What He Taught

In life, Paramahamsa Hariharananda was a master and teacher of Kriya Yoga. Kriya Yoga is a path for realizing union with God through experiencing that God, the Soul of the universe Who is present in all things (not excepting ourselves), Who is the sole active agent, the sole doer. As a corollary, he taught that "work is worship." In other words, everything that we do or think can be done with awareness of God as the One who is doing the work. Because there is really no "we" that is separate from God, what we think of as ourselves, as agents, is an illusion. This concept can be hard to accept, but if God is omniscient and omnipresent, does He not pervade us too? Doesn't He breathe in our breath, see through our eyes, love and suffer with and through us? As the Sufis say, God is closer than our jugular vein. Paramahamsa Hariharananda taught us to see "God in human being, human being in God" — the fully realized human being. This was Baba. He gave thousands of hours of lectures to tens of thousands of people, and personally initiated thousands into Kriya Yoga. Here are just a few examples of what he taught:

Each human being is the living presence of God. God is serving us with each inhalation. Service to mankind is service to God. To dedicate one's life for the benefit of others is the real service. Please serve people with love and devotion. This is the real service to God and gurus.

My whole life has been dedicated to serving people. As a boy, I memorized all the scriptures, I became a brahmachari at age 11, and I have spent years in silence searching for God so that I may help others discover God within. I give medicine and service to the sick, food to the hungry, education to the children, courage to the depressed, and spiritual guidance to those who ask.

Watch your breath; love your breath. Try to perceive the living power of God in every breath.

Breath control is self-control, breath mastery is self-mastery, and the breathless stage is the deathless stage.

One need not renounce the world to see God.

Everything in the world is for your God-realization. When you are walking, feel that God is walking. When eating, feel that it is the power of God who is eating. Can you perceive the words coming out of my mouth as God? Who's talking? Who's listening? Who's brushing the teeth? Who's combing the hair? When you look in the mirror and are brushing your hair, can you perceive that it is the power of God brushing God's hair?

Mistake is not for mistake, it is for correction. We learn from mistakes. God is giving you time to change your mistakes.

Just watch your breath. Just watch your breath. This is the simplest, easiest technique, it's that simple. Watch your breath. Love God in every breath, with every breath, love Him.

Baba regularly used to enter nirvikalpa samadhi, merging into the Absolute while being unaware of the world. During this time his heart and breathing would stop, and he would appear to be dead. Eventually, he stopped doing this so much on the advice of his physicians, who told him that it stressed his body. Baba did have the ability to enter the pulseless state, yet individuals of much less spiritual accomplishment than Baba are likewise able to stop their hearts. The accomplishment is not so much in stopping the heart, as it is in merging in the Absolute.

And Baba went beyond nirvikalpa samadhi to sahaja nirvikalpa samadhi, merging into the Absolute while being aware of the world. Effortlessly remaining in this non-dual state, Gurudev could shift the balance of his awareness, being more or less engaged in the world as circumstances demanded, always able to serve in the world, and often serving and helping in ways that were unseen yet effective, such as by intervening in events thousands of miles away from his human body's physical location. Baba wore the manifest world as his body. As a fully realized human being, as God in human being, human being in God, he demonstrated what is possible for us all.

There are many ways to approach spiritual development. One is a practice called "neti neti neti," which translates as "not this, not this, not this." In this practice, one observes and rejects the elements of the manifest world as being transient and therefore not real. Baba's teaching is more like "this, this, this!" God is expressing as and through all things; there is nowhere, no time, where God is not. So rather than to reject the world as false and illusory, Baba teaches us radically to accept God in and as the world, to see, hear, feel, and love God in all things.

Baba said that the Creator made the whole universe and entered into it; He is the Soul of the universe. God is unconscious in rocks, stirs in plants, begins to wake in animals and can wake fully in humans. As human beings, we can continue and participate in the ongoing act of creation. We start with ourselves, our own Self-realization, and our joyous, exuberant, liberating awareness sparks and continues the process, is the process of the Creator entering more and more fully into the world. Our own effort and realization are not just for us, but are part of the vast electrifying infusion of the Creator into the manifest realm, and the yearning, joyous acceptance by the manifest realm of this entry.

Baba often said, "You are the form of the formless power of God." "Form" here can mean our individual form, but in the largest sense means the entire world of form, the manifest realm. We are both. We are the entire cosmos, God's body, and the one Soul that has entered into the body.

So we are not to reject life, not to hide away in a cave and meditate forever. There is indeed a time for seclusion, and leaving the world for a time can be useful. Baba meditated intensely in seclusion for many years. But then he came back to the world to serve. Kriya Yoga helps us to differentiate ourselves from and transcend the world and to realize when duality disappears and fears fade away, we perceive constant unity with the Absolute and feel that we are that Absolute. We then reintegrate the Absolute back into the world of form, with all its surface flurry and impermanence. Kriya Yoga helps us to realize that we are God in human being, human being in God.

The Present

Where is Paramahamsa Hariharananda now? He left his physical body in 2002, yet he lives on in The Complete Works, he lives on in his students. And he lives on independently as well. As one of his students said, "What I came to realize, was that Baba is just like the sun, which sets every day. It goes below the horizon. We can't see it, but it's still there. Similarly, we can no longer see Baba since the horizon of physical death hides him, but he's still there." Many of his disciples have had unmistakable experiences with him after his physical departure.

And where are you now? You have the potential of Paramahamsa Hariharananda. What he did, you can do. You have the potential to be God in human being, human being in God. It is your duty to try, and it is your destiny to succeed. God is waking up in and as you. Kriya Yoga will help you. The lineage of Kriya Yoga masters, including Baba himself, Paramahamsa Prajnanananda, and Baba's yogacharyas and swamis, are ready to help you. Gurudev used to say, “Opportunity must not be neglected, for it may never return.” Take the opportunity: be inspired by the monument to Paramahamsa Hariharananda that is The Complete Works. And walk through the gateway of Kriya Yoga into your own divine destiny.

Source: the Foreword and short biography in The Ocean of Divine Bliss: The Complete Works of Kriya Yoga Master Paramahamsa Hariharananda (pages xviii–xlii).