More than a lecture: Shaktipat and Pranapat

From the very start, Gurunath framed the evening not as instruction but as transmission. Through Shaktipat he conveys Kundalini energy “centre to centre” into the chakras of those attending, working to burn away negative karmas. Through Pranapat he breathes his own prana – life force – through the breath of the disciples, flushing out physical toxins and emotional stress. “I will breathe my life through their breath,” he said, “I will breathe my prana through their breath, and this is what I am going to do today.”

One breath, connecting humanity

What made the session remarkable was its scope. Gurunath described breathing his prana to “a person in London, a person in Africa, a person in America, Australia, Europe, Germany, France” – all at one time, through the screen. The aim, he explained, was to form “the connectedness of humanity.” Humanity lives side by side, he noted, yet holds many different mindsets – and “these mindsets need not clash.” Through dialogue they can be reconciled, so that people “can live in harmony as a human race… necessary for the peace and progress of this earth.”

“Test the master”

Rather than asking for blind belief, Gurunath openly invited scrutiny. “I am putting myself to the test,” he said, “and also telling you how to test a true master.” Anticipating the sceptic – “Now in your mind you say, ‘Come off it, stop fibbing us'” – he answered simply: “Wait and see. The litmus test is near.” Participants were asked only to sit “totally receptive and relaxed” and to notice for themselves whatever arises. Judging by the messages left beneath the stream – reports of heat rising along the spine and a deep stillness of breath from viewers in Scotland, Florida, Missouri and Melbourne – many clearly felt something.

Humility is the path

One of the evening’s most quoted lines was about humility: “The higher the evolution, the humbler the task.” Gurunath illustrated it through ashram life, where newcomers are sent to gather fallen leaves, while the most advanced students – those “ready for the test” – are sent to clean the toilets, doing so “with no inhibition, no feeling of purity or impurity, no feeling of high and low.” Those, he said, “are the ones who are ready for self-realization.”

“Your true being is God essence”

Beneath every technique lay a simple reminder of who we already are: “Your true being is God essence.” This is the recognition Kriya Yoga is designed to reveal – and in Gurunath’s Nath tradition it rests on a threefold path: self-directed discipline and austerity (tapas), self-study (svadhyaya), and surrender to the Divine (ishvara pranidhana).

The invitation

The satsang closed with an invitation to go deeper – the Kriya Yoga Empowerment – Atmanaar, a rare initiation further along this ancient path of self-realization. Or, as Gurunath put it:

Step beyond knowledge into experience. Step beyond seeking into being.