In December, I will travel to visit my spiritual teacher, my Guru, Yogi Guruji Prakash Shankar Vyas.
For more than twenty years I have meditated under his guidance, yet it has been far too long since I last met him in person. He lives far away in Australia, literally on the other side of the world, but in my meditations he is always near.
This spiritual teacher is the light that illuminates my inner path. In meditation, it is his presence that guides me, not through words but through silence.
Here in the Netherlands, I know many people who practice yoga, but there in no one who has a Guru in the Kriya tradition. In this classical lineage, the connection with the Guru is living and essential.
There Is Only One Guru
In Kriya Yoga we understand that you may have many teachers, but there is only one Guru.
To many, this may sound strange, especially in a time that values independence and personal freedom. But in the ancient yogic tradition, having a Guru does not imply dependence. It refers to a living transmission, a lineage of light passed from heart to heart.
The Guru is not merely a person, but a channel of consciousness. He does not point to himself, but to the truth within you.
Devotion to the teacher is also a practice of Bhakti Yoga, the path of devotion. Through that devotion to the divine outside ourselves, we are ultimately led back to the divine within.
As Guruji says, find Atman.
Find the inner Guru within yourself.
Kriya Yoga in My Life
Because I meditate daily, I feel continuously connected to my Guru and to the Kriya lineage. I experience this connection as a living field of energy. Every class I teach, every treatment I give, feels like a continuation of that field, as if the energy flows through me and onward. It is a field of healing and awareness, of awakening and compassion.
After my initiation into Kriya Yoga in 2002, my Guruji told me, “I want you to start teaching yoga. There is growing interest, and in the future you might even earn a little money from it.”
At that time, there were hardly any yoga schools. I rented a small hall in a dance studio, not knowing where this path would lead.
Now I offer retreats in China, Japan, Hong Kong, and Portugal. Sometimes I smile and think, look where that one piece of advice has brought me.
The Guru is my guide, my inner compass. The connection with him brings me in touch with my own Wise Inner Parent, who reminds me of my essence and invites me to stay deeply connected with myself.
Many choices in my life have been about authenticity and growth. The path of Kriya Yoga and meditation gives direction and teaches me to let go when something is complete.
I have had many professions: teacher in secondary education, cook in restaurant kitchens, family counselor in youth care, mindfulness trainer, and teacher trainer. Now I work as an acupuncturist in my own clinic.
What connects all these phases is the same impulse: non-attachment, a longing for freedom. The Free Child within me remains curious and open to explore.
In that openness, I feel again and again the breath of Kriya whispering that I can trust the movement of life.
Meditation in These Strange Times
We live in a restless world. Everything moves fast, often too fast. Newspapers warn of an overstimulated society that exhausts and overwhelms people. Few still find the peace to truly become still.
When I taught mindfulness to children, I noticed that meditation is a skill modern humans have largely forgotten. Meditation is, in essence, remembering, the ability to become still and to explore our experiences on a deeper level.
Then we can observe our emotions without being taken over by them. We gain insight into our thought patterns. We can travel inward, to that quiet center where clarity and peace reside.
Especially in these times, inner peace is essential. I am someone who meditates daily. The Kriya meditations give rhythm to my days and direction to my choices. They ask for dedication: conscious eating, and also the letting go of what for others seems natural, coffee, alcohol, drugs, even dark chocolate. Anything that clouds or overstimulates is too strong for me. The pineal gland, the energetic center of clear consciousness, wishes to remain pure.
This practice fits me like a glove. Sometimes I wonder why I continue to follow this path so faithfully. Then it feels as if I have practiced this meditation before, in earlier lifetimes. I can re-member the knowledge from those lives.
When we connect with ancient traditions, a natural slowing down occurs. I experience that not only through this form of meditation but also through my study of classical Chinese medical texts. By learning from the old masters, we travel back in time, connecting with ancient knowledge that reaches deeper.
They also held a more profound understanding of spirituality, something that seems to drift further from us in modern times.
The Teacher Within
I often notice that people don’t quite understand when I tell them I have a spiritual teacher. They usually have an opinion about it, but rarely a real sense of what spirituality truly means. When the conversation turns to spirituality, I often hear their judgments about religion or the church. Someone once told me she doesn’t relate to the idea of God because she imagines Him as a man sitting on a cloud somewhere in the sky. For many, the concept of spirituality has not yet taken on its own form or depth.
Others seek it in experiences outside themselves. They use substances to expand their consciousness, or they travel to sacred places, worship images, or search in temples. Such experiences remain on the surface; you can keep searching there endlessly.
I also know many people who practice yoga but have no knowledge of spiritual practice. There is no integration.
Kriya meditation teaches me again and again that the true teacher lives within. The outer Guru merely points the way inward. Still, I notice how people project their superficial ideas or personal beliefs onto my practice. I let it be. This path I walk in silence.
When I meditate, I feel connected, not only with myself or with the teachers in this lineage, but with something greater: love, truth, and compassion. In that experience, separation dissolves. There is no two; there is only one.
Self-Realization in Yoga
Kriya is a path that leads to Ātma-sākṣātkāra, meaning the direct realization of the Self.
This is not an intellectual idea but a living insight, the moment you realize that your being is not limited to your personality but is part of a greater consciousness. In the yogic tradition, this consciousness is called Atman, the Self, or Purusha, the witness.
When this insight dawns, the illusion of separation disappears. You continue to live and act in the world, but from clarity rather than fear or desire.
Guruji helps me, as a seeker, to recognize the true Self, not by offering new knowledge, but by pointing to what has always been present. As Kriya teaches, the outer Guru leads you to the inner Guru.
In Kriya Yoga, self-realization means that through breath, awareness, and meditation, the practitioner becomes ever more subtle in perception. The mind becomes still, energy flows freely, and what remains is the direct experience of Truth, Satya.
Self-realization in yoga is the awakening to your own being as consciousness itself.
My journey to Australia is not only a meeting with my beloved Guruji, but also a journey inward, to that still point where student and teacher become one. That journey began in 2002 and now continues naturally as I prepare to meet Guruji again this December.
Leave a Reply