Aum Guru, I love Ask experts section. It is the first thing I read in the morning. 1. Are guardian angels real?If so, are they our relatives and friends who have passed away? 2.If Kriya Yoga is the airplane route, are the teachings of other realised gurus slower methods? 3. I have read that Sri Anandmayi used to to lie down in samadhi. Is samadhi possible even when the spine is not in upright position?
Thank you
—HJ, UAE
Dear HJ,
Good morning! Are you ready for your daily early reading? Here are answers to your three questions.
1) Angels are a truth. Yogananda said during one Kriya initiation: “Lots of angels have passed through this room.”
Swami Kriyananda writes these beautiful words in How to be a Channel:
“Angels roam the streets of man….The angels also suggest thoughts of comfort to people who grieve… Angels visit hospitals to give strength and comfort to those who suffer physically.
Sometimes, they heal those for whom the doctors have abandoned all hope. Often, they help to ease the dying in their struggles to win release from their physical bodies.
Angels roam the battlefields in time of war, soothing the minds of the wounded-and sometimes healing their bodies. They usher the dying forth from their pain-wracked physical cages. If, in war, a cause is righteous, they may suggest to the leaders inspirations for achieving victory.”
Plus there are so many inspiring stories of angelic protection all over the world. It is beautiful to live with the thought that angels are around us.
I haven’t read Master write about a personal “guardian angel,” in the sense of everyone having one specific and personal angel, all life long.
Rather, our guardian angel, I would say, is Master, who watches over us like a mother, like an angel. By the way, Swami writes that a true Master is above the angels.
Are the protective angels our relatives and friends? I wouldn’t think so. Master and Swami teach that when leaving the body, usually human beings completely forget their earthly existence. And it’s a good thing: this way we expand our love instead of loving “us four and no more.”
2) This is a delicate question. Yes, Kriya Yoga is an airplane route, as it works directly on directing the energy in and up the spine, whereas many other methods achieve that purpose indirectly.
But if you read carefully, Master writes: “In contrast to the slow, uncertain “bullock cart” theological path to God, Kriya may justly be called the “airplane” route.”
In other words, compared to lack of technique Kriya is an airplane route. Does that make Kriya Yoga the only airplane route, faster than everything else? Would Master have said “ours technique is better than what of all other enlightened Masters teach”?
I don’t think so. The fastest method for everyone is following one’s own Guru. Whatever he teaches is one’s fastest route. I think the attitude that “we are the best, the highest, the only one” is a pity, wherever one hears it.
3) Yes, enlightened Masters (they, not us!) can enter into the breathless Samadhi state in any position. In his Autobiography Yogananda described Sri Yukteswar doing exactly that:
“My guru awoke before dawn. Lying down, or sometimes sitting on the bed, he entered a state of Samadhi.
It was simplicity itself to discover when Master had awakened: abrupt halt of stupendous snores. A sigh or two; perhaps a bodily movement. Then a soundless state of breathlessness: he was in deep yogic joy.”
Jai Guru,
Jayadev
