Is there a guide on doing kriya yoga anywhere on the net?

[Korpo]

I could not disagree more.

These are just things that boost your practice a bit. Kechari mudra, working specific channels, mantras - all of these are just doohickeys that boost the essential practice, not the secret of it all. The essential practices are usually way simpler but infinitely harder to master.

If you learn to meditate, everything else is just an addition in terms of energy work. Not the other way round. In fact, I believe many booster techniques can lead to risks if not approached with sufficient skill in the core practice. There are no shortcuts, no magical tricks, no "secrets of it all".

The claim of this and that is equivalent to "one year of spiritual evolution" made in the "Autobiography" is so deep into the hogwash range, I momentarily lost interest in reading the book.

Oliver

[Nick----]

I feel like it has become more obvious throughout my life that different people need different things. In an infinite world it makes sense there are infinite ways to reach the divine. Kriya doesn't resonate with deifferent people and its not good with for them, its the same with every practice. I think I've said it before on this site, but I've known plenty of Kriya practicioners that are total assholes. Yeah that's a judgement but I'me being honest with my experience. No one thing will bring everyone to God. or maybe it will, I could be wrong....

[CFTraveler]

I'm going to look at this from a different perspective- when Kriya came to the west, (or Yogananda, to be more accurate) India and Hinduism were very mysterious and from a historical perspective, I believe that Hindu Mysticism was going through some sort of 'rebirth', or reworking- concepts ignored by traditional hinduism were again looked at, and there was a movement towards looking at the metaphysics of the religion, in a similar way that we are now looking at western religions from a metaphysical standpoint, out in the open, not as a part of a 'mystery school'- and you can see that culturally they (Hindu mystics) were reconciling what they knew about physical reality (as uncovered by science at the time) with what they had learned from centuries of religious training-for example, the correlation of physical organs (of the central nervous system) to the energetic chakra system was a complement that they could bring here to the west. So I can reasonably assume that when they wrote that kriya was 'the ultimate' path they really believed it, in the context of their own culture and what they were learning about ours.
I think it's somehow similar to how we now equate discoveries in quantum science (as understood by the average person) to 'metaphysical theories' that have been around for a while in the subject of mysticism and cosmology.
We may not specifically believe that A or B technique is 'the way to go' towards self realization, but we do believe (in general) that we are getting a clue about it. So it's not really that different.
So sure, nothing is guaranteed to do anything, especially in the manifested world- but it's exciting for those to find something that works for them, and that prompts them to want to share it.
The rest of the stuff that goes with it is, I guess, a natural progression of 'where we're at', socio-culturally and possibly spiritually speaking.

[alwayson4]

I could not disagree more.

These are just things that boost your practice a bit. Kechari mudra, working specific channels, mantras - all of these are just doohickeys that boost the essential practice, not the secret of it all. The essential practices are usually way simpler but infinitely harder to master.

If you learn to meditate, everything else is just an addition in terms of energy work. Not the other way round. In fact, I believe many booster techniques can lead to risks if not approached with sufficient skill in the core practice. There are no shortcuts, no magical tricks, no "secrets of it all".

The claim of this and that is equivalent to "one year of spiritual evolution" made in the "Autobiography" is so deep into the hogwash range, I momentarily lost interest in reading the book.

Oliver

You have a huge bias against kechari mudra, a mudra you could probably obtain in a week, if you really tried.

Secondly, mantras are not magic. They are supposed to keep you from daydreaming during the chakra practice, keep attention high etc. Even Robert Bruce has spoken repeatedly on the power of affirmations, and uses the mantra OM for the high level projection technique in Astral Dynamics. Also, he has mentioned one of the key features of kundalini raising is AUUMMM vibrating in the heart center.

Third, all eastern traditions state energy body practice is superior to regular meditation. What is meditation going to give beyond the preliminary insight that you are not the thoughts, but the awareness behind the thoughts? I am not against meditation, but all traditions maintain energy body practice is faster. Plus correct energy body practice is done during meditation anyway.