Doing the Work

“Kriya Yoga saved me, just not in the way I thought it would.” These intriguing words are from a letter we recently received from a friend. With her permission, we’re sharing her experiences with you, because her insights are potentially life changing and something from which everyone can benefit.

The first thing our friend ever heard about meditation practices was someone saying: “Kriya will free you from every issue in your life.” Having experienced a great deal of suffering since childhood, she took these words to heart and began her spiritual journey following Yoganandaji’s path and Ananda.

But after some years of practicing Kriya, she found herself still struggling with many of the same problems that had plagued her all along. She wrote, “There is no doubt that I had grown spiritually as a result of my efforts and of God and Guruji’s grace, but still, the issues were there waiting for me as soon as I got up from meditation.”

Then after a period of seclusion two years ago, she had a life-changing insight that she still taps into today: “My mistake was thinking that the issues I have would dissolve without my having to do the work—that Kriya would do the work. Kriya has done the work, but not in the way I thought it would. It did not take away my pain and inner turmoil, or even change my behavior.

“What it did was to create a space of stillness within that allowed me to see my part in that pain and suffering, and thus my role in creating my life and my responsibility in changing it.”

Then her inner transformation truly began.

What does “doing the work” mean? When we become aware of hidden mental and emotional patterns that cause us suffering, we need to exert the self-discipline to change them. God can show us what we need to change, but we need to put out the energy to break the self-created hold that delusion has on us.

This aspect of spiritual development is something that many devotees overlook, and yet it holds the secret to inner freedom. In The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita, Paramhansa Yogananda stated that achieving final liberation hinges on three simple thoughts:

1) Do you prefer happiness to suffering?

2) Are you willing to do the work to find lasting happiness?

3) Are you willing to renounce the ego?

When we can wholeheartedly answer “yes” to these questions, we walk the path to Cosmic Freedom.

With Master’s joy,
Nayaswami Devi