Autobiography of a Yogi

• Accommodation Forms
  • Adaptations
  • Yoga Gold
• A Basic Intent
• The Underlying Profile

Accommodation Forms

Broad hints that help the beginners, should be more welcomed.

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:

1. He strives fervently to adapt himself to whatever yoga he has come across. He may seek to enroll a group too.

2. 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:

1. 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.

2. 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 do not, you may eat them and be happy. Apply gardener thinking to ideas and ways you come across, and much may become different.

❖ Elementary and sanity-helping yoga knowledge is not barred from a beginner.

Yoga Gold

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 miser - in short, you make use of normal human attitudes and strive on from there. The path of devotion looks suspect, 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. But love is not the most important, and even Yogananda himself tells so:

  The satisfaction of love is not in the feeling itself, but in the joy that feeling brings. Love gives joy. We love love because it gives us such intoxicating happiness. So love is not the ultimate; the ultimate is bliss. - Yogananda [Jse 3]

  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 do not 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. In Buddhism it is taught one is to create good karma, go for heavenly merits, and be patient about that.

• 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 do not 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.

Leaving such as battering-dreamy love yoga attempts aside, insistent parroting of phrases as in base jnana yoga, or working for no benefit to yourself or your home, as in misguided karma yoga.

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.

A Basic Intent

THIS ONLINE modern yoga classic by a world-famous guru has been slightly refreshed. It is based on the plain First Edition of 1946 by India-born Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952). That version is now in the public domain, and there are several editions of it on the Net already.

This is an upgraded, modernised version of the first edition, published in 1946, by Philosophical Library in New York City, translated into British English by be. It is the same in all major respects, but with updated language, comments and introductory matter that may be helpful for getting a clearer understanding of Yogananda and how to deal with his teachings. There is also a newly devised table of content that incorporates pages of chapters in a later edition (the 11th). Italics in many Sanskrit words are dropped for now. Photos are as a rule not included.

The book was quite recently selected one of the 100 best spiritual books of the 20th century by Philip Zaleski and a committee of 16 world-renowned scholars and authors.

The Underlying Profile of This Edition

Do not be taken in and misled by halting ideas and ideals of Yogananda. Instead cater to what is truly good for you.

Yogananda and the fellowship he set up, claim to straddle two or three big horses: Science, Krishna-Hinduism, and "Original Christianity as taught by Jesus Christ". There is a nucleus here and there that pertains to science in Yogananda's teachings along with the religious garb or lore from this and that angle. Krishna-Hinduism is found, but no essential Jesus-Christianity, for the whole concept is a phantom - at any rate Jesus said he taught for Jews only.

The inconsistent Yogananda-concept of original Christianity for non-Jews would also include the whole Law of Moses on Jesu's word, and therefore instituted slavery too. However, according to the gospels Jesus talk against having other masters, against false Christs,, and so on (see previous page). But all the apostles and the Holy Ghost decided that only four things were to be required of non-Jewish followers [Acts 15; 21:25], so it might do good to regard Jesus' snarling as irrelevant and desist from cutting off limbs, plucking out eyes, and settle on poverty while allowing bullies the best of it all. What do you think?

Scientists are trained to be quite pragmatic and sceptical. The basic scientific procedure is scepticism put into system, one may say. The guru accommodated much better to that in his early years, as evidenced in his magazine (articles are found on-site). The guru who advocates straight, scientific thinking, says, "The best way to remove your weaknesses is not to think about them [Dr 410]." If so, the best is not to think about them in the best possible way -

Besides, it helps to know that life is moving through stages too. Do not miss any of the important id-linked stages of Erik H. Erikson. We should not overestimate flaunted miracles and underestimate the greatest, ongoing miracle: daily living. Apart from the idea that each life is a miracle, each day, nature and thoughts and so on. Most people depend on ordinary living. Sane standards of living should take such matters into account without beating about the bush.

The guru of Yogananda did not advocate belief, but rational inquiry. "Many teachers will tell you to believe; then they put out your eyes of reason and instruct you to follow only their logic. But I want you to keep your eyes of reason open; in addition, I will open in you ... wisdom, says Yogananda's guru, Yukteswar. [Ak 114]

At times Yogananda does the same. "I wanted never to be so dogmatic that I would stop using my reason and common sense." But later in life he took to religious-looking exhortions. I mention this to offer a perspective of the guru's drift to "God-peptalks" too. The kriya yoga methods the guru taught, were simplified, but twelve times better for the changes (!), and so on. [More]

Do yourself a favour: believe next to nothing, at least in public [Link]. Many accommodations that ensue from taking Hindu gurus on their word, do not appear to work full well. It is worthwhile to get rational. Instead of accommodating helpful yoga teachings to more or less rabid Christianity, I would prefer going for true benefits. You must dare to go against a massa problem.

Literature  

Ak: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Man's Eternal Quest. 2nd ed. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1982.

Jse: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Journey to Self-realization: Discovering the Gift of the Soul. New ed. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1997.

Rap: Gupta, Mahendranath. The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. Tr. Swami Nikhilananda. New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1942.



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