Agni yoga
[Sanskrit Agni: ‘fire’. Yoga: ‘yoking’, akin to Latin jungere ‘to join’; divine union] The union of man with God through the sacred fire. Agni yoga, or the yoga of fire, is a yoga of action rather than asceticism.
As explained in the book Agni Yoga,
Fire will not lead away from life; it will act as a trustworthy guide to the far-off worlds.... He who would swim must dive fearlessly into the water. And he who has decided to master Agni Yoga must transform through it his entire life.... Verily, all actions must be infused with the purifying fiery striving.... Just as Fire is the all-embracing principle, so does Agni Yoga permeate the whole of life. One can notice how the consciousness is gradually sharpened, how the real values of the surroundings emerge, how the immutability of the cooperation of worlds grows. Thus life is filled with the signs of highest understanding. Truth as a real concept enters the daily life.[1]
The ascended masters teach that the path of agni yoga is the expression of the fire of the Word and Work of the LORD. Not only is it the invocation of the sacred fire through the science of the spoken Word and the violet flame, the raising up of the sacred fire of the Kundalini from the base chakra to the crown, but it is also fiery action for the right, for the truth and in defense of the living Christ in the children of God.
The highest yoga
The highest yoga is agni yoga. This is the yoga of fire—sacred fire. It is beyond the four types of yoga that apply to the four lower bodies, because it leads to the ascension. This yoga has been taught by all the messengers of the Great White Brotherhood. Even the prophets of Israel were practitioners of fire yoga.
In the 1920s, Nicholas and Helena Roerich began releasing the teachings of El Morya and other masters of the Great White Brotherhood through books published by the Agni Yoga Society. Agni yoga is the yoga of the sacred fire of the Mother, the sacred fire of the Word Incarnate as the spoken Word (the dynamic decree), the sacred fire of the Father and the Holy Spirit. El Morya speaks of agni yoga as the yoga of the coming age:
All preceding Yogas, given from the highest Sources, took as their basis a definite quality of life. And now, at the advent of the age of Maitreya, there is needed a Yoga comprising the essence of the entire life, all-embracing, evading nought, precisely like the unignitible youths in the biblical legend who valiantly sacrificed themselves to the fiery furnace and thereby acquired power.[2]
You may suggest to Me a name for the Yoga of life. But the most precise name will be Agni Yoga. It is precisely the element of fire which gives to this Yoga of self-sacrifice its name.... Fire will not lead away from life; it will act as a trustworthy guide to the far-off worlds....
Let us see in what lie the similarities and differences between Agni Yoga and the preceding Yogas. Karma Yoga has many similarities with it when it acts with the elements of Earth. But when Agni Yoga possesses the ways to the realization of the far-off worlds, then the distinction becomes apparent. Raja Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Bhakti Yoga are all isolated from the surrounding reality; and because of this they cannot enter into the evolution of the future. Of course, an Agni Yogi should also be a Jnani and a Bhakta, and the development of the forces of his spirit makes him a Raja Yogi. How beautiful is the possibility of responding to the tasks of the future evolution without rejecting the past conquests of spirit!”[3]
Internalizing the sacred fire
There is no progress without fire. This is what the path of the saints is all about. Those who do not internalize the sacred fire—for they have not bent the knee before our God who is a consuming fire[4]—experience the fire as stress. They seek to escape both the fire and the stress by “getting away from it all.”
Those who experience fire as fire learn to internalize it through interludes of meditation, communion with the Earth Mother, yoga, breathing exercises, devotions, decrees or physical activities that balance and quicken the organs. Other methods that stimulate the assimilation of fire in the four lower bodies are listening to classical or religious music, engaging in rhythmic and creative activities, raising the Kundalini[5]—even deep sleep during which you take leave of the body temple for service with the heavenly hosts on the etheric plane. Work itself is a means of assimilation of fire.
In the book Heart we read, “Even the highest beings must become aflame in spirit in order to act.”[6] When you reach a certain level on the path of spirituality, unless you become a flame in that moment and ever thereafter, you may suffer setback and disaster in your life. It is impossible to retain and manifest a certain level of spirituality without acquaintance with the fire.
See also
Sources
Pearls of Wisdom, vol. 33, no. 44.
Mark L. Prophet and Elizabeth Clare Prophet, The Masters and the Spiritual Path.
- ↑ Agni Yoga, 5th ed., rev. (New York: Agni Yoga Society, 1980), pp. 101, 103, 108
- ↑ See Daniel 3.
- ↑ Agni Yoga, pp. 100–102.
- ↑ Deut. 4:24; Heb. 12:29.
- ↑ Some whose desire to raise the Kundalini fire is inordinate resort unwisely to a haphazard use of various forms of yoga or even illegal drugs. The raising of the Kundalini under the ascended masters’ tutelage is not a sudden burst of fire, but a gentle rising of strength and consciousness. The key to unlocking this energy of the Kundalini is adoration of the Mother Principle. The rosary is a safe and effective method of raising the Mother light by the fervent heat of love and adoration, without a violent eruption of energy.
- ↑ Heart (New York: Agni Yoga Society, 1944), p. 244.