• Question the Quality of the Guru Material the Sooner the Better
• Maturation and Education
• Some Points

Question the Quality of the Guru Material the Sooner the Better

"Bulwark against going astray." [See nearly all]

QUALITY control is needed.

If you stumble toward a mirage in the desert in order to drink water and save your life, you end up disappointed, most likely. Maybe you cannot afford an exhausting chase either, and die there. These things count.

Being forewarned counts, as experience can be a hard and costy teacher. Many make mistakes and few live to tell well so as to bulwark against going astray and prevent clumsy living - living that does not pay well enough.

To test canonical teachings to see how far they carry water, can be time-consuming. Quality control may rise on top of things like that. The site contains contributions that may serve quality control.

"Atman [spirit] has no emotions, it is supreme Bliss", says the Ramayana [Ups 63]. But considerable parts of these teachings might be too hard to stomach for the guru and many followers for a while all the same. Sleep on the better parts and take notes. The procedure is well in step with proficient study and dream teachings.

From the Depths of Others

The depths of others have plentiful supplies and serve as fuel at times too: Yogananda found it out and fairly often lectured in response to unspoken thoughts of listeners, his publishers say in Man's Eternal Quest [Ak xi-xii]

A passage in the ancient Indian Laws of Manu (2:85), tells that quiet sound meditation can be vastly superior to restless prayer. Thus, repeating a fit name of God (that is, mantra yoga) can work very well. Ramakrishna and many, many others tell that too. [Rap 879; Mux].

Few in the West think that kindness that helps cows is great, and seldom stop to consider if a famous yogi is a fit guru for them. And they use methods of meditation for many odd purposes, and some lower ones. Guru Dev says:

There shouldn't be hurry in choosing a Guru ... one should test him thoroughly [Bg 132].

Give cows the most excellent protection. – Earth that is not being cultivated is to be made into grazing ground for cattle [Bg 220, 221].

Techniques of yoga are for self-realisation. [Bg 282]

Memorise hovering, general truths and do not get sidetracked by getting all preoccupied with less than adequate yoga ways and methods.

"Different strokes for different folks" seems to have been the "song" of the world-famous yogi Yogananda when he dropped a long row of kriya regulations to accommodate kriya to Westerners. He changed kriya methods too. Few in the United States said to him: "Your words cannot fool us any more." [Rap 879].

Maturation and Education

Some things should turn out well for all who dare to go thoroughly against education that dwarfs and feigns, undermines and cripples for no good reason. There are times when artistry seems to pay, and times when it doesn't. Besides, poetics should be lots of fun.

Don't accept a pack of lies. Yet have tact. On this site you may find open and friendly or handy self-help programs. Teh site also teems with tales and salvaging lessons and show how to be handy in dealing with an awed and soap-pretentious following that may not be wholly to your satisfaction.

But getting into significant ideas and exploring advancing openness isn't all there is to a successful life. Try to get in touch with your own jolly good, significant guts or dreams too. There are many ways to do it. Craig Hamilton Parker points out in the introduction of his unpaginated book, The Hidden Meaning of Dreams:

Before you can work with your dreams, you need to ... remember them. ...

If you use the methods described ... to capture a dream, you're soon going to want to decipher its meaning ... this may appear difficult because you're confronted with what appears to be a load of nonsense. But it's not. Your thoughts, ideas, worries, hopes, and fears are all represented by symbols, metaphors, and images within your dreams ...

Psychology has many useful theories tha can help you understand what your dreams are trying to tell you about your emotional state, ambitions, fears, and so on. ...

There are no limits to the mind's ability to generate an ... abundance of dreams. [Hmd, introduction, passim]

Sigmund Freud believed that in sleep the ego relaxed and could no longer adjudicate between the conflicting forces of the id and super-ego. His follower Carl Gustav Jung in time broke with him and went on to believe that the unconscious offered ways to inner wholeness and healing, that dreams gave access to these positive energies. [Hmd, introduction] [Jung on dreams and dreamwork]

We all dream; we do not understand our dreams, yet we act as if nothing strange goes on in our sleep minds, strange at least by comparison with the logical, purposeful doings of our minds when we are awake. - Erich Fromm, once a follower of Freud.

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens. - C. G. Jung

Sleep and dreams are necessary for every living being. According to the Vedas, during dreamless sleep a spiritual person may "reach the Brahma-loka", that is, transcend or merge with Supreme Brahman for a while or a little longer and in that state perceive things to come in the fabric of time, and further, their dreams may reveal facets of reality. [Hmd, introduction]

The author says that rather typically, ghosts you dream of, represent those aspects of yourself that you fear, and that dream giants can represent awe-inspiring powers. If you dream of being an invalid you may feel that something has robbed you of your ability or self-confidence, and so on. Many kinds of interpretations are possible, for dreams are seamed scenes for the individual, reflecting his or her state, conditions and all that.

Keeping a dream diary near your bed is a help to recall dreams. And learning Jungian methods of drawing impressive scenes from dreams and note the key elements it the diary, could help you toward getting to terms with recurrent dream themes you host.

From the old Hebrew tradition

The old Hebrew tradition is that one has to honour Yahweh, which means "I Am" (etc.) above all. If "heaven is within you" and God is in heaven, it suggests that the way to please one's self, or Atman, is not to get stupefied in front of works of art - various man-made gods and the like, but rather pay attention to tall dreams.

Much history shows that contrary to this tradition, seemingly good ideas and practices that persons are fed with and fostered on through ignominous education, get well accepted in the socal spheres without deserving it, and get more or less discarded too. Some ideas that are repeated, make victims overly aggressive, bad-tempered and complaining. Some also prove ruinous, not just preposterous.

Against low-levelled thinking, some sound dreaming may do. Dreaming has been found to be necessary for health, no matter what you recall from the dream periods that occur each night. Some scientists and artists see that dreams have held solutions they were looking for. "Let us learn to dream, gentlemen, and then we may perhaps find the truth," stated the Nobel laureate Kekulé, after a dream put him on the track to a solution he was searching for.

If you don't feel up to it yet, and perhaps not "crowned with honour and glory" [See Hebrews 2:7] either, you could still benefit from dream theories or from learning to interpret dreams. That is much up to you. Dream page: [Link]

Some Other Points

Salient notes for those in need of gliding inwards

It generally helps to be on guard no matter what and how. "Every animal in the jungle" has to learn that.

One should beware of conformity that breeds hypocricy, and is based on hypocricy of others that earlier walked the paths that attract you. Hypocricy deranges people without their knowing all at once.

Those who trust too much, have not learnt to ask for evidence or to believe as little as possible, and may be in for hard times because of their trust.

Trust is not to be looked down on, nor is rightful shares and roles in interactions either. But submitting overly much through trust may spell disasters to come. Thus, "Look before you leap" is sound counsel. For example, a famous guru who comes in the name of god-masters in Hinduism and decrees he has a particular dispensation with Jesus Christ behind it too, talks considerably against certain forewarnings by Jesus against (a) having many masters, (b) other masters than him, (c), false Christs, (d) misleading, ravenous wolves in sheep's clothing - it is all in the Bible.

Bizarre or frivolous claims against ponderous evidence have to be handled well before the propagators strut. Sectarians may decide wilfully to smear the person or persons behind fit and fair material and distort like hell, use loose and negative inunendos and the like - they were not better in the first place. Such rascals have to go for the necessary amount of fairness and skill - and if they do, it may take them out of their sect. It may be expected.

A worst case scenario should be taken into account before you commit.

❖ Rabbinic at best goes against hypocricy.