The Way of the TAO
and
The Yoga of the Siddhas
I learned a special meditative breathing method many years ago, when I was still practicing Zen. My Zen Masters in Japan emphasized this kind of breathing a lot, the whole tradition of Taoism and Zen Buddhism as well as the Zen arts, rely heavily on this method.
Since 2006, when I was initiated into Kriya Yoga and further into Siva Yoga a bit later, I pretty much left the practices I had learned in my Zen years. The biggest reason for this was that I had faced a very difficult nervous or spiritual breakdown after training so hard without learning to relax. When I learned kriyas, a whole new world opened up for me and I was swept by it, enjoying and merging in high energy-consciousness states (Paravastha) that are beyond description. So I felt I didn't need the Zen stuff anymore. For several years, I couldn't understand it.
So 5 years passed... until September 2011 when with the initiative of my beloved Satgurus, Thirumular and Babaji, I came across again the same principles I had practiced years ago in Zen which has its roots in Taoist and Buddhist Yoga from China and further back from India. These same practices and their principles started popping up to me in my meditations, while holding hands with Baba and Mular at Mt. Kailash, an also from DVD:s, videos and books in various forms, some of them watered down and some of them all right. Further, Babaji gave me a set of pranayama – Babaji's Pranayama Set for Health and Spiritual Evolution – to be shared as online yoga teachings through my website, www.sundarayoga.fi, which includes these same principles. The course, among with few other courses Mularji has given, will be available soon in English and Finnish.
At first, I was a bit puzzled of all this. I knew how the family of the Siddhas reaches from India to China to Europe to Arabia and all the way to South America... so it is safe to assume that the Masters of this lineage pretty much work on a global scale. That is what a Satguru means, a Master on a global or universal scale. Yet, from my perspective as a simple bug – a human being – I needed to take a good look at the whole thing. How do these practice principles and methods fit together: Siva/Siddha Yoga and practices I had learned in Zen and Shintoism which seem to be missing in Indian Yoga?
The practices of the Siddhas are heavy stuff. I don't want to sound a fool but most of the kriyas I've learned from these two Satgurus as well as from the memories of my own Higher Self, are practices which just switch ones consciousness into the mode of completeness. *BANG!* Just like that. And this is the precise reason why all these secret practices and tantras have been and are still being kept secret.
In most teachings of Kundalini or Kriya Yoga, simple and easy methods are offered. If the original methods were openly shared in yoga courses and seminars, the society and the lives of the individuals would, I assume, pretty much seize because the physical realm, the world around us, would seem like a mere dream. All the things we do and take care of in our daily lives would seem more or less pointless. As modern people, we need to be grounded and active in the world. I don't mean pursuing material goals or loosing oneself in the game and politics of the world but living here and now, right in these bodies made of flesh and bones, in our time and society.
So, bringing a balance between spiritual and wordly lives is important. It's crucial... And this is where the Siddha-method well-known in Zen and Tao comes in.
We live in a time of great transformation of the human culture. This culture is not brought by monks or recluses in the mountain caves but by normal family men and women who live in the cities and are active in the society. This is the reason why heavy methods of Kriya Yoga and Mularji's Siva Yoga are brought back in the first place: To make a shift from material egoistic consciousness into balanced and natural, enlightened consciousness. For this to happen, we need heavy medicine (Siva Yoga) and that is what these Siddha Masters have made available to us all. Additional practices such as the Khanda Pranayama, which is the practice referred to here, strike a perfect balance between the outer world and the inner spiritual state.
In meditation I asked Babaji to explain me the connection of Siva Yoga and Taoist dan tien/tanden-practices.
”Babaji, please tell me of the connection between Siva Yoga and Taoism?”
”This is one and the same yoga. There is no this or that yoga. There is only that which is according to the great tradition of yoga and that which is outside of it. At the moment much yogic knowledge is scattered in the world. It is Baba's work to bring it all together.”
I felt Babaji smiling like a happy young boy... so sincere and playfully proud.
”How these methods I've learned should be taught?”
”You know all this already. Baba has guided you a long time... since you were a small boy, this tall (putting His hand low on the waist level to signify small child's height and smiling even wider). Babananda, make it available.”
For a while I had intuitively known that it had been Babaji's invisible guiding hand that had guided me to Zen and Japan but still I was a bit amazed to hear Him say that to me. Many times I had thought how much I had learned in Zen about chanting, retreats and of many things which I can now use in my work as an acharya – authorized teacher - of Siva Yoga and as a teacher of my yoga center.
Memories from my childhood flashed quickly in my mind when Babaji came silently to solicitate and help me when I prayed for happiness and peace to all, sitting by myself on the bedside when I was a boy of just a few years old.
I started to feel so full of Babaji's blissful Love (prema) that inside I melted like soft honey. Spontaneously, I said:
”I Love You Babaji, I Love You Babaji.”, while melting in Babaji's prema.
”Babananda, bring Baba's Love to many people. This prema belongs to all. Make this available.”
Within me, I got so full of Babaji's incredible blissful Love that my mind quieted down while my heart and Soul became one in Babaji's stream of Pure Love.
Babaji's Prema and blessings to all,
Babananda,
Yogacenter Sundara,
30.9.2011
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