. Internal voices.
	13. Internal lights or colors illuminating parts of the body
	14. Internal lights bright enough to illuminate a dark room.
Mental symptoms	15. Observing oneself, including one's thoughts, as if one were a bystander.
	16. Sudden, intense ecstacy, bliss, peace, love, devotion, joy, or cosmic unity.
	17. Sudden intense fear, anxiety, depression, hatred or confusion.
	18. Thoughts spontaneously speeding up, slowing down, or stopping altogether.
	19. Experiencing oneself as physically larger than the body.

The second thing you need to understand is that these are not symptoms of a syndrome that needs to be cured, these are positive spiritual experiences that are working to cleanse and purify your body, mind and spirit and eventually lead you to enlightenment. This is why you are practicing Kriya Yoga: to achieve Kundalini awakening and enlightenment.

The third thing to understand, is that with proper preparation you can significantly reduce the severity of your Kundalini awakening experiences. Swami Satyananda has devised a systematic approach to cleanse and purify the body-mind-spirit complex in preparation for Kundalini awakening. I've covered this in my Kriya Yoga Course 1 and 2. First, Hatha Yoga must be practiced to open the spiritual pathways (nadis) in the body; second, Pranayama (i.e. Nadi Shodhana) must be practiced to balance the flow of spiritual energy (prana) in the pathways; finally, each of the spiritual centers (chakras) must be awakened individually. This will provide a milder experience of the table items above, allowing one to become accustomed to spiritual experiences without being overwhelmed by them.

Only after all of the previous steps have been taken is it then safe to practice Kriya Yoga in my opinion. However, you may still notice that your mind wanders or your body fidgets with the original Kriya Yoga, and this may be due to being unable to achieve the advanced form of Kechari Mudra (i.e. inserting the tongue into the nasal cavity). If this is the case, then I would recommend Swami Satyananda's Kundalini Kriyas (my Kriya Yoga Course 3) instead of the original Kriya Yoga, as you are pretty much guaranteed to experience the powerful flow of Kundalini in your spine with his Kriyas in my opinion.

After all of this you may be wondering if I find any value in the original Kriya Yoga. Well, I do, for after Kundalini awakens the journey is still not over, for enlightenment still needs to be reached. This is when the original Kriya Yoga is most useful, for after inserting the tongue into the nasal cavity, it becomes easier to achieve the breathless state (see Ennio and Steve) and experience absolute stillness of body and mind.

Kriya-yoga: The Science of Life-force

Swami Nityananda Giri has written an excellent book on the Kriya Yoga of Lahiri Mahasaya called "Kriya Yoga The Science of Life Force". This book contains very comprehensive information on the background theory of Kriya Yoga prior to delving into the practices themselves. It includes many scriptural references and a deep view of the preparation required for Kriya Yoga. Here is an excerpt from the start of the book.

The breath-based meditation "Kriya-yoga" is a familiar name after its reintroduction by Mahavatara Babaji to Lahidi Mahasaya and subsequent work of Paramahamsa Yogananda in the western world. Though many literatures are available but the lack of clear exposition on the philosophy and practices of this ancient spiritual science is still felt. The book, Kriya-yoga: The Science of Life-force tries to fulfill this want. This work vividly explains "the Knowledge of Life-force" known as Pranavidya, which forms the basis of Kriya-yoga citing from Vedas, Upanishads, Srimad Bhagavadgita, Yogasutras of Patanjali and many other ancient scriptures, and analyzes how the breath technique quiets the mind, brings equanimity and results in development of discriminating intelligence that answers the questions and purpose of human life. This also gives an understanding on our inner reading, the principles and practices form auspicious resolves, noble faith, self-effort and austerities from righteousness, yama, and observances, niyama, up to the transcendental state, samadhi, those form the appendages of this treatise, and describes how the breath-based practices and meditations described herein are necessary for a seeker to remain healthy and attain the Knowledge. The body principle, sarira tattva, is also anatomized using both biological and spiritual sciences to accelerate spiritual practice and to facilitate the understanding on life and death, gross to causal bodies, five sheaths, five vital breaths, three knots, seven energy centers and their working. The most important aspect for readers and seekers is that for the first time they will find the secret techniques of Kriya-yoga, viz., Nabhi Kriya, Khecari mudra, Guru Pranama, Hamsa, prana viksana, Mahamudra, Isvarapranidhana Kriya, Thokar Kriya, Jyoti mudra, Sambhavi mudra, and different techniques of meditation, e.g., Aum, twelve-lettered Vasudeva mantra, inner-matrka and outer-matrka meditations, etc. are revealed, and explained in details citing their illustrations in Upanishads and ancient yogic scriptures and enumerating the rationale and scientific approach behind such practices and benefits involved.

As you can see, the techniques described in this book are somewhat different from the techniques described by Ennio Nimis and J.C. Stevens. Below is a list from the table of contents.

Preparing the Gross Body Energization Exercises, Kriya Hatha-yoga, Suryanamaskara, Sithilikarana Vyayama, Yogasanas, Yoganidra
Nabhi Kriya
Khecari Mudra No Need to Cut the Frenum, Talavya Kriya
Guru Pranama
Hamsah Sadhana
Vyana Viksana
Om Technique, Om Kausalah
Mahamudra

Kriya Proper I The Kriya Technique, Kriya Meditation, Subtle Manifestations of Light, Sound and Vibration, Kriya-breath and Meditation Quickens Evolution, Arousing Prana/Kundalini by Kriya Practice, Paravastha, Experiencing a Breathless State
Jyoti Mudra
Sambhavi Mudra

Kriya Proper II, Thokar Kriya Meditation with Vasudeva mantra, Matrka Dhyana, Antarmatrka Dhyana, Bahirmatrka Dhyana, Jyoti Mudra in Second Kriya
Third Kriya Techniques
The Fourth Kriya

Kriya Secrets Revealed

J.C. Stevens has written an excellent book on the Kriya Yoga of Lahiri Mahasaya called "Kriya Secrets Revealed: Complete Lessons and Techniques". It is similar to the free book by Ennio Nimis except that it presents the practices in an easy to follow lesson format. I share many of JC's views regarding spiritual development. Here is a quote regarding the importance of inner guidance.

For me, breaking the secrecy and leaving organizational attitudes behind was the key to my new found spiritual successes. I have often said that it was at this point in my journey that I started to grow up (spiritually). I was more willing to experiment with practicing different meditation techniques, and more able to discover which methods brought out the most satisfactory results for me as a unique individual. I also let my intuition guide me and tailor my practice of Kriya Yoga. It is in these moments that I feel the invisible hand of my Inner Guide. I trust that by breaking free from organization-imposed limitations, and by listening more to your intuition, you too will experience heretofore unimaginable spiritual progress.

Below are the lessons given in the book.

LESSON 1 - Find Your Meditation Seat
LESSON 2 - Nadi Sodhana Pranayama
LESSON 3 - Ujjayi Pranayama
LESSON 4 - Concentration
LESSON 5 - Talabya Kriya
LESSON 6 - Locate the Chakras
LESSON 7 - Om Japa in the Chakras

First Kriya Initiation

LESSON 8 - Kriya Pranayama I
LESSON 9 - Maha Mudra
LESSON 10 - Navi Kriya
LESSON 11 - Yoni Mudra
LESSON 12 - Mantra (Japa Yoga)
LESSON 13 - Mental Kriya
LESSON 14 - Kechari Mudra
LESSON 15 - Kriya Pranayama II
LESSON 16 - Short Breath Kriya Pranayama
LESSON 17 - Shambhavi Mudra
LESSON 18 - Kriya Pranayama III

Additional Practices

LESSON 19 - Mula Bandha
LESSON 20 - Jalandhara Bandha
LESSON 21 - Uddiyana Bandha
LESSON 22 - Bhastrika Pranayama
LESSON 23 - Sushumna Sodhana
LESSON 24 - Basic Walking Techniques

The Higher Kriyas (Omkar Kriyas)

LESSON 25 - First Omkar Kriya
LESSON 26 - Thokar Kriya
LESSON 27 - Continuous-Thokar Kriya
LESSON 28 - Gayatri Kriya
LESSON 29 - Tribhanga-Silent Kriya
LESSON 30 - Tribhanga-Mantric Kriya
LESSON 31 - Tribhanga-Thokar Kriya
LESSON 32 - Micro-Tribhanga Silent Kriya
LESSON 33 - Micro-Tribhanga Mantric Kriya