Supernatural Preface

4 4 11

Supernatural Sides to Life
Paramahansa Explained
Cult Strikes

Supernatural Sides to Life

Fairly Shocking Propaganda Favoured by Repetition

What compliment is this? "Your teeth are like a flock of supernatural sheep!" [See all]

Denmark has an impressive ballad collection which has counterparts in other Nordic countries and continental and British balladries. Typically, the folk ballad tells a compact and fairly shocking little story where what happens ends catastrophically or is resolved. The shape of words and phrases plays on sensational, dramatic effects, achieving a climax through repetitions, conventional stereotyped imagery, a blatant style of praise, and other means at hand. There are typically interwoven refrains which may be sets of nonsense syllables -

Faltu ra, faltu riltu raltu ra.

Certain images and descriptive adjectives abound according to conventions. Thus white is milk white, snow white, and lily white, but not tooth white. Compare the Song of Solomon: "Your teeth are like a flock of sheep just shorn" [4:2; 6:6]. Big teeth - and ugh!
The ballads glorify certain people and virtues like boldness, and work as propaganda that benefits nobility and famous guys but seldom and never cotters and honest working people. There is that profile. The themes include the fates of sweethearts and love affairs. Often they have a tragic and romantic outcome. There are slain lovers and shrewish mothers-in-law, gullible happy couples, murders and other crimes.
In some of the ballads the supernatural is worked into the action by enchantments, spells and the art of dreaming, perhaps. Some heroines get abducted and bewitched by the netherworld people, the hill-folk underground, Supernatural elements are found all through balladry, says the Encyclopaedia Britannica [Ebu "ballad"].
Gurus of Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) are presented as supernatural beings too, but not only they - you yourself are a supernatural one, is the the teaching. And, by the way, Jesus said to angry ones who would stone him:

"Is it not written in your Law, "I have said you are gods"? If he called them "gods," to whom the word of God came - and the Scripture cannot be broken - what about the one whom the Father set apart . . . and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, "I am God's Son"? [John 10:34-36]

Watch out, there are gods around - and ghosts:

Who are the Ghosts?

A ghostly Donald Duck - and his wings are hands!

In a Hollywood talk from 1945, Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952) says not a few persons have claimed to have had various experiences with ghosts, devils, witches, and vampires. A woman he knew, believed a vampire was sucking her blood away each night, and died prematurely.

A Summary of Yogananda's Hollywood Talk on Ghosts

There is another world, and those who live in it, are "ghosts". There are also tramp souls who occasionally succeed in entering and taking possession of an unstable and weakened person's body and mind. But such tramp souls cannot stand the high vibration of Giant Mind deep inside, that is Essence, also called spirituality. Therefore, attune inwards to get it better.
When you die, you may wake up inwardly and see that you are encased in a luminous body, one of light and energy (the astral body), and may roam around. You rejoice to find that you can hear, you can see, you can touch, and that your new form has no bones and no flesh that can be hurt. Good behaviour on earth draws one to one of the higher spheres of light, peace, and joy. Evil deeds attract one to a lower, dark sphere. Further, "If you concentrate deeply at the spiritual eye you can view with inner vision that luminous world in which are living all the souls who have gone on to the astral plane," says Yogananda.

Lots of supernatural beings are said to have wings!

Essentially we are mind-and-body encased souls that are clothed with central functionings on the mind level, an emotial gamut, and the physical body. The way inwards is a way out too. Then,

"When souls shed the astral body and go into a mental form in the causal [mental] world [level of being] they are not non-entities, but they do become truly invisible. When all causal desires are overcome, one becomes a liberated or free soul."

Here comes the clou:

Before you took on this physical form you were a ghost, and when you die you will become a ghost again. We are also ghosts when we sleep, for in sleep we are not aware of ourselves as a physical body at all. Since you are a ghost when you are asleep, and you will be one after death, why be afraid of ghosts? . . . that is what you are going to be.

Added Yogananda Sayings

"Just because instances of those who have mastered the cosmic laws are few, one should not say that their testimony is not true." [Yogananda]
"We have passed through death and rebirth so many times, why be afraid of death?" [Yogananda]
"There is a lesson to be learned from the fact that we are now encaged in the human body, and that at night and when we die we become ghosts. We must learn to know our ghostly nature, our invisible, powerful nature." [Yogananda]
" Evil does exist." — "You do not have to accept evil ideas." — "The devil is creating his own kind of thoughts." — "Every time a bad thought comes, cast it out." — [And] "Go where Satan will be unable to reach you: deep in the heart of God." [Yogananda]
[Source of all: Ak 269-82, passim]

Your will is invisible, your central sense of "I" and meanings, all the higher aspects of yourself too; invisible to ordinary vision, but still exist. "Ghost" is not a perfect term for these sides of ourselves, but if it serves to take your fear away or tone it down: good. Yogananda concurs:

Your being has two sides - one visible, the other invisible. [Yogananda, Ak 167]
Why think that the invisible self is unreal, just because you cannot see it? [Yogananda, Ak 266]
Without the invisible self the body would be as worthless as a corpse. The invisible man within is the real one. [Yogananda, Ak 261]
The visible man is of little importance; the invisible self, or soul, is of utmost importance. [Yogananda, Ak 261]
There is an invisible astral counterpart for all the bodily parts. Without [your invisible heart], your visible [physical] heart would not beat. You have invisible organs . . . These parts - tissues of light and energy - constitute the astral body of the invisible man. [Yogananda, Ak 261-62]
When your consciousness of the invisible astral body is developed, you will realize that it can hear what the physical ears cannot hear, and see what the physical eyes cannot see. It can also smell, taste, and touch objects far beyond the range of the physical senses. And you can make it large or small at will. [Yogananda, Ak 262]
Try to realize you are a bodiless traveller. You are here for only a little while, then depart for a dissimilar and fascinating world. [Yogananda, Say 6]

Till then, here are sheep teachings. One has to wonder, "Who is the greatest, the sheep or the man, if the Revelation has got it right?"

Supernatural Sheep Coming

Here is how the sheep is said to be divine -

In the Old Testament, having lots of sheep and other farm animals was the sign of approval from above. Having lots of sheep told of wealth and God's pleasure. Soon the sheep were among the means of pacifying the Lord by regulated slaughter. Then in 2 Samuel 12 the prophet Nathan tells king David of a poor man who had a darling ewe lamb till a rich man slaughtered it to serve it to a traveller. Enraged, David held that "The man who did this deserves to die!" - "You are the man," said the prophet.
On hearing that, David lost the nerve to execute a bad guy altogether, as David's attractive, new co-wife was the sheep, and her former husband had been killed through David's orders. "You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites," said Nathan.
Then, as the ark was moved into Solomon's Temple, and the ark disappeared, so many sheep were slaughtered in the dedication ceremony that it was unrecordable or unaccountable, or 120.000 along with goats, it says in two books. The amount of slaughter increased "to honour" God and the king's edifice.[cf 1 Kings 8:5,63; 2 Chronicles 5:6; 7:5; 15:11]
From this period or earlier sheep are at times used to mean people. "I saw all Israel scattered on the hills like sheep without a shepherd, and the Lord said, "These people have no master. Let each one go home in peace.'" [1 Kings 22:17] and one day when David had done something regrettable, he wanted God to execute his family members to atone for it, as if they had anything to do with it! David said, "I am the one who has sinned and done wrong. These are but sheep. What have they done? Lord my God, let your hand fall on me and my family, but do not let this plague remain on your people." [1 Chronicles 21:17] Suppose most of his family had nothing to do with it - co-wives and concubines and all but just a few.
In the biblical Psalms [44:11,22; 49:14; 74:1; 78:52 ff; 78:71-72] there are memorable words, including, "Help us, God . . . Pay back into the laps of our neighbours seven times the reproach they have hurled at you . . . Then we your people, the sheep of your pasture, will praise you forever [Emphasis added]." Bargaining. Here Jehovah is a shepherd and his people are sheep. The metaphor did not start with Jesus, then.
Compare Psalm 100:3; 119:75; Isaiah 53:6-7 too. Further down in Isaiah 53 it says it "was the Lord's will to crush him" and make "his life a guilt offering". Yet this one would see his offspring and prolong his days [v. 10]. So who was he? Jesus did not have offspring we know of. But Mr. X had offspring and prolonged days. [Isaiah 53:1-12, passim]
He was later identified by Christians as Jesus, who played a double role of being a shepherd and a sheep combined. He was to be butchered (sacrificed). Later still, he was the Lamb in the unseen, a supernatural sheep that was like a lion - [cf John 1:29, 36; Revelation 5 etc.]

"See, the Lion has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals."
Then I saw a Lamb. He came and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne. Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands on thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. In a loud voice they sang: "Worthy is the Lamb to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and praise!" [Revel 5:12]
Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: "To the Lamb be praise and honour and glory and power, for ever and ever!" [Revel 5:5-14, passim - retold]

Hearing every shark, pollock, lobster, crab, shell, and shrimp singing underwater praise of the Lamb requires heightened hearing, to name a few of these fabulous singers.
Then "I" of the story watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. It could perhaps scratch the seals off with its claws or lick them off with its tongue - and Yogananda has tried to interpret the Revelation in a yoga light. One had better note that Genesis says man is the crown of creation, made on the seventh day and after the animals were made:

God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; subdue the earth. Rule over every living creature." [Genesis 1:27-28, abridged]

In spite of this a sacrificed lamb with seven horns and seven eyes (mutant look), took over, after all. Every creature sang loud and clear in honour of it and God on the throne: "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honour and glory and power, for ever and ever!" [Revelation 5:13]. If sheep could but read, these tidings would boost their self-esteem, is the bet: Better than man, the New Testament insists, and finally.

Sheep Summary

To be a sheep or goat, created on the fifth day of Creation, was supposed to be inferior to man. Domesticated, these and other animals became tokens of God's pleasure, that is, the more animals someone had, the merrier he felt, it seems. As humans amassed guilt, they took to sacrificing sheep and other animals - even birds - to atone for them. By slaughter of innocent animals, straying humans felt relieved [Leviticus 5:17-18, etc] as dictated - ancient Hebrews were encultured into it. The ancient methods included scapegoating and a vast mass of regulations that "incidentally" benefitted priests who got ample food supplies. They also sacrificed for other purposes, such as for pleasing the Lord, who wanted such things [Genesis 15:9; 22:13].
Now humans were likened to sheep at times, and the Lord is the shepherd. The shepherd becomes a sheep for slaughtering at last, and then a mutant-looking sheep with seven horns and seven eyes is on top in the heavenly hierarchy along with the one on the throne. He benefitted from being slaughtered.
What about other animals to be slaughtered - pigs, for example? In ancient Hinduism a boar is God (Vishnu), one of the first incarnations of God.

Apropos

Buddha's existential "Avoid killing" has a biblical counterpart in "I desire mercy, not sacrifice." [Hosea 6:6], repeated by Jesus with the addition that if the meaning was understood, people would not have condemned the innocent [Matthew 12:7].
In the bible - its history of warfare - there are commandments against killing that apparently do not include all. The bible regulates killing, Buddhism avoids it. The promising mercy strain in the bible - once repeated by a sacrificial-lamb-to-be Jesus - is nearly drowned in all the victimising and fiendishness. His apostles glorified one good human sacrifice too, over and over, and held it was OK and - well - supernatural.
It matters to see the difference between commands that are not meant to be for all, and the universal, existential take of Buddha, for example. He teaches a Middle Path, "free from pain and torture, from groaning and suffering". In it, right understanding and mindedness together are wisdom; right speech, action and living are morality; and right effort, attentiveness and contemplation are "concentration".
Right action is abstaining from killing; abstaining from stealing (etc.), and should go along with right understanding and attentiveness.
It helps to accommodate to Gautama Buddha's founding teachings; it minimises sufferings and assists good living basically. Nay, Gautama Buddha's fine counsel helps the goings to acquire wealth by rightful non-offensive means, and use surplus for higher endeavours, such as later in life. The stand is that joy of life is to be kept and helped by right living - as mapped out in some of the first extant scriptures in the Pali Canon. There is no great need for any sacrifice if such basics are adhered to; merit (solid worth) may be accrued anyway. One should be qualified for one's attainments, not just sacrifice others for them. That is a stand to bear in mind.
It also matters to see the difference between seeking atonement by abusing victims, and between partial or complete yogic self-sacrifice. The Bhagavad Gita says that

"Some again offer wealth, austerity and Yoga as sacrifice, while the ascetics of self-restraint and rigid vows offer study of scriptures and knowledge as sacrifice. Others offer as sacrifice the outgoing breath in the incoming, and the incoming in the outgoing, restraining the courses of the outgoing and the incoming breaths, solely absorbed in the restraint of the breath . . . This world is not for the man who does not perform sacrifice . . . Superior is wisdom-sacrifice to sacrifice with objects . . . All actions in their entirety . . . culminate in knowledge! . . . among sacrifices I am the sacrifice of silent repetition." [Bhagavad Gita 4:28-29, 31, 33; 10:25 etc.]

We observe that silent repetition [of mantras, words of power] and wisdom are "kings" of sacrifices. Sacrifice is central in Hinduism as in old Judaism, but Hinduism has a broader outlook that encompasses transcendental explanations, and praises parts of yoga as central for attainments.

Supernatural Beings Abound

In Western Traditions many supernatural beings have wings.

From ancient Greece and onward, in the West the supernatural beings are depicted with wings. The God Mercury of ancient Greece has winged feet, for example. He is a messenger. To be a messenger is the task of angel too. And angels have wings, some are like goose feathers, others like duck feathers. There are many sorts. In art, some have only heads with wings, for example.
Interestingly, angels are depicted with clothes too, even though "You cannot take it with you", is often fored against hoarding things here on the material plane. Egyptian pharaos and many leaders, for example in China, disregarded that. Leading men and some of the women got buried with treasures and sometimes with butchered wives, servants, slaves, and ample supplies for the after-life - all according to some faith.

Angel boys with wings. Detail of a fresco painting in the Vatican by Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio, 1483-1520).

In very common depiction of angels in Western art the wings are attached to the back between the shoulder blades by some sort of hump with no muscles, sinews, and bones to make the wings work. Besides, the wings are much to small for humans and we never hear of problems with bugs and lice among the feathers. Birds have such problems. And look closer at a bird. It needs extra light-weight bones and body feathers and tail feathers too to manage the task of flying. And it has to eat a lot to get energy for it, perhaps even its own weight a day.
Hence, the goose wings that many angels are painted to have, and the gowns of angels look more like "angel fashions according to earthly painters" than anything else. And maybe one should rise to be suspicious of the "angels" that appear to have goose wings and nothing beneath their gowns. Mind what happened to young Mary one day; she met an angel, and the next you know is that she was pregnant without being married. What a shame that used to be in earlier times. In fact, assumedly "virgins" that got babies without being married were to be executed. That was what the Law said at the time of Jesus.

Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. [Matt 1:18]

Luke is more detailed:

God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored!"
Mary was greatly troubled at his words. But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary. You will be with child, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever."
"How will this be," Mary asked.
The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you. Nothing is impossible with God."
"I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. [Luke 1:26-38, passim]

Mary escaped execution because Joseph was kind enough to marry her to save her from the disgrace she was in for. And since there are some who believe that everything in the Bible is true, and that angels always tell truths, may it be pointed out that Jesus did not "reign over the house of Jacob forever". Far from it. That "house" had him executed; such was his reigning. In fact, even the people in his home town took offense at him [Matthew 13:57; Mark 6:3], so that one day "All the people in the synagogue were furious [and] got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff." [Luke 4:29] His own relatives were "on their side" too, it says. The relations were strained, to say the least.
Anyways, some angels in the New Testament have trumpets, says Jesus - have you wondered how they are made to sound? Others appear "in white" at the grave of Jesus. "We will judge angels", says the apostle Paul [1 Cor 6:3]. And "Are not all angels ministering spirits . . .?" he asks too [Hebr 1:14]. An intriguing line of thought is here:

"What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honour and put everything under his feet." In putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him. [Hebr 2:6-8]

The as-good-as-quotation he begins with, is from the Biblical Psalm 8:4-6, which has 'heavenly beings' instead of 'angels' and contains a good deal more information too,, including "You made him ruler over the works of your hands". In Christianity God and the Holy Spirit may be said to be supernaturals, not only their angels. And what about man? He was made a little bit better than the angels, it says, and with chances to get much less than them by faulty ways of living.
In the history of art we are taught about angel levels in Judaism. Christianity has incorporated them wholesale. We may "detect angels" at the back of peoples' names too. Raphael, for example, is Rapha-el (God heals), where 'el' nenotes angel, just as in Michael, the "great captain", Ariel; Uriel ("fire of God"); Gabriel, "Man of God", the heavenly messenger; and the other els. God himself "abruptly" got his holy name changed from YWHW (variously rendered as Jehovah and Jahve) to Eli as the Israelites grasped what the Canaanites called God. It was Eli. And Jesus on the cross did not find YWHW suitable, but "Eli, Eli". His Father was the Canaanite God, then, or bore his name. Speaking of similarities, in Canaan there was Baal and his father Corn (Dagon, etc.). Baal was a resurrection God too.
Nine levels or groups of angels in In Christian angelology rest on tales of ancient Hebrews, and are from the top: seraphim, cherubim, thrones, lordships, powers, authorities, mights, archangels, and ordinary angels. Angels are considered "functional extensions of the divine will" and sometimes intervene in human affairs. Some angels are believed to be guardians of individuals and nation (guardian angels). Some keep watching over children - in the popular piety of Roman Catholicism.
In early Judaism the angel who wrestled with the patriarch Jacob had the form of a man (so it was a man?). In the period between the 200s BC and 200s AD the spiritual nature of the angels was emphasised. Angels of the two highest orders, the seraphim and cherubim, were described as winged ones. Seraphim have two or three pairs of wings - how impossible their bodies may be from it. Anyway, wings attached to various beings symbolises their invisible and spiritual nature. This practice can be traced back to ancient Egyptians. They represent the sun-god Horus of Edfu as a winged disk. But Christianity traditionally uses winged human figures with gowns on. And what is more, the Church Father Augustine (354-430) states that the etheral-bodied angels can assume material bodies.

In Indian art there are supernaturals with extra hands, typically.

In yoga, both Buddhist Yoga and Hindu Yoga, we are presented with supernatural beings too. Angels are ,seldom spoken of. In the Trantric arts and Tantra-inspired arts the ordinarily invisible beings, "shining ones", devas, are depicted otherwise. In various arts they are depicted with impossibly added hands to represent varios functions they have or are accomplished in. Another sort of symbology is involved, then. The added hands are as humanly impossible angel wings: bones, sinews, and muscles are absent, so whatever extras you find depicted, are fairly unfit for use.
Depiction of supernatural elements can be part of art, or a Lila (Game). They serve accommodations among commoners more often than not, or were so intended.

In Tibetan art many supernatural elements are portrayed. Supernatural beings include transcendental gurus. The gurus catch humans by a sort of waves, and project what is spoken of as gift waves to devoted followers, and may surround them at periods too. Their work is not through telepathy or mediumism or thought transference, it is very much as Milarepa sings of:

Paramahansa Explained

Hansa means duck!

In the Markandeya Purana we find a note by the translator Frederick Pargiter:

"Hansa . . . means any kind of goose or duck [Ma 30n]." [LINK]

A poem by Matthew Arnold enlarges the subject for us:

Let the long contention cease!
Geese are swans, and swans are geese.
- Matthew Arnold, "The Last Word"

Thus, the Sanskrit word hansa, also spelled hamsa, can mean duck, goose, and swan, because people did not discern a lot among these flying experts in the old times.
Now, how is the param(a)hansa? The added Sanskrit word param(a) means supreme. Hence: supreme duck, or supreme goose, and supreme swan. Is that all there is to it? Far from it. The Indian mind is good at abstracting: the words have got religious meanings too. A hansa - in addition to being a duck, goose or swan, has got religious-mythological meaning, and is also a religious fellow, a monk. The idea is he can fly high, that is, fly inwards in contemplation. This makes him valuable.
In Hindu mythology the supreme swan (paramahansa) is marked by the ability to drink only the milk out of a mixture of milk and water, and thus is a symbol of supreme discernment, if not impossible discernment - And a "perfected monk" is a param(a)hansa. The perfected monk, how is he? There are many definitions of it in yoga literature. Not everyone sees eye to eye on this either.
The paramhansa has been explained by paramahansas too. "The Paramahamsa is like a five year old child. He sees everything filled with consciousness," says Paramahansa Ramakrishna in Tales and Parables of Sri Ramakrishna. [Tas 207]
Dr. Paul Deussen has translated many upanishads, and one of them is the "Hamsa Upanishad". It contains food for thought too. [So].

Cult Strikes

Never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good. [With Seneca]

Non-duping words count, and very many Krishna-ascribed sayings contain food for thought. Here is one from the Uddhava Gita:

Having attained certainty as to the real purport of the Veda, and gained direct knowledge by experience, you will be supremely content in the realization of the Self, and then . . . you will no longer be frustrated by obstacles. There [will be] peace in [your] heart and goodwill. [Srimad Bhagavatam, Book 11, Ch 7]

In the original Sanskrit work, the names of such as Krishna are very many. To use a hundred or a thousand names of God may seem superfluous, but see if there is no reason for it. It refers to various sides or exploits, and hence assists memory by cues and associations it serves or even builds up. And it may or may not help digestion of content.
There are other, valid reasons for using some indirect ways of saying something, or indirect expressions. One of the reasons is that it may better deal with neurotic defences in that the message gets aboard unwittingly before brush defences are mobilised or erected and avoidance becomes a means of sects and cults and neurotic personalities. Figurative measures abound in proverbs and other parts of folklore, as expressions of "folk wisdom", apparently. Such methods of communicating data may help adult life.

Why Wear Masks?

All these people ...
I had to rearrange their faces and give them all another name.
- Bob Dylan, "Desolation Row" (1965)

We use means to lessen the strain. Circumlocutions (smart, indirect ways of expressing ideas) may work in tense areas, like rhymes and jingles and forms of poetry and rthetorics that excel in a setting:

Speaker: "In this day and age, it is hazardious to use any jokes about . . . Politicians and other public figures have gotten into trouble by using [such] jokes. It is much safer to tell a story using a lost civilization like the Hittites. They no longer exist. So, with your permission, I would like to tell you a story about two Hittites named Ole and Lars -" [cf. Rsn 113]

To favour the costly human mind we go against soap operas. Even though it is awfully late and many are dwarfed from it in their hearts. Here is the suggestive note about the profile that is used - and active wisdom may or may not apply the sense of humour.

Figurative terms can suggest or tell something of higher stuff because they get fluffy - and the subtler things of life are not solid either. Thus there is an all-round correspondence between figurative "fluffiness" and very subtle nuances "up there", at least in principle. That is no small part of our philosophy in the matter.
If such gauged phenomena can be utilised, we have practical means at hand.
Technical means and methods should at least help life.

It is at times possible to lay bare many things by roundabout strides. It is traditionally done by using proverbs, for example. One simple reason: The price may be too high otherwise. And figurative mentions happen to take fear away quite a lot and fairly often - yet it depends. But much depends on conditions. And much thriving rests on the absence of blunders and mistakes in customary ways.
Figurative elements can be used now and then to elevate (the nerve or tenor of) the study.

The Bramble Garden Is a Sect

To get an inkling of how a sect is run, look at a bramble garden. That is the idea.

Look at the term 'bramble garden'. There are such gardens for the sake of the berries to be had and processed. Brambles are bushes that produce delicious berries and thorns. Those inexperienced with brambles may do well in keeping away from them, to escape unquestioning obedience to a bramble farm gardener (cult leader) and the arbitrary rules and regulations that may weaken or even eliminate independent, critical thinking and the use of free will. Such straitjacketing is a looming danger, the Stanford professor Philip Zimbardo warns.
The figurative bramble garden may be a cult, and a cult may work for bad if it goes against common-looking main adaptations and if there are lies at the root of it too. Now the large society is not perfect for all and sundry, and some cults may have deals that seem better, at least on the surface or at the start. [LINK]
However, Zimbardo also thinks societal pathology is implicated in contributing to the rise in shyness among adults and children in America. Accordingly, shyness and timidity in a person is perhaps not only an individual problem - but also - more or less - a deep function of how the society handles growing youngsters.
Initially a "cult member bargain" may look like a "win-win" trade for the shy. And

shyness among adults is now escalating to epidemic proportions, according to recent research by Dr. B. Carducci in Indiana and my research team in California. More than 50 percent of college-aged adults report being chronically shy (lacking social skills, low self-esteem, awkward in many social encounters).

Also, better cult deals may be applied in the large society; that is also a part of the Stanford professor Philip Zimbardo's conclusions. We have to create an alternative, "perfect cult", he goes on to say, meaning to make the large society nicer and better. "Enriching that core of common humanity should be our first priority," he says.

Note Better

Those who tend to bramble gardens have to put forth much effort to hinder that the thorny brambles don't get out of control, and ensure conditions so that there may be affluence through harvests of berries in the years to come on a steady basis. Neglect in any of these two tasks is asking for later troubles.
There are severe cults and others. Many have half-ritualised outlets. In Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) there are many founding dictum, all allegedly by Paramahansa Yogananda, and half-ritual ceremonies yet. They should ideally tie in with the aims and ideals of the fellowship, a registered church, but do they? Not all of them, and it is essential to lay bare the most alarming ones to interested young ones before they are turned into swine like the crew of Ulysses [in ch 10], into cattle, or other (figurative) farm animals due to lack of fit information. Savoury information is hard-won; it should be taken in in school or better, before entering the life of unseen dangers. [LINK]:

To liberate man from his threefold suffering: physical disease, mental inharmonies, and spiritual ignorance.
To unite science and religion through realization of the unity of their underlying principles." Etc. [See SRF's Aims and ideals]

You may wonder how to unite science of knowledge and religion of faith. Easy: Knowledge is what you believe is knowledge, and faith consists of many things of belief too . . . More elaborately: at the back of scientific disciplines are paradigms; and they have largely unverified assumptions for their basis. Assumptions are great beliefs. There you have it. The connection lines are right there.
The guru of SRF talked for self-serving colonies [communities] - but his fellowship has dropped that golden aim. But a spin-off society, Ananda Church of Self-Realization with its colonies, tries to serve the ideal of colonies:

The vision of the future that (Paramhansa Yogananda) presented to us was of a state of world brotherhood in which all men would live together in harmony and freedom. As a step ... he urged those people who were free to do so to band together into what he called "world brotherhood colonies": spiritual communities where people, living and working together with others of like mind, would develop an awareness of the true kinship of all men as sons and daughters of the same, one God.
Yogananda predicted [there] would someday be thousands of such communities the world over. [The Path, chap 1]

One of the primary aims of his work had been, as he put it, "to spread a spirit of brotherhood among all people, and to aid in establishing, in many countries, self-sustaining colonies for plain living and high thinking." [Ibid, chap 17]

"This day," he thundered, punctuating every word [during the most stirring lecture Kriyananda had ever heard], "marks the birth of a new era. ... Thousands of youths must go North, South, East and West to cover the earth with little colonies, demonstrating that simplicity of living plus high thinking lead to the greatest happiness" - Paramhansa Yogananda. [Ibid, chap 26]

Yogananda founded a monastic order to carry on his work. For the sake of that monasticicm, though, toward the end of his life he stopped accepting families into the ashrams, and turned them into full-fledged monasteries. [Ibid chap 26]
Yogananda called his ideal places "world brotherhood colonies," places to facilitate the development of an integrated, well-balanced life. [Ibid chap 42]. It is good to note that not everything the guru advocated apart from dictatorship, is supported by later leaders in SRF.

Literature

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Ak: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Man's Eternal Quest. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1975.
Ay: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Autobiography of a Yogi. 1st ed. New York: Theosophical, 1946. Online. [oaks.nvg.org/pv6bk12.html]
Ebu: Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica 2006 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD. London: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2006.
Ma: Pargiter, Frederick Eden, trans. Markandeya Purana. Calcutta: The Asiatic Society, 1904.
Pa: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Autobiography of a Yogi. 11th ed. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1971. – ONLINE 1st edition
Say: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Sayings of Yogananda. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1958.
So: Deussen, Paul, trans. Sixty Upanishads of the Veda, Vols 1-2. Varanasi: Banarsidass, 1980.
Tas: Ramakrishna. Tales and Parables of Sri Ramakrishna. 5th ed. Madras: Ramakrishna Math, 1974.

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