Frequently Asked Questions - Yoga Niketan
FAQs
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Yoganiketan
No. The translations on this website are protected by copyright and may not be reproduced or displayed anywhere else in any language or form, nor may they be utilized for any such purpose. For this reason the legal corporation of Yoga Niketan Inc has been formed in year 2002 for the protection of the copyrights and also the protection of the display rights to the translation of the books. Gradually our staff members are carefully translating these books (according to copyright law) into Spanish, Portuguese, French and many other languages to appear on the library. We ask you to please have patience. This work takes a tremendous amount of time. Two of our members who live in Spain are in process right now of translating all the material into Spanish to very soon appear on the Yoga Niketan website (and Portuguese and French is also in process). This material will be up very gradually. We ask you to please be patient. We ask people to please allow us to do our work.
We ask that people not write to us in regard to recommending them teachers of Kriya or our opinions on other groups.
We belong to the “old school” and are disciples of the line of Sri Dasgupta Mahasay. Our lineage traces in unbroken chain through Dasgupta Mahasay to Swami Sriyukteshvar Giriji, to Yogiraj Sri Sri Lahiri Mahasaya. We are quiet sadhaks and keep to ourselves and do not have any connection or interest with any other groups. Nor do we have any recommendations of “Gurus” among the masses of teachers abounding these days in both India and the West.
We maintain an online library and publish these books as our service to Guru.
People are always contacting us to ask our opinion of various “Gurus” or wanting information so they can make “Kriya Yoga lineage trees.”
This science is secret science. Yogis like Lahiri Baba and Sriyukteshvar were quiet, secret Yogis. They were not looking for publicity and had forbidden it on many occasions. Sri Dasguptaji used to describe the secrecy of Kriya:
People are always contacting us to ask our opinion of various “Gurus” or wanting information so they can make “Kriya Yoga lineage trees.”
This science is secret science. Yogis like Lahiri Baba and Sriyukteshvar were quiet, secret Yogis. They were not looking for publicity and had forbidden it on many occasions. Sri Dasguptaji used to describe the secrecy of Kriya:
"Disciples of Lahiri Mahasaya used to be told to keep the teachings a closed secret and not to talk about it even with friends and relations who were not initiated into the secrets. So religiously this direction was followed that in cases even Kriya performers living as neighbours over twenty years did not know each other as members of the same spiritual fraternity.
Swami Satyananda writes:
"The neighbors of a Kriyavan sadhaka, in some cases even people in the same house, would not know about the sadhaka's initiation or practice.There were disciples in the uppermost levels of society - high government officials, very wealthy and eminent devotees such as Paresh Kaviraj Mahasaya, Shyamadas Vachaspati Kaviraj Mahasaya, Kashi Naresh Maharaj, Jotindramohan Thakur etc. Even though He had disciples such as these from the highest positions and of the greatest eminence, He did not encourage anyone to do external propagation. It has been heard that Kashi Naresh's royal doctor became very enthused at wanting to spread the name of "Kashibaba," when the Lord stopped him from that endeavor.
Yet these days people want to make "Kriya Yoga lineage trees"
These days many things have changed, regarding both Kriya as well as the way it is now taught.
We prefer to keep to ourselves and not be contacted with questions or recommendations about all the various teachers abounding these days.
Things have been a “mess” for a long time. Sri Dasgupta Mahasay himself had written in his book “Kriya Yoga”:
"There may be quite a good number of Kriya performers who have been taught the Second Kriya; the number doing the Third is very low. The cases of performers of the Fourth Kriya is extremely rare, hardly a few. Swami Shri Yukteshvar had given the Fourth Kriya to only one disciple, and the latter had taught one or two more. Similar is the case with the other celebrated disciples of Shri Shri Lahiri Mahasaya.
That is simple fact.
Years ago Sri Dasguptaji used to say, “Now they all claim to have everything...all these Gurus who are everywhere. They all say they have it all!!!”
He used to lean forward and chuckle and say, "From where did they get it?"
It is impossible to keep track of who is teaching correct and who isn’t, nor do we have any interest in this. We only give the general advice to people that almost everyone teaching Kriya these days is a complete fraud.
The fact is many people teaching Kriya these days are doing so without permission. Of course they all claim to have been authorized by their Gurus but it is not true. They have “authorized” themselves … they are nothing more than “self proclaimed” teachers.
The fact is many people teaching Kriya these days are doing so without permission. Of course they all claim to have been authorized by their Gurus but it is not true. They have “authorized” themselves … they are nothing more than “self proclaimed” teachers.
Genuine sages are the rarest treasure on this earth. People are under the impression that they grow on trees....they do not. We have no recommendation and information or any comment on who is real and who isn’t.
Please do not write to us about things like this.
Please do not write to us about things like this.
Yoga Niketan is a cooperative effort of a few Kriyavan devotees who have volunteered and continue to volunteer their time and efforts to serve their fellow Kriyavans.
Those who are involved in this work, wish to do this work quietly, without drawing attention to themselves. On some of the works the translators and editors are mentioned by name but only for copyright reasons.
"The system (Kriya Yoga) was so highly esteemed that the early masters thought only a very select and deserving few should be initiated into it lest the price-less technique was in any way tampered with or misinterpreted. Many sound religious and spiritual teachings have been found to have been turned into unwelcome banal and vulgar features and decayed in the long history of India 's spiritual efforts due to indiscriminate broadcasting of the teachings.
We receive many requests from people asking us to place a link for their particular website onto our library page. The policy set down by the Trustees of Yoga Niketan forbids us to add any links (the exception being the existing link on our site which is a mutual link between Yoga Niketan and Katyayani Peeth). The reason for not allowing additional links to be placed on the Yoga Niketan site is because Yoga Niketan is a neutral library. We do not wish to give the impression that we endorse one particular website or another. We wish to remain neutral. We are loners. We do not get involved in endorsing one particular website or another. Therefore, we ask that you please do not contact us about placing a link to your website onto the Yoga Niketan library page. Our established policy does not allow it.
We ask that people please do not link directly to the books (unless you have express written permission to do so.) If you wish to link to the Yoga Niketan site please link to the opening page at www.yoganiketan.net