Those exercices are so simple, so surprising for the new one on the path, and yet every year I discover something new, or something I didn't understand about them.
They are also a preparation for Kriya : learning to move the energy by the simple use of will, with the support of a physical support.
They are a treasure, and we often underestimate them.
Paramahansa Yogananda lays out a method somewhat like a direction manual in the lessons. He says this about meditation and the energization exercises;
Before we can meditate scientifically we must be able to concentrate and before we can concentrate we must free ourselves from the distractions of the senses in the body.
The first step in scientific meditation therefore is to control the body and this we learn to do through the energization exercises. Behind the gross physical body is the intelligent life force in the form of five life currents, the crystallizing, Assimilating, circulatory, metabolic and eliminating currents. These continually sustain the body and its functions. To fully control the body we must be able to consciously direct the life force.
I think we all, for instance, put together a chair or some kind of furniture or mechanical device or model plane or car or ship that is sent to you online through the mail and usually comes with a manual. Quite often we like to just rip the box open and try to start putting it together. That has often been my approach. Then when we run into challenges and parts don’t fit together we have to go back to the manual and start from the beginning; finding out where we went wrong. I think that it is very similar with the SRF lessons. It is almost like a written manual and Step-by-step procedure in which you can go back and look and see what you left out and what you have yet to perfect.
God has given to us the omnipotent instrument of our Will, by which we can control all forces, including the life force within our body. When in practicing the energization exercises, we concentrate at the point between the eyebrows, the will gradually becomes attuned to the soul and charged with its divine power. Thus strengthened, the will can command the life force to bring about any changes desired in the body — to free it from disease, tensions, or restlessness, and make it a fitting temple for meditation as well as a perfect instrument to express the divine qualities of the soul — and the life force will then obey.
