Ashokji introduces Vedic Kriya Yoga: his line of gurus from Lahiri Mahasaya, its pranayam, yoga as reunion with God, and a path for householders, taught one to one, that renounces neither the world nor one's work.
Forrest's Kriya guru
Sri Ashok Singh
An aerospace engineer and householder who taught Kriya Yoga one to one, in the line of Lahiri Mahasaya through Panchanon Bhattacharya. He gave Forrest permission to teach it in 2017.
This page keeps his writings, his voice on video, and the line he passed on.
“All you have to do is practice it the original way, and when you wander away or fall down, just get up and dust yourself off and start all over again in the practice.”
His life
Ashok Kumar Singh was born in Patna, Bihar, in 1940. After a degree in engineering he came to the United States at 21, earned a master’s in aerospace engineering at the University of Southern California, and worked as an engineer in California, where he raised his family.
His search began in his youth, when an uncle spoke to him about who we are and what everything around us is, and he saw a divine light as his uncle spoke. He was introduced to the Lahiri Mahasaya and Panchanon Bhattacharya branch of Kriya Yoga in India but could not find it in California, so in 1961 he joined Self-Realization Fellowship. On a visit to India in 1974 his uncle, whose father had been a disciple of Panchanon Bhattacharya, corrected his pranayam.
In 1998 Maheshwari Prasad Dubey came from India, stayed seven months at his home, and gave him all of the kriyas. Dubeyji authorized him to initiate in 1999. Like Lahiri Mahasaya he taught as a householder and one to one, and in time he authorized students of his own to teach, Forrest among them in 2017. He died on June 28, 2021.
His writings
Ashokji tells how he came to Kriya: from SRF in California, with Yogananda as his first guru, to Panchanonji's branch, initiation by Sri Maheshwari Prasad Dubey in 1998, and what his guru asked of him: to bring disciples peace, love and ananda.
Ashokji's overview of Vedic Kriya Yoga: why it is given only in person, one to one; Sachidananda as matter, life force and bliss; the five yogas that Kriya brings together; and creation as God's dream. He sets Lahiri Mahasaya apart from the twentieth century's famous gurus.
Ashokji reads three pictures as the three big bangs of creation: Shiva's burst of thought, the astral birth of beings without bodies, and Shiva Nataraj's ring of fire, the physicists' big bang. He closes on Shrutis and on resting in the medulla, where God becomes the guru.
Short lives of the six gurus of Ashokji's line, each with a portrait: Mahamuni Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya, Panchanonji, Nitayiji, Sri Maheshwari Prasad Dubey and Ashokji himself, most of them householders who initiated one to one.
Ashokji describes his VKY intensives: for a beginner, a day or two of practice, vegetarian food and a talk with him after each session to correct the technique; for an advanced yogi, a longer stay that slows heart and lungs and rests the prana in the medulla.
Ashokji compares God to white light and this world to its spectrum: in God's non-dual form we are all the same; in maya we swing between sick and healthy, good and bad. Kriya Yoga is his way out of that net.
Ashokji reads karma and dharma from their Sanskrit letters: karma moves the prana into the Guru Chakra near the medulla to listen to God, dharma keeps it there through every task. The Kriya he teaches is those two steps.
Ashokji on what Kriya adds to walks, therapy, devotion and philosophy: ping each chakra with OM and listen for bliss, which is not happiness; keep that bliss all day through a feedback loop; and in a long Kumbhak let God become the guru.
Ashokji reads a dream as the dreamer's own mind becoming everything in it, and the waking universe as the same projection one level up; his dream is that Kriya Yoga wakes everyone into the Superconscious state, where the many are one.
Ashokji on the Kriya he teaches, from Lahiri Mahasaya: a practice that unfolds with effort, where the question of who we are is answered in a long, blissful Kumbhak, and that recharges a busy worker while working by reconnecting with Sat-Chit-Ananda.
Forrest on Ashokji
His line
Mahamuni Babaji
Lahiri Mahasaya
Panchanon Bhattacharya
Nitayi Bandhopadhyay
Maheshwari Prasad Dubey
Ashokji
Forrest Knutson