• Word Distribution
  • Master is the top card
  • Possible significance
  • Ever Godman-Submissive, is that it?
• Possible Autobiography dangers
  • Word distribution again
  • Market concerns
  • Religiousness can lead to spirituality
  • Yoga Meditation

Word Distributions

The column to the left below shows how often words are encountered (their frequencies) throughout the whole book when footnotes are kept out of it. The column to the right shows words and word parts.

Word distribution tends to reveal patterns - There are some comments on the word count below the table.

Master Is the Top Card (Word)

Frequency	Words
463	Master, Masters (3)
419	guru* (including 8 'gurudev'*)
372	yoga* and yogi*
316	God'*
265	sri (holy)
241	divine
213	great*
199	saint*, saintly (15)
189	-ji (suffix)
167	mind, minds
157	swami* (Hindu 'monk')
123	sir
115	Kriya (handy gasping and further)
112	meditat* (can mean contemplate, contemplative, contemplation)
96	Lord
72	consciousness
64	wisdom
61	develop* (30), evolut* (24), evolv* (9)
55	West
43	sacred, sacredness (0)
43	dear
42	holy, holiness (2)
40	Christ
34	universe, universes (3)
32	sage, sages (3)
31	bliss
31	ego* (most often negatively charged)
29	monk
27	East
27	lips
24	modern
23	art, arts (5)
21	Krishna
19	intellect*
17	Christian, Christians (3)
15	divinity
13	monast*
13	wise
11	Christlike
11	fish, fishes (1)
10	silk
9	follower*
7	blossom
6	Blessed, blessedness (1)
5	South
4	clever
4	pond
4	philosopher
4	artist, artists (3)
3	Christs
3	tenaci*
3	gay
2	cramped
2	fool
2	cherry, cherries
2	couch
2	rational
1	humor
1	little children
1	consisten*
1	shepherd
1	Kung Fu (earlier: Confucius)
1	polar bears
1	artist
1	artistic
1	frivol*
1	make love, have sex (with variants in present and past tense), "live together as man and wife only once a year, for the purpose of having children." (1)
0	holy cow
0	disc jockey
0	Tao*
0	fishing
0	North
0	handiness
0	penis (incl. 'linga', 'lingam')
0	Hawaii
0	infamous
0	homosexual*

The asterix (*) marks a group of letters that may be found in various words. Thus, Tao* above is found as Tao itself, in Taoism, Taoist and Taoistic. There are no mentions of any of them in Yogananda's Autobiography.

❖ Terms most often found, can reflect deep attitudes of the author -

Possible Significance, or "What all this could mean"

Christ and Christs are mentioned 40 times. Hm.

Heuristics has many outlets. Here are my rather tentative considerations:

Master versus Christ - the proportion is about 11:1 in the book. Yogananda excelled in calling kriya yogis Christs. In the East, what goes along with 'Master' can be 'student' or 'disciple' - in another setting.

To be spiritual is to be attuned to Spirit. That comes first. And to be authentic ("the one you were to begin with without reading a book") begins it.

For studying the table, these hints may come in handy: (a) On top of the table are words that could serve personal submissiveness (near to giving up oneself). (b) In some loosely understood median range we find words used 100-200 times. Such words reflect in part things Americans once hoped to get into. (3) Toward the bottom could be words that intimate solutions against bossism (authoritarianism) and servility.

The words that are used more than, say, thirty times, show marked preferences in presenting things. Interestingly, the author speaks over twenty times more of "gurus" and "masters" than "Christ(s)". For what you listen to or read most often, may settle in the memory by the force of amassed repetitions of impressions. In other words, impressions build up.

In a book that for one thing talks for egohood development into godhood by shortcut method like kriya yoga, we might expect much and sound further presentation aligned to that sort of development, god-making. But no. More often we find disappointing teachings on attacking he ego. [Link]

As for the table above and its discreet uses, we cannot be completely sure of what everything means or signifies from mere raw data. When it comes to interpreting them, we are on the outlook for meanings that might lie hidden - more or less hidden - in the gathered material. It could become easier to understand what Yogananda is up to if you consider in this way:

"Well, if the text spans almost 500 pages, footnotes included, then it signals that a blend of some of these terms can be met with on almost every page throughout: Master, guru, yogi/yoga, God, sri (holy), divine, great, saint, swami (Hindu monk), kriya, Lord - and so on. (Look at the table).

That is what you get on the level of words, in addition to such as the twenty most frequent words in English conversation: a/an, after, again, all, almost, also, always, and, because, before, big, but, can, come, either/or, find, first, for, friend, from . . . Frequent wordings apart from the common brief words in a language, may indicate the profile of the work, and perhaps also some predominant or foremost themes or topics in it, such as "cosmic consciousness".

The ugly troll search

Yogananda filled the minds of simple readers and listereners with seeking talk. In the first edition of his autobiography, the footnotes included, seek* figures 68 times, and search* 26 times, travel* is used 64 times and journey* 14 times. His book is about a "seeking, searching traveller" not wholly unlike John Bunyan's traveller in the allegorical The Pilgrim's Progress in some respects. The protagonist gets onto the "straight and narrow" King's Highway - in Yogananda's case it is "learns kriya yoga", gets greetings of peace, and meets with some sorrows too on his travels toward the other side. [Wikipedia, s.v. "The Pilgrim's Progress"]

Many other "seek and search" examples can be found in books of assembled guru talks, for example by those who seek a lot - A word count in his Journey to Self-realization [Jse], footnotes included, but not end matters, reveals the use of journey* (words starting with journey) 14 times, travel* 23 times, seek* 167 times and search* 22 times. There is a lot of talk of seeking and a bit on travelling, then, spread throughout the 413 pages of text, introductory matter, and page notes, and this is not an autobiography; it is more about what he tells others is good. [Jse, etc.]

If we look closer into themes of Yogananda, many "ugly skulls" may be seen. Not only did he forsake the original teachings surrounding kriya, he changed the original kriya yoga too. He took to talk, talk, for many years, and often contradicted himself on vital issues like ego and ego handling, and more. He meant that unmarried followers were to abstain from sex totally. That too can be seen, along with how he changed his kriya hype to make its prospects many, many times better-looking - much and often without good evidence. [More]

Seeking God the Mother - Who of them could be all right for you?

There are two kinds of seekers: those who are like the baby monkey and those who are like the kitten. - Yogananda [Jse 258]

Why not like kids? Since "Unless you become like kids - the Kingdom is theirs - you won't enter the Kingdom". This teachings is Biblical, at least to users of American English.

Ask what to seek and why, too. And why not favour finding also? The secret of Lahiri Mahasaya's kriya yoga is finding without seeking. By seeking you risk getting dwarfed in time, or unable to develop the taller sides of yoga or yourself. You find a few quotes towards that conclusion in the next section. Finding is better than seeking when what is sought is favorable. So how to go on through kriya yoga, which Yogananda advocates? The original kriya teachings imply, "Don't degrade yourself to be a dwarfed seeker," in so many words.

Frankly, Yogananda speaks for ways of guru submission, not of seeking. He often speaks of "seeking God, and that goes truly against the higher, finer points of yoga meditation: Do not seek, for your own good. That is how inner progress comes about, according to Lahiri Mahasaya, one of the gurus behind Yogananda. His counsel is to try to lessen desires by calm breathing [cf. Gt v. 62-64]. Thus, "One who practices kriya sincerely, has to transcend the expectations of results from doing kriya [cf. Ut p. 12]."

Perhaps you were not made aware of that by Yogananda. At any rate, Yogananda failed to point this out as loudly, often and much as he should; instead he told others to "cry for Divine Mother like verrückt, and then she would come, he said. Let us hope she won't come to spank you or harm you otherwise either: it may be good to know that the favorite Divine Mother of Yogananda, Kali, is garlanded with human skulls. Yogananda "was devoted to Mother Kali as his Divine Supreme Goddess [Psy 26]." She may have a tender side too, as expressed through one of her four hands, even if her dress consists of human limbs. At any rate, "Everyone to his liking," as the proverb goes.

If you say, "I don't feel comfortable with a women like that by my side or in my bed," it could well be a good choice: In good yoga, people find and cherish a side to the Divinity they are attracted to and care about a lot. See what Yogananda cared about. Consider this quote from his biography: "Apparently, in yet another life he [Yogananda] had been a vicious and murderous desert marauder." [Psy 112]

Divine Mother as Goddess Kali, was Yogananda's favorite side to God the Mother. Here with bulging breasts and a necklage of skulls, among other things, as her iconology gives interpretative clues about.

Many have not been made aware of such "garlanded ugly skulls" of Yogananda and his teachings. Further, once fished and part of his cult, SRF, they dare not look around to get mature perspectives. That is how it often is, for terms like "guru loyalty" may get in the way.

Instead of repeating analogies of monkeys and cats to promote a defective view, Yogananda should have presented the teachings and methods pure, without adding personal preferences in large numbers, including his half-ritualised, rather scary "cry for Mother Divine and she will come", and so on. It would probably have been saner, fairer, and more helpful.

Always submissive, is that the plan?

So if you hunger for words that definitely indicate you are to take a deeply submissive stand in front of the holy monks of India - or one of them - or if you long for development of deeper parts of your mind or for freedom or more liberation in that way - this book goes into such themes pretty well, but not full well, and it does it with a "submitting attitude" by an expert of submit-and-clinge, and user of lots of useless slogans. That seems fair to say.

The problem with that sort of presentation is that the gullible may be wholly or partly led to believe it is spiritual and all right to become great clingers too - devotees is the word - always submissive to be considered fit in the guru's circles. A "submission deal" has its back sides, which manifest slowly with the years. There is reason to suspect that desperate clinging and attachment in the name of yoga makes us ridiculous. There are many sides to clinging: you may find you have been clinging (attached) to hopeless ideas, to indoctrination, to fantasies, to fanaticism, to improper opinions, unnecessary rites and ritual and undue self-importance. So let us say you have been cherishing the idea that "gasping for air" (kriya yoga) in a semi-ritual way for gaining divine importance, and starts getting misgivings. The fit step of yoga meditation is to go beyond such petty things into the blessed realms and gather wisdom andmuch else of value to your being. Conclusion so far:

Much talk of God, Masters and sacred fellows does not help a man full well, nor does authoritarian submissiveness training starkly against the non-attachment the Gita talks for. Submissiveness tends to hurt personal interests after time; maybe your character - and further development depends largely on your flourishing own interests, according to psychodynamic understanding.

Now, a rather simple word distribution study can help in suggesting some disguised, alarming themes that often escape the attention of lots of persons initially. There is more on it below.

❖ The total impact of a book consists of value-charged words too, not just quantitative repetitions.

Word Distribution Again

Words can be ranked and grouped and classified in more than one way, for example:

• The words that are often used can reveal much of interest, but we often have to study the phenomenological "charge" of the words, to be able to say something accurate.
• Words that are in 'medium' use and moderate use, may reveal a more or less hidden humdrum (of activities) the writing is on top of, yet it depends. Qualitative study has to go into it.
• Words that are hardly ever made use of, or not at all, may not reflect attitudes in vogue there and then, and they could thus contain liberating and still not outmoded solutions somehow, believe it or not.

So from the table on top of the page is it feasible to sniff at some of the author's communicated stances, attitudes, servility problems, sexual strength (bluntness, we presume); position-taking; attitude-formation to gurus and fence-building efforts. What we come up with may not be accurate, but still useful for certain tasks.

Much "qualitative research" in these days rest on peculiar strategies and the ability to form one's own opinions. It helps to become good at ascertaining. There are methods to go into for it.

Market Concerns

"Brag is a good dog ..." (Proverb) - Offhand mentions may be hard to tackle and deal with later.

Acclaimed books reflect preferences of acclaimers.

Most often terms used in a work reflect ideas and norms that are commonly thought highly of among those it adresses, in this case the public in North America in the 1940s and 50s. The book was written in southern California. One aim of the autobiography was perhaps to inspire acceptance for Indian gurus and yogis by terms like "saints" and "christs" and "holy" and so on. Yogananda goes a long way it the use of such terms.

Similarly, in the book variously named The Master Said, Sayings of Yogananda and now Sayings of Paramahansa Yogananda, a "Great-Master-reverence" glows throughout. I do not say it is unfit, I just express what is easily found from perusal of the book. [Cf. Ms; Say; Spo]

Religiousness can lead to spirituality

Meditation must be practiced every day. Start now! Yogananda. [Jse 407]

A problem with series of of appeals, exhortations, and importunities is that they are not conductive to personal development at length. It is quite a "top-dog" thing, too. As means to individual development, exhortations have defects. The early Yogananda tried to persuade persons into it, by giving plausible reasons.

Yogananda also taught, "Let us concentrate on That from which our being emerges: Know thy soul [Jse 200]." That is also a bit from his higher teachings, so often drowned in "seek-God" ideations and the like. According to Jung, a developing human becomes more unlike others, more unique, as a result of the process call individuation. Lots of general exhortatations may go against the unfolding of individuality. A spiritual person may not conform to religious cult-like behaviour. The spiritual individual may have to dispense with and also go against blind-folded common beliefs.

A truly liberating education had better offers good food for what is essential to nourish, also in the humanistic fields. Liberating self-help education and guru-dictated ways of training oneself and of conforming to a church, for example, may not always go very well together.

This is not an attack on religiousness in itself, for it is often rooted in basic friendliness, and can be very useful for tiny sprouts that need some fencing, or for twigs that need lenient enough support.

A puzzle is how the author of the Autobiography advocates development through self-effort and self-surrender. Self-effort with skill in accordance with wise teachings is helpful, whereas self-surrender looks suspicious. Better go for being realistic and sensible, for if realism is hurt in an individual, fairness could be the next victim along with truthfulness.

Yogananda: "I quarrel with God"

What happened to "Pick someone of your own size"?

Accordingly, being really spiritual is not far from being happy and having lots of fun in savoury ways. Appropriate and gentle humour is good for health too, according to recent research.

❖ Have fun! is a repeated part of Yogananda's message.

Not Essential: Guru-fantastic Words and Thrillers on TV

Yogananda's disciples do not have any monopoly on kriya yoga. In fact, the methods are described in textbooks of Satyananda, and basic kriya yoga is handed out freely on this site.

Yoga and meditation has become mainstream in the West since the time of Yogananda Cool, calm practice, and not "guru-fantastic tales" may help. Being sensational is not essential for the yogi. And ◦Transcendental Meditation may be the method that helps the most among the most researched researched methods.