The Kriya Yoga Podcast

In this episode of The Kriya Yoga Podcast, Ryan Kurczak sits down with Bryan Crigler for a grounded, wide-ranging conversation on what it actually looks like to build a mature Kriya Yoga practice over time.

Bryan shares his winding spiritual path—from early curiosity, martial arts, pranayama, and psychedelic exploration, to discovering Kriya Yoga as a steady, embodied way of realization. Together, Ryan and Bryan explore how disciplined daily practice evolves into something natural and enjoyable, and how surrender, curiosity, and consistency shape long-term progress.

Topics discussed in this episode include:

Developing pranic sensitivity and body awareness through breath and attention

The role of imagination in working skillfully with pranayama and subtle awareness

Navigating plateaus, distractions, and shifting expectations in meditation

The difference between peak experiences and stable inner development

Psychedelics and spirituality, and why steady practice offers deeper integration

How meditation naturally reshapes lifestyle choices, relationships, and habits

Working with surrender vs. effort in advanced stages of practice

The practical value of the yamas and niyamas beyond moral rules

Creating less outer drama to support deeper inner stillness

Throughout the conversation, Bryan reflects on how sustained practice gradually raises the baseline of awareness, allowing meditation to remain accessible even on difficult days. Ryan adds context from lineage teachings, emphasizing patience, embodiment, and fidelity to practice over chasing experiences.

This episode is especially valuable for practitioners who are past the beginner phase and are learning how Kriya Yoga integrates into daily life, relationships, and long-term spiritual maturity.

Learn more about Bryan Crigler: https://www.kriyayogamidwest.com/

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🌟 Stay Connected & Deepen Your Practice

If you’d like to participate in future live sessions, consider joining the Kriya Yoga Online Patreon Community or applying to the Kriya Yoga Apprenticeship Program.

📘 For continued inspiration and instruction, check out Ryan Kurczak’s latest book:
An Essential Guide to Kriya Yoga Practice, available in hardcover and paperback on Amazon.

🧘‍♂️ Your host, Ryan Kurczak, is a Kriya Yoga meditation teacher and author, authorized to teach in 2005 by Roy Eugene Davis, a direct student of Paramahansa Yogananda.

🔗 Explore more resources:

Patreon Community: Support the work & access live sessions
👉 https://www.patreon.com/KriyaYoga

Kriya Yoga Apprenticeship, blog posts & books:
👉 https://kriyayogaonline.com

Online Classes for All Levels:
👉 https://kriya-yoga.teachable.com/

Hundreds of free videos on YouTube:
👉 https://www.youtube.com/user/KriyaYogaOnline

Thank you for listening, and may your path be filled with clarity, strength, and peace.

In this episode of the Kriya Yoga Podcast, Ryan Kurczak responds to a thoughtful question many sincere practitioners ask.

What happens when we enter the Kriya path through clarity, discrimination, and philosophical coherence—yet feel hesitant around devotion? When Sāṃkhya’s precision builds trust in the process, the Bhagavad Gita offers a first glimpse of theistic meaning, and Krishna appears as a guide rather than a belief—how do we understand devotion without forcing symbolism or sentiment?

Ryan explores how devotion unfolds organically on the Kriya Yoga path, especially for those whose orientation begins with insight rather than bhakti. He speaks to the natural maturation of devotion as practice deepens, the subtle shift from conceptual understanding to experienced inner relationship, and the role of patience, honesty, and inner readiness.

This conversation gently addresses whether devotion should be cultivated intentionally through study and openness, or allowed to arise on its own through sustained practice—and how both approaches can harmonize within a yogic worldview.

A grounded, clarifying episode of The Kriya Yoga Podcast.

-

🌟 Stay Connected & Deepen Your Practice

If you’d like to participate in future live sessions, consider joining the Kriya Yoga Online Patreon Community or applying to the Kriya Yoga Apprenticeship Program.

📘 For continued inspiration and instruction, check out Ryan Kurczak’s latest book:
An Essential Guide to Kriya Yoga Practice, available in hardcover and paperback on Amazon.

🧘‍♂️ Your host, Ryan Kurczak, is a Kriya Yoga meditation teacher and author, authorized to teach in 2005 by Roy Eugene Davis, a direct student of Paramahansa Yogananda.

🔗 Explore more resources:

Patreon Community: Support the work & access live sessions
👉 https://www.patreon.com/KriyaYoga

Kriya Yoga Apprenticeship, blog posts & books:
👉 https://kriyayogaonline.com

Online Classes for All Levels:
👉 https://kriya-yoga.teachable.com/

Hundreds of free videos on YouTube:
👉 https://www.youtube.com/user/KriyaYogaOnline

Thank you for listening, and may your path be filled with clarity, strength, and peace.

In this episode of The Kriya Yoga Podcast, Bryan Crigler sits down with Kriya Yoga Teacher Ryan Kurczak for a wide-ranging, candid conversation that blends practical technique, experience, and the deeper questions that naturally arise on a committed spiritual path.

This episode unfolds as a thoughtful dialogue shaped by Bryan’s real questions—many of them drawn directly from his own meditation practice and from conversations with fellow students. Together, Bryan and Ryan explore how Kriya Yoga actually shows up in daily life, especially once the practice begins to mature.

They dive into nuanced territory, including:

Working skillfully with Yoni (Jyothi) Mudra, subtle awareness, and internalization

The role of imagination, emotion, and feeling as bridges to pranic sensitivity

How to understand and relate to siddhis without distraction or ego inflation

Cultivating and trusting intuition through truthfulness and embodiment

Navigating dharma, social responsibility, and inner equanimity in a turbulent world

Why spiritual practice often reshapes relationships—and how to meet that with clarity and compassion

Letting go of alcohol and old social patterns while rebuilding healthy community and sangha

Applying yogic principles to the most challenging arena of all: intimate relationships

Throughout the conversation, Ryan offers grounded perspective drawn from decades of practice, teaching, and personal transformation, while Bryan brings the voice of a sincere, questioning practitioner who isn’t afraid to ask what many are quietly wondering.

This episode is especially valuable for students who are moving beyond the basics of technique and beginning to grapple with how Kriya Yoga changes perception, priorities, relationships, and identity itself. Honest, reflective, and deeply human, it’s a conversation about what the path really looks like as it starts working.

Learn more about Bryan Crigler: https://www.kriyayogamidwest.com/

-

🌟 Stay Connected & Deepen Your Practice

If you’d like to participate in future live sessions, consider joining the Kriya Yoga Online Patreon Community or applying to the Kriya Yoga Apprenticeship Program.

📘 For continued inspiration and instruction, check out Ryan Kurczak’s latest book:
An Essential Guide to Kriya Yoga Practice, available in hardcover and paperback on Amazon.

🧘‍♂️ Your host, Ryan Kurczak, is a Kriya Yoga meditation teacher and author, authorized to teach in 2005 by Roy Eugene Davis, a direct student of Paramahansa Yogananda.

🔗 Explore more resources:

Patreon Community: Support the work & access live sessions
👉 https://www.patreon.com/KriyaYoga

Kriya Yoga Apprenticeship, blog posts & books:
👉 https://kriyayogaonline.com

Online Classes for All Levels:
👉 https://kriya-yoga.teachable.com/

Hundreds of free videos on YouTube:
👉 https://www.youtube.com/user/KriyaYogaOnline

Thank you for listening, and may your path be filled with clarity, strength, and peace.

In this opening Kriya Yoga Online Sunday Service of the year, we explore a question that sits at the heart of the spiritual path: What part of us doesn’t feel pain?

While pain is an unavoidable part of human life—experienced through the body, emotions, relationships, and changing circumstances—yogic wisdom points to something within us that remains untouched by suffering. This episode reflects on that deeper dimension of our being: the seer, the witness, the Self.

Drawing from the teachings of Kriya Yoga, this talk examines why most people come to spiritual practice through difficulty, dissatisfaction, or a sense of lack—and how meditation, when practiced with the right intention, leads not just to relaxation, but to direct recognition of our essential nature.

We explore:

The difference between meditation as relaxation and meditation as realization

Why zoning out or calming the mind is not the same as knowing the Self

How repeated glimpses of the witness gradually transform the way we experience life

Why suffering doesn’t disappear on the spiritual path, but loses its grip

How challenges, loss, and change become teachers rather than obstacles

This episode also reflects honestly on the nature of the human world—aging, loss, impermanence, and uncertainty—and why spiritual maturity begins with understanding life as it actually is, not as we wish it to be.

Rather than encouraging escape from the world, this talk invites a deeper presence within it. When awareness shifts from what changes to what is changeless, we discover a center of clarity, peace, and wisdom that supports us through every phase of life.

Whether you are new to meditation or have been practicing for many years, this episode offers a grounded reminder: the part of you that doesn’t feel pain is not something to be created—it is something to be recognized.

-

🌟 Stay Connected & Deepen Your Practice

If you’d like to participate in future live sessions, consider joining the Kriya Yoga Online Patreon Community or applying to the Kriya Yoga Apprenticeship Program.

📘 For continued inspiration and instruction, check out Ryan Kurczak’s latest book:
An Essential Guide to Kriya Yoga Practice, available in hardcover and paperback on Amazon.

🧘‍♂️ Your host, Ryan Kurczak, is a Kriya Yoga meditation teacher and author, authorized to teach in 2005 by Roy Eugene Davis, a direct student of Paramahansa Yogananda.

🔗 Explore more resources:

Patreon Community: Support the work & access live sessions
👉 https://www.patreon.com/KriyaYoga

Kriya Yoga Apprenticeship, blog posts & books:
👉 https://kriyayogaonline.com

Online Classes for All Levels:
👉 https://kriya-yoga.teachable.com/

Hundreds of free videos on YouTube:
👉 https://www.youtube.com/user/KriyaYogaOnline

Thank you for listening, and may your path be filled with clarity, strength, and peace.

In this episode of the Kriya Yoga Podcast, we explore how Internal Family Systems (IFS) can support deeper meditation, psychological integration, and an authentic experience of divine communion.

Drawing from yogic philosophy, contemplative practice, and modern therapeutic insight, this talk examines why sincere meditation and devotion sometimes feel blocked—even after years of practice. The core insight: spiritual realization flourishes most naturally when the inner world is coherent, stable, and Self-led.

Internal Family Systems offers a practical framework for understanding the “parts” of the psyche—protective managers, reactive firefighters, and wounded exiles—and how unresolved inner conflict can quietly interfere with meditation, prayer, and daily spiritual life. When these parts are listened to, integrated, and guided by the Self, inner noise settles and spiritual practice becomes more effortless, spacious, and alive.

The episode connects IFS with key yogic principles such as Īśvara Praṇidhāna (communion or surrender to the Divine), samādhi, and Self-realization, suggesting that psychological healing is not a detour from the spiritual path, but often a powerful accelerator of it.

This conversation is especially relevant for long-time meditators who feel stalled, seekers struggling to sustain inner peace beyond the cushion, or anyone interested in bridging therapy, yoga, and contemplative spirituality in a grounded, discerning way.

Referenced text includes No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz and prior Kriya Yoga Podcast discussions on psychological wellbeing and spiritual practice.

The Kriya Yoga Podcast 202 Spiritual Counseling Spiritual Practice

The Kriya Yoga Podcast 95 Healing Blockages of the Heart Chakra

-

🌟 Stay Connected & Deepen Your Practice

If you’d like to participate in future live sessions, consider joining the Kriya Yoga Online Patreon Community or applying to the Kriya Yoga Apprenticeship Program.

📘 For continued inspiration and instruction, check out Ryan Kurczak’s latest book:
An Essential Guide to Kriya Yoga Practice, available in hardcover and paperback on Amazon.

🧘‍♂️ Your host, Ryan Kurczak, is a Kriya Yoga meditation teacher and author, authorized to teach in 2005 by Roy Eugene Davis, a direct student of Paramahansa Yogananda.

🔗 Explore more resources:

Patreon Community: Support the work & access live sessions
👉 https://www.patreon.com/KriyaYoga

Kriya Yoga Apprenticeship, blog posts & books:
👉 https://kriyayogaonline.com

Online Classes for All Levels:
👉 https://kriya-yoga.teachable.com/

Hundreds of free videos on YouTube:
👉 https://www.youtube.com/user/KriyaYogaOnline

Thank you for listening, and may your path be filled with clarity, strength, and peace.