For centuries, the path of Kriya Yoga was walked almost exclusively by men. Sadhguru reveals if this was by design or circumstance. And most importantly for women today, he points to a natural advantage that allows women to ignite their energy practices like nothing else.
Question: What does it take for women to walk the path of Kriya Yoga? Have there been women Yogis in the past?
Sadhguru: There have been women who walked the path of Kriya Yoga, but they have been very few. This is because Kriya Yoga demands an extreme sense of discipline and perseverance at certain stages of the sadhana. Generally, women did not choose Kriya Yoga due to the kind of hardship it entails. Biologically, women are also at a slight disadvantage when it comes to Kriya Yoga.
The general form of Kriya Yoga that was traditionally taught was mostly designed for men because most practitioners were male. To use an analogy: if everyone who came to the Isha Yoga Center were only three feet tall, we would build doors that are only three and a half feet tall so everyone could enter comfortably. A problem would only arise if one day, a six-foot-tall person arrived.
Generally, only men walked the path of Kriya Yoga because it requires a certain discipline and distance from conventional life, which was not possible for women in this culture in those days. By the age of fifteen, most women already had a child and could not be in the kind of atmosphere that Kriya Yoga demands. So, traditionally, it was established that Kriya Yoga is for men only – not because Yoga is of that nature, but because of the social circumstances of the time.
All the practices that were designed and structured by various masters were male-oriented because their disciples were predominantly male, and they structured the processes accordingly. This does not mean that no woman has walked the Kriya Yoga path – some have. But they were a very small minority, so not many practices were created for them.
If a woman has a little bit of bhakti in her, her kriyas get fired up easily.
The systems that we have structured here are also suitable for women, and they are doing well with their practices. So, can a woman walk the path of Kriya Yoga? Yes, she can, but if she wants to walk Kriya Yoga as a complete path, she is slightly disadvantaged. She will need to make a little extra effort if she is willing to do that.
It is always best, for anyone who wants to progress, to create a proper combination of these four dimensions: gnana, Karma, kriya, and bhakti. In women, the emotional dimension is generally more dominant. It is good to make use of this advantage.
What I see is that if a woman has a little bit of bhakti in her, her kriyas get fired up easily. If she has no bhakti, it becomes very difficult for many women to move their energies with kriyas alone.
A man would generally be more comfortable with gnana, kriya, and Karma. A woman is usually more comfortable with bhakti and kriya as a combination rather than gnana and kriya as a combination, but that is not true for every woman or every man. People oscillate between the two aspects.
We are offering Kriya Yoga to men and women without making any distinction. But if people rise to a certain pitch of practice, then I would also prescribe different types of practices for men and women because certain traditional practices are not suitable for women. It will not be conducive for their biology to get into such practices as this will disturb the system. Accordingly, practice can be structured.
It is not that the masters of the past did not want to create practices for women; they did not do so because there were no women among their disciples.
