A very good read of a Yogi's Life - Paramhansa Yogananda
An Online Book for Free when its also being sold!
http://www.ananda.org/autobiography/
I cried when I read this book. Its very real, about real feelings for family, renouncing a normal worldly life of marriage for greater service and about emotional attachments to family members and even pets.
Its an autobiography written by a Yogi about his own life. He is a master who is helping in the new age religious circles too as he is an ascended master and has such he is friends with Master Jesus. See what Master Jesus the ascended master has to say about him:
http://www.ascendedmasteranswers.com/spiritual-realm/ascended-masters/47-paramahansa-yogananda-is-today-an-ascended-master
This title kept showing up a few times after this master Paramhansa Yogananda came to one of my healing sessions. I also came to know of Kriya Yoga years before that. He is trying to teach me to lead a more peaceful life by resolving the dualities in conflicts through peaceful solutions. Doing yoga to increase my confidence and intuition are the other messages I am receiving. Still trying to figure out exactly what Kriya Yoga is. I think its a way to use the breathing to visualise the rise of the kundalini energy from the groin area(first chakra) to the head (7th chakra) without getting distracted. Its about raising our sexual energies to the level of the divine. I think sounding the word "AUM" helps in the process. I think its something to do with the energy around the spine area. I think its about centering our connection with the fact that we are all in the Unity of GOD and to keep our consciousness focused in GOD instead of the dualities of the maya of our body and human life.
If you want the facts, reading chapter 26 of this online book will help. Still trying to figure out for sure exactly how Kriya Yoga can be practised without the intervention of a GURU.
An excerpt for chapter 26 of the online book:
“Kriya Yoga is an instrument through which human evolution can be quickened,” Sri Yukteswar explained to his students. “The ancient yogis discovered that the secret of cosmic consciousness is intimately linked with breath mastery. This is India’s unique and deathless contribution to the world’s treasury of knowledge. The life force, which is ordinarily absorbed in maintaining the heart-pump, must be freed for higher activities by a method of calming and stilling the ceaseless demands of the breath.”
The Kriya Yogi mentally directs his life energy to revolve, upward and downward, around the six spinal centers (medullary, cervical, dorsal, lumbar, sacral, and coccygeal plexuses) which correspond to the twelve astral signs of the zodiac, the symbolic Cosmic Man. One-half minute of revolution of energy around the sensitive spinal cord of man effects subtle progress in his evolution; that half-minute of Kriya equals one year of natural spiritual unfoldment."
