Autobiography of a Yogi
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"When in doubt, win the trick." - Edmund Hoyle.
| Supporting reservations are presupposed throughout: |
Win the Tricks
Sensible Teachings and Others
To strive to go deeper than surface things and shared exaggerations forms part of good yoga.
The guru Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952) authored his autobiography - helped by disciples - to make known some holy men of India, and to spread a form of yoga the guru eventually changed. According to his early philosophy the first cause of his work is your Self. Then again, he also teaches the world is unreal - nothing and nobody goes on in it in case - and Yogananda also teaches that God is the sole Doer. So there you have it: guru mishmash abounds. In addition he ventures on hybrid teachings where much of Christianity is made to accommodate to Hindu ways of life. Clean dealings is good, and so is staying away from unhealthy and unsavoury deals and objects and persons, indicates Buddha. Maybe it looks cynical, but "No man is quite so cynical as a well-bred woman," asserts W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965)There is more than one form of yoga. Some gurus teach abstinence, others the opposite. Since abstaining from a fulfilling and rewarding life brings about many unneeded, accruing troubles, abstain from abstaining too much!
How modern or up-to-date is the Autobiography is at present? It was written and edited by the Americanised guru Paramahansa Yogananda over fifty years ago. Its first edition appeared in 1946, and the editors have elaborated over his material in later editions, and extensively. His book is devotional and romantic as to Hindu living. For example a black basalt statue of the bloodthirsty goddess Kali with a necklace of skulls around her neck and her tongue out, is called beautiful by Yoganana. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder (Proverb)." There is much demagoguery to overcome or see through in the book. It rallies its ideas from a wide range of sources, but the basic orientation is that "Swamihood (monkhood) is good", "Vedanta teachings are good", and "Here is the Way!".
To these three embedded notions:
- To be a monk is to be aligned to one of the last stages of life in Hindu thinking. In other words, a monk is supposed by many to be more or less "dead" to many vital outlets, like having sex. In actual practice it can be different, and maybe it should, even though bigoted minds have made outcries .
- The guru author never says there are many forms of Vedanta competing with one another, but there are many divergent Vedanta teachings. Nor does he show how basic yoga teachings (philosophies) have changed over the centuries as to which teachings were in vogue. Today Vedanta teachings flourish and dominate, and in earlier days other teachings did. Yoga was not founded on Vedanta.
- The guru wanted to impress Westerners, and changed his teachings to that end. For example, he came to tell kriya yoga works 12 times faster than his own guru does, and tells that the fine Goal can be had 144 times faster too - after a change of teachings in 1934, one may add. He also teaches his guru had infallible insight, and yet goes farther than him as to prospects. Hm! The guru changed both his teachings and the techniques he spread. Few have been aware of that so far.
Gurus may be Hindus, and Hinduism is complex. If so,
"That it [Hinduism] has made, and can continue to make, a genuine contribution to Western religious thought is undeniable; that the invasion of the gurus is a part of that contribution is highly debatable." [Ebu. "Hinduism"]The swami (monk) Yogananda stated he had a devotional temperament. Devotional Hinduism arose between the 300s and 1000s AD. Many forms of yoga existed before that, and many different forms of Hinduism too. Along with the rise of Hindu devotionalism came up to over-fervent worship coupled to various gods, images, statues and so on. It is not necessary to be devotional, believing or crank to profit from yoga and its teachings, but "the guruism of crazed devotionalists" looks more than suspect.
- Be geared to what is of current value, at any rate.
More on textual findings
" Religious life is sustained by dualistic concepts." [Ebu. "Indian philosophy."]The frequent uses of certain terms as opposed to the comparative lack of others, denote 'sale' on various 'markets' - and also finding an entryway to promote certain things or ideas that yogis go for by and large. See whether self-sufficiency, frivolity, and handiness are under-promoted in the autobiography.
In addition to or over and above mere qualitative calculations of main terms and how often they appear all over, it is feasible to probe into qualitative nuances of words and term and concepts. The term "semantic differential" seeks to describe it. In such cases you form an opinion of how warm or friendly certain words or perspectives seem to yourself; you feel your way into how different words may be charged. It is not easy to do these things, and there is not much of a facit to be had so far. [Cf. Trap]
Since the more or less culturally determined, in part subjectively added 'overtones' or association medleys of terms vary and differ among us, there is no reason to make a big deal of these things here. We should be aware that very many shades and nuances and particular meanings put into words can differ much, as studies have shown. And most often it pays to be much tentative when it comes to qualitative studies of this and that form of literature.
But we do have a little study of how often and in what sense(s) the guru uses words denoting ego in his autobiography text and further: [LINK]
- You may study words and their connotations in order to get closer to the outlooks of the author or perhaps his background - or the Western audience he trying to reach.
Stop hoping for sacredness too
In a pragmatic literature analysis, what may be called the mental charge of terms can be investigated quite tentatively, perhaps a bit too subjectively.Some recurrent terms in Yogananda's autobiography revere holiness or sacredness in an Indian way, and some very frequent terms may not be familiar to all of us.
You should try to note the effect on yourself of what you encounter. For example, how great and worthy you feel after the reading, and what you want to go after yourself. Is it self-sufficient communities that you fall for? If so, you had better be warned that Yogananda and his fellowship backed off from them. It is too bad if you discover it after you enroll and never find your heaven on earth in the fellowship anyhow.
- Yogi training consists in letting go of ideas in a process of inward-turning (interiorisation). Hopes and fixated urges hinder that inward-turning.
Let being yourself and your individuality come first
Just try to watch the complementary role you are invited into. If it is good, try and keep it that way. If your role is that of an underling - and it follows from the premises that it is going to become that - you had better investigate into what you renounce. Degrees of freedom; your own style, perhaps, and so further. We say, "Look before you leap."If the guru's book enamoured you and his fellowship has deflected from goals and standards advocated in the book, just find gladness inside. You can learn or be jolly good in what you are doing anyhow. Otherwise, getting stabbed in the back (in one or more figurative ways) may set in motion vicious circles revolving around lowered self-esteem and lowered heed for oneself. If bitten or smitten, try to hinder infections, for prevention may be a hundred times better than uncertain cures.
To be an individual requires freedom: freedom from and freedom to, for example. The plodding way of individuals are uncertain, but they hardly include becoming "proxy people", vicars or sextons of bigwigs.
- Humbling is not a big goal in sane yoga, but in many monastic settings it becomes important and hailed, regrettably.
Don't forget the dear little nest as you try for good things
Find a good outlet for dominant drives in yourself, instead of trying to curb it
all. For example, the guy fond of shooting may get a career in the Army - just as simple as
that. Some get hailed, some get killed - but that is another story.For all that, one should not strive to make oneself hated by one's mate and others in the dear little nest, for that is almost always unfit.
- There is more than one good side to yoga and to monastic training too. It behooves a person to increase the boons and reduce the perhaps marring elements in both, so as to make good use of the best of them.
Led astray by wolves?
Yogananda presents many of his friends as Yoga Christs and in harmony with Jesus. One had better ask for good evidence; it is not found. Many assertions often repeated do not make a proof.But there is more to it than that; Yogananda uses an alternative concept of 'Christ' in his book. To him, there are many christs, not just Jesus. You find evidence of that use of 'christ' on other pages here. [MORE].
Some gospel evidence may be taken to go very much against one of the guru's favoured teachings, namely of being "of one mind" with Jesus Christ himself - since there is often so much discrepancy between endearing slogans of synchretic attempts from some Hindu swamis - Yogananda was one - and the much exclusive-looking stand of Jesus: "Me only for you - my sheep".
Some modern gurus may or may not be out on fishing trips. We find the guru ignores many salient gospel words for the sake of "harmony", at least on the surface, and through much debatable methods. They amount to such as 'ear-twisting' - that is, free-flowing demagogy that borders on propaganda and so on. [MORE].
- The conflict between sayings of Jesus against other Christs and Yogananda's hailing of other Christs, is well worth noting.
Some More Clarifications
| Students - | ||
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| Not all bears have to hibernate. And conform thinking that is silly, doesn't pay in any waters in the long run. We need to go against silly thinking the sooner the better. |  |
Start: It has been described that certain yogis try to live much like hibernating bears. Hence, "ice-bear yogis" is a real fact! |
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The bear is fair - doesn't beat about the bush. |  |
Welcomed in the West can mean playing major games of the West lots of times too
A LEGEND about St. Denis, the Italian who became the patron saint of France, says
that after he was beheaded on Montmartre around 275, he lifted up his head in his arms or
hands and walked six miles. "The beginning is the most difficult (Proverbial)."
[Op]"All beginning is hard," a proverbs says, right or wrong. So, setting oneself up as a disciple of this or that Christ figure could cost much too - if none has done it before in that place and circumstances, perhaps. And what costs a whole lot - you could have to make yourself hard to attain it, suave to keep it intact, so that the full cup is not spilled, as they say in Scotland - and later things could get out of hand anyway, just as Jean-Jacques Rousseau sums up in the very first lines of his novel Emile: "Everything deteriorates in the hands of man."
It may not be true in all cases. But after St. Denis had walked six miles, what happened to the head that was in his hands? You may guess it. Hence, Rousseau's saying can be alarmingly true even if this and that legend is far from true to fact and even if sound guesswork (or heuristics) comes into it. There may still be figuratively fine points hidden in a legend. One of them could be:
- What actually happened may not have been as impressive as what is told and retold later on.
Yogananda did not swim across the Atlantic Ocean
"Learn to consider."Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952) came to the United States in 1920, after annoying a clerk back home in India to get a ticket on a steam-boat. As a matter of fact, he didn't swim across the ocean. Not many think they should try to do that. Interesting? There were other things he did not do either. One of them was perhaps writing his first book - he employed a ghost writer, some tell.
He published his first book, The Science of Religion, before coming to America in 1920. The book never sold well, even though Yogananda wanted to reach a wide audience. Another swami wrote it, making it heavy and pedantic — after Yogananda had written down his ideas for it in a brief outline: Because he didn't feel qualified to write them in English at the time, he asked swami Dhirananda to write them as a booklet. Dhirananda was, in other words, the ghost writer. [Link]Now, there are some other versions of how the book came about, and some more words here on the Gold Scales [LINK].
The guru came to Boston by boat in 1920 and learnt by steps and stages how to conform to American audiences and sermonise for the public. Much of what he talked of was favourably welcomed in the West, but let's face it: Back on the boat he didn't have a clue on how much was to be done, he confides in his autobiography.
Like many other Hindus, Yogananda did not eat meat. He was a vegetarian, and in the United States he very soon was surprised that people sold hot dogs. And he gasped witt relief when being told that hot dogs did not contain dog meat. Well, cow's meat hardly sounds better to a devout Hindu, as the cow is a sacred animal to devout Hindus and Buddhists - at least it should be cherished and not overly exploited. - Solid enculturation takes much time, and for grown-ups much study and conscious effort.
In the 1920's, after the first hard years in and around Boston in Massachusetts, the guru travelled across the United States to inform about his yoga methods. The autobiography is devoted to the main medley of methods, kriya yoga, without divulging exactly how to do it.
Big audiences filled some of the largest lecture halls in America. There are good stories about happenings at that time too, stories that are not included in the Autobiography.
- You have been given many highly significant clues. Making use of them is up to you.
What a throng hails, is hardly outstanding all the time
YOGANANDA'S initial impact was largely impressive. And not too long ago, around the turn of the millennium, followers of many religious traditions recognised Autobiography of a Yogi as one of the hundred most influential books of the 1900s. But the gusto of inspiration could stem from deep inside the reader and in part be projected outwards (and in vain). And this is the teaching of the yogi Sankara, whom Yogananda hails. In brief, due to deep, essential projections and the hiding of these projections, the outer world is perceived. It includes all "others", including God Mom as a "you". A significant lesson to heed is: Don't be carried away. Why postpone that insight?This series of ascending insights is akin to: "To the shallow, all seems shallow." To the delicate, gurus are felt to be delicate, to others it may be different.
All may not be as simple as what is suggested, but to conform in ways that counteract the ideal aims of good yoga and things that renowned yogis have advocated, is not a sign of good sense. "Murky infiltration" against good yoga practice and yoga attitudes had better be detected and bulwarked against when there is time.
- To the shallow, there is time enough.
Broad Hints
Broad hints that help the beginners, should be more welcomed.IT CAN be good to ask for "a second opinion" at times. Yogananda has described himself as a devotional type of guru. Many of his instructions and favoured subjects show it as well. Devotionalism is a trap, however. We go into major facets of that below:
- Bhakti (love) yoga is intended to fit persons of a more or less devotional
nature. You are instructed to turn your dear attention to the divine and "love as best you
can". Various devotional stances are pinpointed in the yoga literature. You may love God as
a lover, a miser, a mistress, a child, a parent - in short, you make use of normal human
attitudes and strive on from there. The path is most likely a decoy, and the reason
is very simple. Good yoga is aimed at rising above human emotions of relating: In the saga
of yoga two examples may suffice:
(1) Ramakrishna has described how he was told by his chosen aspect of God Mom herself to rise above her, transcend her. For that reason a naked man, Totapuri, came and told him how to do it.
(2) In kriya yoga, some make love-attempts and others not. Lahiri Baba (Mahasaya), who introduced kriya yoga to very many, makes it clear that the aim is to enter a profound peace and hold on to it - and let it expand inside as well. One is not to desire results of the practice. You let go of desires, including base desires for God Mom or whatever. A little practice helps. That is the teaching.
In the light of this, devotees who obey some of Yogananda's injuctions and more or less fervently "cry for Divine Mother" on and on, days, weeks, years, could be misguided and suffer for it inwardly. However, it may not be that simple. What if she comes? At any rate, it may not be a complete either-or issue, but more of a both-and "thing". You may turn on "love God" when you are not up to gliding inward - A point worth studying is: You don't have to be devotional in order to practice kriya yoga. Even Yogananda's guru was not very sentimental or devotional. - Karma yoga is a yoga of work. The words 'karma' and 'kriya' have a common
origin, kri, do, and stand for (some sort of) work, both of them. Compare with
'create, creator, creative' and note the differences. If you are instructed to work for
unselfish ends, without catering to the fruits of what you have been working with, maybe you
have been misguided. Maybe you should have followed up and seen projects through more and
better.
- Hatha yoga is a yoga of body discipline, postures, pranayama (breathing
methods) that are aimed at mastery of the vital force, prana. Mental techniques of
concentration and meditation may be involved too, so hatha yoga may give the same benefits
as raja yoga. The difference between them is a difference of focus and what methods
predominate, in some cases.
- Raja yoga is called 'kingly yoga'. It incorporates hatha yoga asanas
(postures), breathing training, concentration and meditation (dhyana) methods. There are
many of them.
- Jnana yoga is thought of as 'wisdom's way'. The discriminative faculty of the
mind is used thoroughly, adamantly, and the self-quest may come to naught if you are sloppy.
We don't advocate it, thus.
- Kriya yoga is a system of methods that are classified as raja yoga, so the
whole system of kriya yoga is a variant of it with a designed medley of methods. Exactly
which methods are incorporated and their order of performance, may differ from one kriya
school to another.
Kriya proper (in a more limited sense) is mainly a pranayama (prana) method. After the kriya step in yoga training, come more than one further steps, just as described in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, a book which Yogananda advocates. The point is that in actual practice, kriya is one means on the road inwards. - Mantra yoga, or "sound yoga" is involved in hatha yoga, raja yoga (and kriya yoga), and is also held to be an OK, independend yoga branch alone. A good contemplation posture is much recommended along with it.
It helps to find methods that work very well independently of your temperament and inclinations. It helps to study good methods and yoga ways before you commit yourself to any of them. It often helps to reflect and tidy up.
In actual practice, more than one of the yoga ways above is made use of. Blending them in one or more personally suitable ways is part of the "game".
- Good yoga methods may not save you, even though Yogananda in some places says kriya yoga will, because it "works like mathematics". In other places he talks differently, you see, and insists that divine grace or devotion or both are needed too, not just prolonged practice. Note how he screws up the mind once in a while, this guru.
"Incarnated Rigidity"
"There is no such thing as a free lunch." - A modern American proverb.You will be told that practice of the method Yogananda knows about, will save you, nay, bring you the best of human existence, and your apotheosis (god-making). Along with yoga methods come organizations and the enculturations they may bring. Some of them bring about neuroses due to the aspirations and tenets of others - things that may mould your mind and lifestyle far and wide, and perhaps in no happy way. Some directions invade your love life, personal hygiene, and further. Maybe some of the directions seem necessary. Maybe all of them! Maybe ten thousand do's and don'ts is the thing you crave over and above advocating yourself on somewhat better terms. And maybe some don't fit outside the geographical region in which they were supposed to be adhered to in the first place.
Being given many, many do's and don'ts instructions from authority figures tend to serve other-directedness in your life, and much other-directedness could go very much against the true aims of yoga and contemplation - as helps to assert yourself and live a better, more rewarding life for your individual existence. Trying to get a personally favourable balance of adjustment does not have to be unfair, but much depends on what guru you have got and what he is after.
Generally speaking though, it is not kingly to enroll as an under-dog in some organization that later shows up to be a cult or worse, a sect.
In Self-Realization Fellowship, they have halfway ritualized the crying for Mother God ("and she will come"), and have carried on Yogananda's tactless outbiddings of the sovereignty of Jesus: The guru of Yogananda is called jnanavatar, that is, divine wisdom incarnated. He is described as infallible, all-knowing and almighty, a modern Christ of India. In the fellowship you are supposed to bow to him regularly and bow to that rigid presentation of him as well. Dissenters may not be loved. Beware. We have studied that guru's teachings and conclude that he is far from infallibe. You can see for yourself. [MUCH MORE]
These notes bring on a few more problem:
- If initial faith in gurus that have plotted or banded together has been raised, it could bring you good help through the workings of faith on a soul and its conditions. Where such dumbfounded beginner's faith is first "played upon" by a very bossy in-group, and next somewhat tarnished by observations and comments and much else in the life, the theorised effect of firm faith (even wrong faith may help) could dwindle. If so, hope to fix more and better faith in realism, positive attainments and yourself, for example. There are worse things to do than that, and Yogananda advocates all of them! He advocates lots of what we do, like it or not.
- Social contracts: If you enroll under a guru dynasty, you may bind yourself to some kind of social contract. Cults may show it very well. If you don't play your role (part) well, you may get stigmatised or heavily burdened. If you hold your own, persecutions may set in too.
- Yogananda's organization has drifted somewhat away from what is envisioned in
the first edition of his autobiography. But the leaders or the dead guru don't assume any
responsibility for such a violation of a proposed or set-up half-contract, do they? And if
they claim Yogananda to give infallible guidelines (we once received it in
writing from the SRF headquarters), much may go wrong.
Further, in most churches leaders pick and choose from basic material, and selectivity is rooted in deep stands - some elements get promoted and others are pushed aside. For example, Yogananda's first teachings that Satan is just metaphoric, was very counteracted by his retelling of an episode where Satan attacked him in Bombay in 1937. [THE TALE] Conflicting utterances by a founder is a gate to problems. It is best to be aware of it in advance, if at all.
Another thing is the bombastic phrases Yoganananda often use. He talks big far and wide, and it seems linked to his overbidding tactics. One example: He wanted to set up a how-to-live school in his centre in Los Angeles, and saw that he could not make it. That is fair enough, but what if Yogananda said "You must waken your indomitable will. I did. I can created everything I want by my will power. Where there is a will, there is a way," and so on? In fact, he said much in such a vein, but he is not quoted verbatim above. The point is:
- He could not bring about the how-to-live school he had envisaged.
- Also, he publicly announced he would go for a certain publishing enterprise some time later. It did not succeed.
- What is more, Yogananda wanted to have quite self-supporting communities, one may read in his Autobiography. SRF has largely dropped it.
- How can there be any favourable idolatry?
Care
Many who believe "too much" may later end up in deep trouble for it. One of the consequences could be inability to trust anybody ever again. It is often as simple as that if great emotions have been evoked in the first place. Emotions are often of a no-yes type. Distress brought on by gurus can have many outlets too.Often the organism is not up to the pressures it endures. If so, maybe gentle flower remedies and homoeopathic pills can help. Such influence encourage the organism to make necessary adjustments.
- Attitude: "Everybody is a liar" - after being severely cheated.
- Broken faith with someone
- Religious hypocrisy
- Life does not seem worth living
- Shirker, apathetic
- Vituperative, abusive, from great disappointments and the like
The gentle remedy helpers are non-toxic. They can give help. At worst they have no effect, if ill chosen and so on. At best they yield real help, a profound balancing.
- There are more hints on how to recuperate on other pages.
Forewarned, forearmed
"Prevention is better than cure (Proverb)." It is better to be informed beforehand against too big words and the problems they may cause others later, little by little, perhaps. High titles and social prestige can make innocents put great trust in vain utterances. It might bring about disappointments and terrible distress later, once the discrepancy between big phrases and actual happenings strike the victim of bossy, high-flung phrases. If you are forewarned, what strikes you eventually may not be like a lightning. Accordingly, keeping at least an ounce of savoury scepticism in you could do you much good later.And there is still more to it.
There is likely to be much to be aware of once you are out of your waters. Certain gurus advocate tenets and advance values that gurus held in high esteem, but there is much variance in this. And old Indian teachings vary as well as to what they inculcate. Yoga as a system and tradition is not unified in all respects, and Hinduism is not either; it contains a vast body of perhaps irreconcilable tenets. Much has drifted and changed over the centuries. There isn't always agreement in a tiny nest either.
If you pick and choose a monk to counsel you as to what is best, the summa bonum for man in general, it is hardly to be expected that he will insist that his fare of renunciation far and wide is inferior. For he has built his life expectancy on that fare. Bear in mind that "As you yell out in the mountain passes, so will your echo be." People often choose the ones they give ear to, their counsellors, and when the persons get the expected lessons they came for in the first place, it suggests that perhaps they went out to confirm hidden attitudes too. One should guard against underhand drivel, for drivel or insensible counsel both could bring on reduced quality of life.
Study the one you ask for counsel or yoga methods for a good time before you commit yourself. It takes time. This is all attuned to old guru counsels in the matter. In ancient India people didn't pick a guru at first glance. The established culture was to check each other out thoroughly before more commitment, and maybe for many years.
- In the quest for high quality tenets, one is likely to learn to welcome works by deans, professors, doctors and possibly experts otherwise. Keep an eye on high-quality books published by renowned publishers, often university publishers. Note what books are given good scores in high-quality journals too, and then you may have a mental cargo that might help against being taken in and dumbfounded.
Modern Echoes
Reflect on what is tidy and easy enough to follow through for yourself. It is not forbidden to travel and have a look at various gurus before you decide on anything. Maybe the second opinion helps, maybe not. Counsels vary, and in part in tune with the calibre and education and stands of those who counsel. Thus, there are many sorts of echoes around.Watch out for possibly neurosis-forming attitudes in encountering "modern bwanas" in the U.S.A.:
- Idealisation.
- Idyllisation.
- Giving up too much of yours in the hope of a better life or uncertain returns.
- Freudian defence mechanisms are tough to live with or deal with once they have been formed or flourishing.
Adaptations
The road to the divine is not a circus, Yogananda said.Adaptations are of many kinds and degrees. A newcomer in yoga circles may respond in some unhealthy ways, once he is "bitten" by body postures and mind-diving methods that work:
- He strives fervently to adapt himself to whatever yoga he has come across. He may seek to enroll a group too.
- He tries to adapt yoga to himself, his background and basic cultural
premises, and favourable sides of his family history too. The second main way is recommended
here at The Gold Scales. Here are two main ways to do it:
- Goldsmith ways are in part like that of Indiana Jones. He plucks the
finest specimen he may lay hands on from alien cultures, and later he may remake them. The
British queen and many others have jewels from other places. They were hardly found in the
UK terrain. To make the best use of insights and methods from afar, live with them for some
time, polish and cut them as expertly as you can master after learning the trade, and
assemble and reassemble. The results could be astounding, shining, much coveted.
- Gardener ways are much more favourable, frankly, for they are linked to
living and growing. A gardener judges various imported seeds and learns to consider if the
seedlings can have a future in the new homeland. Does the climate and other general
conditions agree? Will a hot-house be needed? And so on. Thus, learn to consider "the soil"
that methods and tenets are rooted in. Do we have near-identical conditions here? Will it be
worthwhile to invest time and energy in plants that may be awfully hard to
produce.
The principal advantage of "gardener yoga" is that you may enrich your life by clever appropriations of good ideas and methods from other parts of the world. Maybe some cultivation helps too. In fact, very much good food in Scandinavia is imported. Potatoes, tomatoes, and on, on.
You have to know how to handle the new items too. For example, if you expose potatoes to much light, they become green and hence poisonous. If you don't, you may eat them and be happy. Apply gardener thinking to ideas and ways you come across, and much may become different.
- Goldsmith ways are in part like that of Indiana Jones. He plucks the
finest specimen he may lay hands on from alien cultures, and later he may remake them. The
British queen and many others have jewels from other places. They were hardly found in the
UK terrain. To make the best use of insights and methods from afar, live with them for some
time, polish and cut them as expertly as you can master after learning the trade, and
assemble and reassemble. The results could be astounding, shining, much coveted.
- Elementary and sanity-helping yoga knowledge is not barred from a beginner.
Values back then and now
"It is a fool who does not change his mind (Proverb".Yogananda shows in lectures from his early years in the United States and in later lectures that his favoured ideas on various subjects changed. Interestingly, this pertains to his outlooks of the devil too. He states somewhere that first he understood Satan as something figurative. Later, after he had been attacked by him one night in Bombay, he had no reason to talk of Satan as merely figurative any longer.
If you skipped the tale link above, here it is again, the story of Satan-with-tail attacking Yogandanda strongly: [MORE].
As for the values inculcated more or less in roundabout ways in Yogananda's autobiography, we don't find much Tantra lore on how to make love, but there is no talk ultimate benefits of limiting sex severely. However, people are different. Gurus too differ in that respect, suffice to say.
"Learn to ask for a qualified second opinion in good time," is the counsel against being fooled by Lorelei or someone else. It could help against being outsmarted away from frivolous ways.
- Yogananda was attacked by just Satan - What could it mean?
Is a Hindu Swami a Christian or Super-Christian?
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| Clever ways should be well taught, studied with care, and accomplished after that. |
The gurus we find presented in the Autobiography, appear to come in the name of Jesus Christ. But in Yogananda's society there is no regulated and instigated apostolic Christian succession, no old sacraments, no baptism as described at the back of the gospel of Matthew, and not just one Christ either. There is a whole bunch of christs talked of.
Yogananda had his way. There is a chance the term "soap opera mishmash" or "hybrid religion attempts" become deeply meaningful if you read the Yogananda critique pages here. [LINK]
"Don't believe everything you hear" is at time handy, for example if you hear slander. That counsel could work well for you in many an encounter. There are also many lives that have floundered from submission to over-bombastic bosses and their "vicars", but refreshments tend to work in a better direction. Slapstick may refresh. You find some on this site.
- Clean dealings are a boon.
We have compared gospel evidence with Yogananda teachings
IN THE GOSPELS there are candid and stern sayings against false Christs, false teachers, false Messiahs. Jesus forewarns against two-legged wolves among his sheep. He also warns against having more than one Teacher, one Master - and he means himself.Be not confounded as you look into the yogi-christs of India, headed by the grand master Babaji.
There should be no reason to sulk over fair mentions. Learn to blow your (little) horn, then. And it may pay to stay judicious and perhaps await your time for a little. In the art of living, there is much that comes in handy.
- It could pay for newcomers to be both attentive and careful and heed the words of experienced ones.
Advancing guru work
Yogananda was a Hindu yogi, one of the first of that sort to visit The United States. Swami Vivekananda came some dozens of years earlier, and talked in public in Boston first. He made such a dramatic, vivid and favourable impression on Americans that he obviously paved the way for later yogis. Yogananda rose to become one of the most famous of them. His title was changed from 'swami' to 'paramahansa' (supreme swan) in 1936, on a visit back in India. [Cf. Via]Yogananda settled in the United States. They say millions have read his books. As for his yoga teachings, they may be hard to tackle, due to an initiate pledge that binds one hand and foot. There are many sides to many things - here is more material on the kriya pledge: [LINK].
- The Autobiography is a means to attract future devotees to gurus and "the work" (SRF), where some are severely disappointed, but have very little influence of the monk(s)-nuns run organisation at large.
Check It Yourself
The autobiography by Yogananda can be investigated a lot. On this site is the whole text (in British English), much as Yogananda first presented it before he revised it in 1951. We hope you appreciate at least parts of his gift: the first edition is in the public domain now.Later and copyrighted editions are published by SRF, Self-Realisation Fellowship. The many editions are reported to have sold over a million copies, translated into more than 19 languages.
The original photos of the work are largely skipped here for largely hidden reasons. As for footnotes, we have incorporated almost all from the 1946 edition. Later SRF editions have substantial additions to the footnotes, and more pictures and captions. We have compared with both the 1971 and 1981 editions.
- Later editions seem to have been "tampered with" somewhat by SRF by additions and changes. An example: "Never admit that you live by the power of food and not by the power of God!" in the first edition became "Never believe that you live . . ." in the 12th edition [Ha 88]. Others have studied these changes and additions. There are many others.
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Adjoined
Ay: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Autobiography of a Yogi. 1st ed. New York: Philosophical Library, 1946. Online. [oaks.nvg.org/pv6bk12.html]Ebu: Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica 2006 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD. London: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2006.
Ha: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Autobiography of a Yogi. 12th ed. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF), 1981.
Op: Simpson, John, and Jennifer Speake. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Trap: Nida, Eugene, and Charles Taber. The Theory and Practice of Translation. Leiden: United Bible Societies / Brill, 1974.
Via: Nikhilananda, swami. Vivekananda. The Yogas and Other Works. Rev. ed. New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1953.
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