Ananda Course Introduction | Part I | Part II | Part III

The Art and Science of Raja Yoga is the most comprehensive course on yoga and meditation offered today. It gives us the balanced and complete approach of Raja Yoga, which is also known as the "royal" yoga.

The course is organized around 7 topics-—Philosophy, Meditation, Postures, Breathing, Routines, Healing Principles and Techniques, and Diet. It also includes in-depth discussions of the paths of karma, bhakti, and gyana yoga. The author, Swami Kriyananda, excels in showing the interdependence of these seemingly separate areas and how all of them, when correctly approached, further our spiritual progress.

The main purpose of yoga postures, for example, sometimes thought to bestow only physical benefits, is to prepare the body and mind for meditation. Affirmations, visualisations, breathing exercises, healing techniques, the different paths of yoga, and, to a certain extent, diet are similarly helpful.

Included with The Art and Science of Raja Yoga book is a CD 74 minutes in length with 3 tracks. Track 1 is a talk, "Meditation: The Great Problem Solver". Track 2 is a 37-minute routine of Ananda Yoga for Higher Awareness. Track 3 is an 18-minute guided meditation entitled"Guided Meditation On The Light".

Excerpts from Part II

From the Foreword,
by Sheila Rush:

The meditation techniques of ancient India, presented by Swami Kriyananda in step-by-step detail, turn out to be indispensable for quieting the mind, drawing it inward, and redirecting our awareness to the centers of spiritual awakening in the brain. Proper meditation, one soon discovers, is neither mechanical nor passive, but requires deep concentration and sustained, dynamic energy.

From Step 1:
"The History of Yoga", Section VII, "Meditation"

Meditation is to religion what the laboratory is to physics or chemistry. Whether one follows the outward form of religion depends more or less on personal taste, but whether one seeks in his life some of religion's practical, inner benefits is a matter of life or living death. The reason religion persists in spite of the general worldliness of man is not because a few otherworldly types keep fanning the dying embers, but rather that all human life would be insufferable without at least some of the inner peace that religion offers. The essence of religion is not its ceremonies, nor even its talk of a life hereafter, but its emphasis on an inner life here and now, and on the lasting peace that accompanies this inner life once it is discovered. The true purpose of religion is to point out that human existence on every level is empty when emptiness is affirmed, and when inner awareness is allowed to become nothing more than an echo of the world, offering nothing creatively to the world in return.

What is meditation?

It is not, as so many people assume it to be, a process of "thinking things over." Rather, it is making the mind completely receptive to reality. It is stilling the thought-processes-those restless ripples that bob on the surface of the mind-so that truth, like the moon, may be clearly reflected there. It is listening to god, to Universal Reality, for a change, instead of doing all the talking and "computing" oneself."

Learn the benefits and philosophy behind a yogic vegetarian diet, along with recipes to help you get started.

From Step 1:
"The History of Yoga", Section VI, Diet, "Insomnia", Part 2

Before sleep and also before meditation, it is better not to eat anything. Especially to be avoided are starchy or other high carbon foods. The heart and lungs clear the body of waste products, expelling them in the form of carbon dioxide. Starches and sugars give the heart more carbon to pump out of the body. A hardworking heart, with resultant heavy breathing, makes perfect rest perfectly impossible."

From Step 7: "Affirmations, Part 1",
Section II, "Yoga Postures"

There is, as I have already said, a connection between physical posture and mental attitude. Many of the postures of Hatha Yoga are related to specific and wholesome attitudes of the mind. All of the postures help in a general way to produce inner peace, contentment, and spiritual harmony. As you practice each pose, do not ask yourself merely, "What do the books say I should be feeling in this position?" Feel, rather, what the total significance of the pose is to your own inner consciousness.

Every time a thought comes into the mind, there is some message sent, if only a sort of psychic overflow, to the body. Different parts of the brain stimulate different parts of the body. When a particular thought or feeling comes into the mind, it entails a flow of energy to corresponding parts of the brain. This stimulation sends messages, in turn, to related parts of the body. When a person experiences fear, for example, the stimulation of the fear center in the brain sends impulses to the heart, quickening it; it stimulates the flow of adrenaline; it tenses the muscles that may be needed for self-defense or for flight.

A state of spiritual absorption, similarly, focuses energy automatically in the frontal part of the brain. The stimulation of this part of the brain sends messages to the body of a very different nature from those born of fear: The heart slows down, the breathing becomes calm, the whole body becomes relaxed.

From Step 9: "Energy and Energization",
Section I, "Philosophy"

Energy is the connecting link between consciousness and matter, between mind and body. For energy is, in its turn, but a manifestation of consciousness.

In the last analysis, all things are but manifestations of Spirit. The amount of energy flow, as well as the simple fact of its flow, depends on the exertion of will. If you go to pick up what you think is an empty bucket, the energy you exert will not be enough to lift it if in fact it is full. In this case, you must exert more will, and send more energy; you will then be able to lift the bucket easily. To put it simply, the greater the will, the greater the flow of energy. There is, literally, no limit to the degree of will, and therefore to the measure of energy, that one can summon in any undertaking, simply because a strong will is not limited by the actual energy potential of the body; rightly applied, it draws directly on the energy of the universe.

From Step 4: "Yama",
Section V, Healing Principles and Techniques, "Chronic Fatigue"

Chronic fatigue is one of the most widespread ills of our age. It is not due to overwork (modern man does not work nearly so hard as his ancestors did), but rather to a scattering of our forces. Ours is not a "focused" age.

Countless influences pull us in conflicting directions. We find ourselves trying to do a hundred things hastily, rather than one thing at a time carefully and well. We measure achievement by numbers rather than by excellence. A result is the exhaustion that one finds written on the faces of so any men and women in our bustling cities, where strangers pass one another with never a smile nor even a glance of greeting.

A technique for drawing energy into the body is to stand facing the sun. Raise your hands above your head. Feel the warmth of the sun striking your forehead at the point between the eyebrows, and the palms of your hands. Feel that you are drawing warmth and energy into your body through those "windows." After some time, turn your back to the sun, and feel its warmth upon the area of the medulla oblongata (at the base of the brain). Keep your hands raised above the head. Again, draw the sun's rays into your body.

From Step 5: "Niyama",
Section IV, "Breathing"

The yogi should combine breathing with an endeavor to expand his consciousness. As you inhale, feel that you are drawing strength, courage, and joy up your spine to the brain. While holding the breath, mentally affirm the positive state of consciousness that you are trying to develop. As you exhale, feel that you are throwing out of your body all opposing states of weakness, discouragement, and sorrow. If you have a specific problem, physical or mental, you may use this technique to affirm the opposite state of well-being, and to throw the negative condition out of your system.

In meditation, however, the exhalation may be used also in conjunction with a feeling, not of negative despair, but of positive surrender into the arms of Infinite Peace.

A breathing exercise that is intended to help balance and harmonize the two currents in the spine (known as pran and apan) is a technique known as alternate breathing. Close the right nostril, inhaling through the left for a count of 8; hold the breath, counting 8; close the left nostril and exhale through the right to a count of 8. A slight constriction in the throat, so as to make a gentle sound there during respiration, will help to increase the consciousness of the corresponding movement of energy in the spine. Repeat six times.

The proper position of the fingers during this breathing exercise is to extend the thumb and the ring and little fingers, closing the forefinger and middle finger against the palm. Close the right nostril with the thumb of the right hand. Close the left nostril with the ring and little fingers.

Ananda Course Introduction | Part I | Part II | Part III