Book Presentation

Agni Yoga  - Yoga of Synthesis

by Dr. Ekkirala Krishnamacharya

 

The oldest yoga path is the Raja Yoga Path. And the Yoga of the future is what is called Agni Yoga. We are expected to practice this Agni Yoga in our daily routine. Our contact with others should be taken as the laboratory of our Yoga practice.

The Bhagavad Gita describes that he whose behaviour doesn't hurt anyone in the world is a disciple on the path. Through his discipline of word, thought and deed he trains himself to use the word as the flame of consciousness. This is called the path of Agni or Agni Yoga. In the booklet "Agni Yoga - Yoga of Synthesis" Master E.K. describes details of this fiery path.


Text of a public lecture given in Munich 23rd August 1982

The World Teacher Trust - India, 1994.

 

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Sample:

Extract

From the mental plane to the plane of intelligence we are stepping through the Path of Agni but in the middle there is the fuel and there is the smoke as the impurity caused by the combustion of fuel in the fire. That is what we call the emotional outbursts.

Thus between the mind and the pure intelligence we have the plane of emotions which we are expected to cross. The passage of Agni Yoga describes how the disciple crosses this smoky path. How he walks lonely in the forest which is burning. A forest where flames are encircling from all sides, where there are dense fumes of smoke blinding the eyes and choking the breath. That is how the emotions blind us through the incidents of our life. Then the disciple tries to locate his path. He is apt to lose his way and get enmeshed in the flames to be burnt into ashes repeatedly through births and rebirths. But there is one thing that guides him, it is the call of the One Flame and the disciple is the traveller who is crossing the burning forest.

The one who has crossed the path, who has reached the plane of pure intellect makes his cry to be listened by the disciple who is just crossing. Thus, the traveller is described as closing his eyes and walking with the help of his ears and not with the help of his eyes. That is how Lord Buddha describes the process.

So the disciple follows the path in the direction of the sound. That is how he escapes from the flames of the forest. Then he is purified. His eyes are opened once again.

There after he follows the Path of Pure Flame. It is called the Flame without Fuel, or the Pure Incandescence of intelligence which is called the "Fifth Flame of the Third Fire".

Now he is in the vertical path. It is the narrow passage which is called the vertebral column -the hollow barrel in the vertebral column in which Space exists as the Man.

Then he begins to follow the path of the flame. Here he finds the chakras. Through his discipline of word, thought and deed he trains himself to use the word as the flame of thought. He trains himself to use the voice as the flame of consciousness. He trains his speech and conversation in such a way that his speech hurts no one in this world.

In the Bhagavad Gita it is described that he whose behaviour does not create a jerk to anyone in this world and he who does not receive any jerk by the behaviour of the world is a disciple on the path. This is what is called as the Path of Agni or Agni Yoga in recent times.

To the disciple of Agni, the procedure of life according to the thought is also a projection of his own Agni so that his actions are burnt in the flames of Agni- 'Whatever he does, will not have an image on himself. He will have no impressions of anything because he has no motives. His life is an existence of fire. Whatever he does, the action will be burnt by the fire of wisdom. The activity is given out as the light of fire to help others in the world.

The results of his actions go and merge into the same fire. This is how the Agni Yoga is described in the Bhagavad Gita.

By practicing such a speech and such a thought - a thought which is always positive to anyone in this world-, his chakras are transformed into lotuses. This lotuses are made up of fire.

Some of you might have read the book "The Lotus Fire" by G.S. Arundale. How the lotuses of fire are created and how the Agni Yoga is practiced, is described in that book. Of course it is an archaic-type of writing, a book of symbolism. You have to read the book just as you read the Scriptures. Every sentence is full of significance. It is more than one century that the book has come out into the world. Let the little children of spiritualism read it again and again. If we have not read it until now, let us begin to read it for the first time. If we know it already, let us read it for a second time and a third time, because it is a dictation from one of the Masters, and it is not at all a book written by G.S. Arundale.

If you read that book, and then begin to read the "Treatise on Cosmic Fire", you will be able to understand some clues which stand as blocks on your way to understand.

Thus there are lotuses made up of fire. They are in correspondence with our solar system, because the whole solar system blossoms into the model of a fire lotus and each planet makes its existence in the solar system in the form of a lotus of fire.

The solar systems begin to exist as whirlpools of fire. As whirlpools of fire, planets begin to precipitate' And on every planet we also have the correspondence of the solar system and the planets' We have the sun and the six planets, just as we have the head centre and the six chakras which are promoted into lotuses of fire.

As the solar system and the planets evolve, understand, that there is a basic fire from which all the other three elements are made up. For example the air in our atmosphere which we call the gaseous stage of our existence is only one of the flames blown out from the fire. The basic background is fire for the units of liquid, or water. Chemically we know that there are oxygen and hydrogen. The thunder and the lightening produce the union of oxygen and hydrogen which in turn produces water. It is the function of Fire only. Chemistry has much to know still.