Better than Taken In

"When the sperm and ovum unite to create the physical body, they do so at what becomes the medulla oblongata, at the base of the brain.

From this medulla, the life force moves out into the brain, down the spine and into the nervous system, then on to the muscles, etc., creating the body. " - Yogananda [1]

A medicine student, "He says the medulla is so very important because it stems directly from the very first fertilised cell. Well, all body cells stem from the first cell."

That is correct.

◎ It is better to know than to be taken in.

The Egg, the Weed, and the Organ

One rotten egg may ruin a whole basket. It is much the same with counsels. A state of negentropy (good order, shape, and the like) may be hard to attain. In the body, many, many cells, organs, and organ systems work together. Good life depends on it.

The food for thought we start to chew on and swallow, had better not fester and poison us as time goes by. There could be much at stake.

Something that could be very helpful, is to practice deep meditation, and ◦TM is of that sort. It is very benign.

For example, as early as in the 1970s, the Swedish government's National Health Board conducted a nationwide epidemiological study that found that hospital admissions for psychiatric care were 150-200 times less common among the 35,000 people practicing Transcendental Meditation in Sweden, than for the population as a whole. The calculation was made by Professor Jan-Otto Ottoson, Scientific counsellor of the National Health Board in Sweden (Suurküla, University of Gothenburg, Vasa Hospital, Gothenburg, Sweden, 1977.) - Paper 127: Jaan Suurküla. The Transcendental Meditation Technique and the Prevention of Psychiatric Illness. Vasa Hospital, University of Gothenburg, Sweden- Paper prepared in May 1977.

Dr Suurkuula concludes: "The remarkably small incidence of psychiatric illness among the population of individuals who had learnt the Transcendental Meditation technique compared to the general population indicates that the TM technique is not only safe but also has considerable value in the prevention of psychiatric illness."

Expectations

Expect the unexpected. - Heraclitus

Some expectations are healthy. Some are reasonable, others not. It may help to be realistic, if that can be. But in unknown terrain, much may not go as expected anyhow.

If you have unresolved relationship issues - unfulfilled back-up from "dear mother, father, friend, beloved" and so on - the bet is that crying for Mom "up there" will not help, and could work you harm. Seek professional help instead.

Yogananda's wailer way goes against the teachings of Lahiri Mahasaya "Practice of Kriya, abandoning expectations for results." (Satyeswarananda 1986,52). Yogananda in America made a play of aggrandised expectations. He violated the original kriya teachings and made a mess, writes Swami Satyeswarananda: [More]

However, Buddha says:

Whether they meditate with or without expectations, if they have the wrong ideas and the wrong methods, they will not get any [good] fruit from their meditation. . . .

But if somebody meditates with a wholesome attitude, with right attention and mindfulness, then whether he has expectations or not he will gain insight.

[Contracted from the Bhumija Sutta in the Majjhima Nikaya (The complete Bhumija Sutta)]

Much depends on the method, much on how one meditates, and much on how one disturbs his meditation by expectations, daydreaming, thoughts, and so on. However, a good method helps one to go on anyway. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has handed out such a meditation method. And expectations outside of the meditation sessions are not a hinder in most cases, is the bet.

An expecting woman has learned how to expect wisely.

There is a cure for expectations - TM.

To a well-organised mind, expectations may give rise to coming adventures.

Every man may make his own sound expectations.

The first few steps start expectations for more.

The fear of expectations is most often of little worth.

Before we choose a meditation method or system of methods, we can do ourselves a good turn by seeing which methods come out on top among the researched methods, and thus be informed about which method to expect the most of, from the averages that research findings are typically based on. Further, in between meditations we may measure up changes in our lives, say, every other month or so. Then, based on changes or trends we get aware of we may tentatively or halfway expect further beneficial results too - provisonally. Still, during meditation sessions we could aim at just doing the methods to benefit that way.

During such sessions, vagrant thoughts and expectations may calmly be replaced by resuming the method as often as we find we have drifted off from the wholehearted practice, and that his how to do it during simple, elegant ◦TM, Transcendental Meditation, the test winner far and wide. One may study the good research.

Bhakti variants

Ramakrishna talks of three kinds of bhakti, love of God: The better one makes no outward display and "loves privacy". Another sort makes a display of his devotion before others. A third sort is marked by the boisterousness of highway robbers, and by shouts as if by mad people. [Rap 494]

Yogananda's half-institutionalised "Cry for Divine Mother and she will come" could be of the lowest type of devotion. SRF further makes a show of devotion (medium type) by its rigmarole, altar worship of Jesus, Krishna, and four more of its Christs, and things like that. However, piousness, which is inward-turned, delicate fondness - that kind of devotion - may be on top. Adi Shankara:

Piousness suggests intentness of the soul on its own nature. [Shankara 1946, 10-12]

Piousness may also be called intentness on the reality of the Self. [Shankara 1946, 12]". (Shankara 1946)