Vladimir Antonov
— Articles and Lectures
On Yoga
The word Yoga means Mergence of an individual human consciousness (soul) with the Primordial Consciousness (Which is also called the Creator, God-the-Father, Adibuddha, Tao, Allah, Ishvara, Svarog, and with other names from different human languages).
The Path to this Highest Goal and concrete steps and variations of advancement along this Path are also denoted by the word yoga.
This term is identical to the Latin word religion.
Among the directions of yoga, there are the following:
— Jnani Yoga — the Yoga of wisdom: the study of the nature of existence and the theory of the spiritual growth;
— Karma Yoga — the Yoga of right actions: the dedication of your activity to God, to the Evolution of the Universal Consciousness, which takes place including in the individual souls of embodied people; selfish motivation during this activity must be absent;
— Jala Yoga — the practice of ethically, biochemically, and bioenergetically optimal nutrition; it is important, in the first place, because for the successful spiritual growth, we need healthy bodies, and, in the second place, because the consciousness grows using the energy that the organism obtains from food; it happens thanks to the processes of the sublimation of food into energy inside the body; of course, one should grow as the consciousness using the subtle energy and not the coarse one, which separate us from the Primordial Consciousness; the use of alcohol, nicotine, and other psychedelics harmful for the health of the body and consciousness is inadmissible;
— Agni Yoga — the Teachings given to people through Helena Roerich by the Divine Teachers; they contain a powerful call to people to begin the spiritual search and spiritual self-development, to seek the guidance of the Divine Teachers — the Highest Spiritual Hierarchs — and the Mergence with the Primordial Consciousness; however, the concrete methodology of achieving this was not described by Helena Roerich: she was not interested in such methods;
— Bhakti Yoga — diverse methods that help to form the emotional love for the Creator in a seeker; Bhakti Yoga includes ritual forms of worship; however, we should understand that the realization of the goals of this Yoga is not possible without the development of the organ of emotional love, i.e. the spiritual heart; we also need to understand that in order to learn to love the Creator, we should learn to love His Creation first;
— Kriya Yoga — the path of ethical and energetical purification of oneself; on this path, one can “wash away” from oneself — with the help of meditative methods — everything non-highest, everything that veils the Sublime and Deepest Divine Essence of man (the Atman or Higher “I”); the term Kriya Yoga was introduced by Great Divine Babaji; then Kriya Yoga was spread by Mahasai, Yukteshwar, Yogananda, and now — by us; it is important to emphasize that full realization of the programs of Bhakti Yoga and Kriya Yoga is preached now by the Avatar of our time Sathya Sai Baba.
— Laya Yoga is actually the same as Kriya Yoga; laya means “dissolution”: dissolution of the individual “I” or individual consciousness in the United “I” of the Creator and Absolute; the emphasis here is placed on the development of oneself as a spiritual heart, on the purification of the body, mind, and consciousness, on the feeling of the Harmony, Love, Subtlety, and Infinity of the Divine Consciousness, on the awareness of Its Guidance, and then on the Mergence with It; in this case, the lower “i” is substituted with the Higher “I”.
So, on the spiritual Path there are three important directions of human development: intellectual, ethical, and psycho-energetical.
The last one can be subdivided into the following three main stages:
— Hatha Yoga — a preparatory stage that includes the initial methods of making the body healthy, mastering the concentration of attention and the preparation of the energy structures of the body for further important stages of work;
— Raja Yoga — its methods allow one to completely cleanse the systems of chakras and main meridians of the organism; they also help to achieve purity and harmony within the entire energy cocoon that surrounds a human body;
— Buddhi Yoga — a system of methods for meditative self-development outside the body and cocoon; it allows one to realize fully the Highest Goal: the cognition of God in all His Manifestations and Mergence with Him.
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All people differ among themselves by the following main criteria:
a) the psychogenetic age — the full age of a soul as the sum of all its human incarnations, and
b) the ontogenetic age — the age in a current incarnation that determines to a significant degree one’s capability of assimilating adequately the incoming information.
Depending on this, everyone who wants to follow the spiritual Path can choose for himself or herself the methods of the spiritual development that are the most adequate for the current moment.
And only to those who have mastered the ethical and intellectual components of the spiritual Path, it would be appropriate to begin to work with the psycho-energetic transformation of oneself. It is worth mentioning that people who have not passed completely to the ethically correct nutrition, i.e. the one that does not contain at all the products made of meat or fish, should not try to master the methods of Hatha Yoga and, especially, of Raja Yoga and Buddhi Yoga. Otherwise, the coarsening of the consciousness takes place; this leads them not to the Primordial Consciousness but in the opposite direction.
Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita said the following about the choice of the adequate methods of development for oneself:
12:8. Direct your thoughts to Me, submerge yourself as a consciousness into Me — verily, then you will live in Me.
12:9. But if you are not able to fix your thoughts steadily on Me — try to reach Me by practicing the exercises of Yoga…
12:10. If you are not capable of doing Yoga exercises constantly, then dedicate yourself to serving Me, performing only those actions that are needful to Me — and you will reach the Perfection.
12:11. If you cannot do even this, then seek Mergence with Me by renouncing the personal profit of your activity; restrain yourself in this way.
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In conclusion, let us point out the main milestones of the higher stages of Yoga, i.e. of Raja Yoga and Buddhi Yoga. And let us pay attention to the full correspondence of the above said with the Teachings of the Divine Masters: Thoth-the-Atlantean, Pythagoras, Krishna, Jesus Christ, Babaji, Sathya Sai Baba, and Others.
Main Milestones of Raja Yoga
1. Mastering the relaxation of the body, mind, and consciousness.
2. Psycho-physical exercises, which lay the foundation for the correct development of the emotional sphere.
3. Cleansing and development of the chakras. The priority in this work has to be given to the “opening” and development of the chakra anahata — the initial container of the spiritual heart.
4. Work on cleansing and development of main meridians (middle meridian, sushumna, vajrini, chitrini, front meridian, microcosmic orbit), cleansing of a partition between sushumna and a middle meridian.
5. Cleansing the energy cocoon surrounding the body.
6. The refinement of the consciousness through the methods of art, among others.
7. On the basis of all this, the mastering of the psychical self-regulation that contributes to the practical realization of the ethical principles suggested to us by God.
Main Milestones of Buddhi Yoga
Remark: in Buddhi Yoga, the work is carried out on corresponding natural landscapes, including the places of power.
1. The expansion of the spiritual heart. The development of its arms.
2. Mastering the Mergence with the Holy Spirits in the meditation Pranava.
3. Mastering the state of “non-I” in the Divine spatial dimensions (Nirodhi).
4. Mastering hesychia — inner silence.
5. Strengthening the “power center” of the organism (forming the hara — a unit consisting of the chakras of the lower dantian; mastering the methods for its further development).
6. The meditation Volcano. The acquaintance with the Divine Fire; the purification of the body with the help of this Fire.
7. The acquaintance with the Manifestations of the Divine Teachers in the form of Mahadoubles. Communication and Mergence with Them.
8. “Unpacking” of the Kundalini.
9. The formation of Dharmakayas.
10. Practical study of the structure of the Absolute. The meditation NAM.
11. The formation of one’s own Mahadoubles.
12. The meditations Wall, Pyramid, and Temple.
13. Work with the “segments”.
14. Mastering Paramatman.
15. The development of the ability to enter the state of the Mergence with the Primordial Consciousness in Its Abode and to come out from It into the Creation with the purpose of helping the incarnate beings.
16. Final purification of the matter of the body with the Divine Fire.
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God calls this Path, laid and thoroughly studied by us under His direct guidance, the Divine Way of the Spiritual Heart or the Straight Path.
One can advance on it even further…
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