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Autobiography of a Yogi

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Preliminary Matter 4

   Supporting reservations are presupposed throughout:


Lessons
Fair play and candid talk should work like jewels.
The petals-augmented study edition, in part on top of the first edition in the public domain, is interspersed with good realism-enhancing teachings.

'Petals' Illustrations

THIS IS how the greeting figures on top of Autobiography chapters are designed, basically:

Ill. Petals
Petals design




LOOK AT the 'petals illustration' above. It gives a rough idea of one good way to read the comment-swarming figures that precede each of the chapters to come. These handy figures are only slightly related to mind-maps by Tony Buzan, originator of a certain sort of mind maps. They could have these facets in common:
  1. A CENTRAL PICTURE, from which one may associate ideas and let them branch out. A picture helps memory, generally. The central picture may (or may not) be linked to a general idea, at times it is a taciturn pivoting idea or nave - it could be found in the orange-coloured headline, perhaps.
  2. BRANCHED-OUT AREAS BESIDE IT: Around the central image there are three or more petals (coloured areas). These are for branching-out thoughts. The way such thematic areas are arranged, reflect a built-in structure and order among them. This fine way of displaying and connecting ideas is to help you associate better and often freeer, it is thought. It's associates are becoming many, including the still going strong mind maps that Tony Buzan developed [Cf. Mmb; Mum; Tor; Ebu "Brainstormer"]. [More on mind maps].
Research has shown that many kinds of pictures assist memory. The human mind recalls pictures astoundingly well. Both "odious" and humorous images are good for that. Pictures that lessen authority fear may work better than others, as they assist the libido (id, zest, childlike gusto and so on) better than most others. Many endearing pictures helps id to grow up, mature, and assist remembering, which is great for learning. Without it, you haven't gained lasting effects of what you've been working at, presumably.


Birds of a feather -

IN ADDITION to open-ended, initial study figures for pondering we have added pragmatic comments to the brewing ideations that may be seen as Hindu propaganda which may reduce realism in readers by and large.
       It's good to warn against being dumbfounded or taken in.

There are many forms of skeletal summaries for introducing material and highlighting it in the text and in concluding words. The ones we normally favour, tie in with advanced research of how mind and brain works at peak levels, and can assist good thinking. Allow calmness and healthy reflections into these things too and learn to ponder. It can bring advantage. Yet, for all that, it stands to reason to allow for certain differences, because there are differences among people.

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The ego instance

Thwarting the ego instance is a step towards becoming insane.
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Yogananda is a miracle-describing book. Some tales may be a bit exaggerated too; at least there can be more than one version back in India. It has showed up.
      For what it is worth, a smooth-functioning everyday life should be reckoned with as one fantastic miracle, and most other miracles are secondary to the plain everyday, which allows for those sorts of happenings among others.
      Besides, great and ostensible miracles rarely happen; so to the degree you mean business, you learn to calculate odds and deals fairly and rationally aligned with that. Rational reckoning can foster the personality facet (instance) that Dr. Eric Berne (bless him) calls the Adult. It is closely allied to the Ego of Sigmund Freud and other Freudians, like his daughter Anna Freud. The Freudian egohood concept links up quite well to ahamkara in Samkhya and Yoga Philosophy too. [Hom; Bob; Lort]
      There is normal egohood and not normal egohood. Dysfunctional egohood gives burdens, but normal and sane egohood is good to have and good to develop, no matter what blunderbuss decrees gurus repeat. We need a normal egohood and the development of mind that is a function of it. The Ego of Freudianism is not the same as selfishness, and this has to be pointed out. Foster normal egohood development is fit, and also contrary to dangerous kill-the-ego teachings of gurus from far off.
      Good and staunch rationalism is much due to normal egohood development. Egohood is to be developed in stages and along very many alleys of man. It allows for rational handling, rational coping, and much life goes down the drains for lack of it.
      Gurus from Faroffstan (humorously) may look exotic and talk of great miracles that abound around them - more often far away than nearby here - as a matter of fact. And want you to "kill the ego", as someone said. First observe: It can't be done. The effects of stunting normal and sane egohood are not health-giving, and may foster creeps. Some gurus foster creeps, accordingly.
       Some forewarning points may be told for the sake of forewarnings according to "Prevention is better than cure", and "Better safe than sorry" (British proverb):
  • WE DEFEND GOOD EGOHOOD DEVELOPMENT.
    Miracles happen so rarely that to instill firm belief in them, and base one's future on such interventions from above, could work a lot like infringing on sound egohood development in itself. There is that danger.

  • WE HAD BETTER BULWARK AGAINST ATTACKS OR DEMAGOGY AGAINST SANE EGOHOOD DEVELOPMENT.
    Another facet can be the more or less wholesale or freaking attack on normal ego in some circles influenced by guru teachings. It pays to be much alerted to these quite synchronised findings in the case of Yogananda. He talks and writes loud of miracles that hardly were verified by public documents (notarialised etc.) and wars against "ego" like the fattened calf itself. It's not fair, and could be a bit confused.

  • NOT TOO SCARED OF 'SACRED', FOR THAT IS UNBECOMING. The third facet of this work is the wholesale use of "sacred, holy, and great" for middle-class Americans in the 1940s and further. Apart from what's in footnotes, the 1946 edition contains just a few words denoting being handy, updated, frivolous and self-attained. Instead there are underdog-good words denoting that others are great, worthy of respect, and so on - much labelling of a sort that must act rather contrary to independence of thought and living. One may fear that, according to "better safe than sorry". Indeed, much so-called enlightenment is found through simple calculations at times.

  • WE ADVOCATE FAIR USE OF CONCEPTS AND GO AGAINST THE MEDLEY CIRCUS. Misuse of Christianity for the sake of more welcomes - it could be suspected or at least studied, for sociologically speaking, it is possible to avoid attacks from many quarters by licking up to Jesus and Christianity in old and new ways. And yet, fair play is not to be aborted and dispensed with unless one is much in want of getting one's ears boxed - things like that. You find a work filled with crooked (not straight) use of Christian concepts - for the sake of uniting avatar-loving Hinduism with Jesus and find rich men's welcomes -

  • SELF-HELP IS FINE. IT INCLUDES HANDY ITEMS AND WAYS OF CHECKING AND SORTING OUT THINGS FOR ONESELF TOO.
    One had better strive to look for oneself. Life often depends on it. And a good warning in time can help many lives, if not save them full well. Yogananda's work is a mature work of propaganda. It may look odd - and propaganda may look that way fairly often. The guru-hailing book may capture juvenile fancy and ideation, if not hearts. If romanticism gets the better of guys, they may end up in a cult. That fare has cult dangers that may outrun or outlast the dangers of the decadent, urbanised and consumerism-narrowed large society of the West. Even though what the guru set up in 1935 was called a non-sectarian church of all religions by him then, in recent times words like "cult" and "sect" is used to describe it, also by former monastics of the guru's order. But in the early days it was not like that.
    Swami Yogananda brings the ideals of this Sat-Sanga Order to America, and calls his educational, non-sectarian message by the name of "Yogoda Sat-Sanga. ["Yogoda" www.fortunecity.com/tattooine/silverberg/119/yogoda.html]
  • ONE SHOULD BEWARE OF UNCLARIFIED CONCEPTS AND THE LATER 'DANCE' THEY MAY BRING.
    Not everything the guru asserts, can be truth itself. Yogananda talks against himself all too often in other works that followers have edited and published.


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Adjoined

      Bob: James, Muriel, and Dorothy Jongeward. Born to Win: Transactional Analysis with Gestalt Experiments. Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley, 1971.
      Ebu: Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica 2006 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD. London: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2006.
      Hom: Berne, Eric. What Do You Say After You Say Hello? The Psychology of Human Destiny. New York: Bantam, 1973.
      Lort: Freud, Anna. Jeg'et og forsvarsmekanismene. (The Ego and the Defence Mechanisms) Rev. ed. Oslo: Gyldendal, 1964.
      Mmb: Buzan, Tony, with Barry Buzan. The Mind Map Book. Rev. ed. London: BBC Books, 1995.
      Mum: Buzan, Tony. Make the Most of Your Mind. Rev. ed. London: Pan, 1988.
      Tor: Buzan, Tony. Speed Reading. Rev. ed. London: David and Charles, 1988.
     

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