Along with many schools of Asian thought, Agni Yoga teaches that spiritual liberation depends on cultivating awareness of unity, which is possible only with the guidance and protection of the compassionate enlightened beings who belong to the Brotherhood, the Hierarchy of Light. Co-measurement is the ability to understand the relative importance of things and act accordingly. It is related to "goal-fitness," the ability to evaluate and adjust one's thoughts and actions in light of conscious goals.
"By your God" means the ability to understand the highest ideals of other people-their gods, so to speak-and affirm them. In the past, a person would assert the sanctity and value of his own god, but now it essential to "find the God of each one and exalt Him. One can understand this with reason, but it is more important to embrace it in the smile of the spirit." This principle of Great Tolerance "is the basis of the New World."
The initial steps of Agni Yoga resemble those of Raja Yoga: purification, striving, study, and mastery of prana, the life force."A young person may ask, ‘How should Agni Yoga be understood?' Say, ‘As discernment of the all-connecting element of fire, which nourishes the seed of the spirit, and its application to life.' The young person may ask, ‘How can I approach that knowledge?' ‘Purify your thinking, and after determining your three worst traits, consign them to the flames of a fiery striving. Then choose a Teacher on Earth and, while getting to know the Teaching, strengthen your body with the medicines and pranayama indicated. You will behold the stars of the spirit; you will see the fires that purify your centers; you will hear the voice of the Invisible Teacher; and you will enter into other aspects of the subtlest understanding that transforms life.'"
As in Raja Yoga, successful practice under a qualified guru results in development of clairvoyance, clairaudience, and other subtle faculties, as well as the kindling of the psychic centers-the chakras. Besides the seven chakras often mentioned in esoteric literature, Agni Yoga touches on the kindling of the centers in the lungs, shoulders, and other parts of the body.[51] Special emphasis is placed on the fires in the heart center and the Chalice, or the Anahata chakra, which is behind the heart. In the latter are stored spiritual accumulations from past lives, including "straight-knowledge," a very high degree of intuition."People often confuse great straight-knowledge, which is the result of many experiences and wonderful accumulations over many incarnations, with a certain psychism. The latter manifests in more or less correct presentiments, dreams, and perceptions of the astral plane that correspond to the perceiver's consciousness. Straight-knowledge, on the other hand, knows with certainty, knows the essence of everything happening, knows the direction of evolution as well as the future. Straight-knowledge is the synthesis of spirituality; naturally, it only belongs to a great spirit who has accumulated its Chalice, regardless of how modest his or her social position may be."
Although in general Agni Yoga avoids negation, including prohibition and renunciation, it expresses strong opposition to magic, mediumistic practices, and psychism-the pursuit of lower psychic powers and attachment to psychic phenomena-because they hinder the practice of Agni Yoga. For the same reason, Agni Yoga opposes "mechanical" exercises that seek to awaken the inner power by manipulation or strengthening of the outer. Even exercises to develop concentration have subordinate value. Inspiration from the Hierarchy, an essential condition on the path, "descends through a single basic condition. Neither concentration nor command of the will, but love for the Hierarchy gives rise to direct Communion. We do not know how better or more precisely to express the guiding law than as a surge of love. That is why it is timely to cast aside magic with all its compulsion and be imbued with love to one's very core. Then one can easily approach the source of Being through a truly wondrous feeling. Precisely, amidst the disintegration of the planet, one needs to turn to the principle that will most effectively restore health. And what can more strongly unify than the mantram, ‘I love you, O Lord!' Such a call makes it easy to receive a ray of knowledge."
Love, then, is what makes it possible to receive inner knowledge, especially when accompanied by gratitude and joy. Courage and patience are also needed, for Agni Yoga is not merely a matter of kindling the centers with a "Kundalini experience," but involves years of "fiery transmutation" by which the feelings, thoughts, and sensations are refined, eventually allowing the Yogi to function in his or her subtle body, and later the still more sublime and powerful fire body.The development of these bodies makes it possible for a Yogi to attain immortality-the ability to act consciously at will in the earthly, subtle, and fiery worlds-and work for the good of others on a vast scale. Because the world is currently in such chaos, during the process of transmutation feelings of anguish are inevitable; they need to be acknowledged and overcome.
In outlining "four gates," Agni Yoga 163 gives an overview of the entire process. "He who would swim must dive fearlessly into the water. And he who has determined to master Agni Yoga must transform his entire life with it. Why do people think they can spare Yoga a portion of some idle hour and remain in impure thought the rest of the time? Truly, all actions ought to be imbued with the purifying power of fiery striving... This most synthesizing Yoga exacts an obligation to construct your entire life in accordance with a discipline that is externally imperceptible. If this imperceptible discipline no longer feels like chains but instead turns into the joy of responsibility, we can consider the first Gates open. When one awakens to the cooperation with the far-off worlds, then the second Gates will open. And when the foundations of evolution are understood, the bolts will fall from the third Gates. And finally, when the advantage of using a densified astral body has been understood, then the bolts of the fourth Gates will fall away. As this process goes forward, the fires of the centers of knowledge kindle, and amidst the lightning bolts of the subtlest energies, straight-knowledge emerges. Cherish, then, the fire of knowledge and guard the growing power."
The Agni Yoga teaching was given out in the following books:
Leaves of Morya's Garden I (The Call) (dated 1924, but transmitted from 1920 to 1923, with the Russian original first published in Paris in 1923)
Leaves of Morya's Garden II (Illumination) (1925, but transmitted from May 1923 to June 1925)
New Era Community (1926)
Agni Yoga (1929) (first English edition in two volumes)
Infinity I (1930)
Infinity II (1930)
Hierarchy (1931)
Heart (1932)
Fiery World I (1933)
Fiery World II (1934)
Fiery World III (1935)
Aum (1936)
Brotherhood (1937)
Supermundane: The Inner Life I (1938)
Supermundane: The Inner Life II (1939)
Supermundane: The Inner Life III (1940)
Supermundane: The Inner Life IV (1941)
The letters of Helena Roerich, the "Mother of Agni Yoga" may also be considered an integral part of the teaching. Two volumes of her letters have been translated into English and published in book form by the Agni Yoga Society with translations of the Agni Yoga series.
The first line of the Agni Yoga teaching reads, "Into the New Russia My first message. underscoring the future role of Russia. This passage was rendered "into the New Country" in the 1953 English translation, and "into the New World" in the 1999 translation. While in no way denying the significance of Russia-the teaching was given in Russian to Russians, and even today is most widely read in Russia-these translations are in keeping with the statement in the same book that "The Teaching is intended for the entire world, for all beings." "The books of Agni Yoga are a gift to humanity."First of all forget all nationalities, and understand that consciousness is developed by perfecting the invisible centers. Some await a Messiah for a single nation, but this is ignorant, for the evolution of the planet can only take place on a planetary scale. Precisely, the emergence of universality must be thoroughly grasped."
The Agni Yoga Teaching is most easily approached by people who have a karmic link with the Masters and by those who belong in spirit to the Sixth Race-and they are all over the world. Readers who are expecting a spiritual exposition in the form of a treatise will be frustrated. The messages in the teaching were transmitted by clairaudience according to the recipients' circumstances. The books are compiled from Helena Roerich's notebooks (some of which are housed in a collection at Amherst College), and the messages are often short and not directly linked to each other. Ideas on any given theme are scattered throughout the entire series. But Agni Yoga claims that, "The Teaching grows spirally, as does everything that exists," and that there is an inner rhythm in the growth of this spiral."Someone will ask why the Teaching is scattered like seeds. Answer that only from a variety of threads can a complex pattern be created. Someone will ask why the Teaching has no completed tenets. Answer that in completion lies death. Someone will ask why the parts of the Teaching cannot be logically connected. Answer that it would be ugly to grow only a head or only a hand. Because of this unorthodox arrangement, students are told to reread the teachings often and under varied circumstances.
From the fourth work in the series, Agni Yoga, the books are prefaced by the words "Signs of Agni Yoga." This is not to say that the first three books are any less an integral part of the series. On the contrary, Helena Roerich states that New Era Community is her favorite book and writes about the first two books, Leaves of Morya's Garden I and II, "In a way, they are an introduction to the Agni Yoga series, but actually they touch on the majority of questions and aspects of life that are worked out and elucidated from different angles in subsequent volumes of the Teaching." That the series has a definite order is made clear in the explanation why the two volumes of Infinity were given before later books whose contents seem easier to understand.This might be taken to mean that the series should be read in order, but "It is right to assign to co-workers the collecting of parts from the Books of the Teaching pertaining to separate subjects" for publication.
Many of the early books in the series were translated into English soon after they were completed. The translations have often been revised: e.g., the sixth edition of Agni Yoga was published in 1999. New translations sometimes incorporate material not included in previous ones. The entire series has also been translated into several European languages and partially into other languages, including Japanese. Generally, neither "authors" nor translators are named, in keeping with the instructions in Agni Yoga 580. Section 669 of the same book enjoins that the Teaching be "placed at the crossroad"-made available to interested people without any effort to persuade or force them. The Agni Yoga Society in New York has carried out this instruction by giving access to the Russian originals and translations into various languages on its website.
Please See The Teachings and History of Agni Yoga
