Sets of Questions and Topics

It should be feasible to explore your dominant settings by a series of apt questions.

Run through a set of opportune questions and see how many "yes" points you may grant yourself. Don't swerve from looking twice and looking better if it gives help for life. The reason why thinking twice could help some, is that straight answering requires honesty, and it may take a life-time to retrieve it, if possible at all, after rigid sect involvement. Write down your points so that you don't forget them.

1. Have enough control of your own, from first to last.

   The unhappy clique may take up vicarious bragging. Great claims without a shred of evidence, or contrary to evidence, may be detected too. Heaven as conceived of by many, is such an item - streets paved with gold fit the poor, and on and on. The greatness of unseen but often spoken of angels is better than that of bats, and so on. Maybe the poor braggart is lagging behind too. There is reason to suspect that the better conditions here, the less need for drumming up quite collective fancies too.

   It matters to do better than gold-hankering ones, and might-greedy ones, and business-rigidity lovers.

2. Ascertain how far you have a say in the group of your desire before you're hopelessly bound to it.

3. Does the leader of the group or cell claim infallibility or wisdom?

   There is evidence that Self-Realization Fellowship, SRF, claims flawless wisdom on behalf of their dead guru, who is worshipped as an avatar, a divine descencion, a Christ. Compare a book by Geoffrey Falk on these and similar matters.

4. Do you get confused too?

   It hardly makes it easier at first for a cult member to find out how far the founding, holy guru or Führer talked and wrote against himself on significant subjects. Self-contradictions abound in the Bible, and in guru sayings too. [Link]

   Then there is the Bhagavad Gita authority in SRF. The guru and his gurus counsel daily reading of it. In it, we read that demons teach the same as Yogananda: that the world is illusory. That makes the guru one of the demons [Link], which Jesus used to cast out of people.

   But demons may be OK in Hinduism if they stick to fine standards. The story of Prahlada from one of the Hindu puranas, the Srimad Bhagavatam, is an example of it. He was the son of a demon king who tried to kill him by various means, but Prahlada did not misbehave. His evil father was then killed by the man-lion, Narasimha, one of the incarnations of Vishnu. And Prahlada became the new demon king - [Clh 312-20]

   He who knows he is confused is not in the worst confusion. The man in the worst confusion will end his life without ever getting straightened out. - The Chuang Tzu, chap 12, section 14; also Co, section 12]

5. Are you permitted to question teachings, to accept just some parts?

   Buddha allows it. [Link]

6. Is there a strong emphasis placed on recruiting new members?

   "Go east, west, south and east to spread the message," said Yogananda from his hotel balcony, in SRF's Golden Anniversary Booklet [Mas].
   In actual practice core things of SRF are in the hands of nuns and monks. They have other things to do. Among them is keeping Mata-monastic control over it and Yogananda writings, which they publish.

7. Do group leaders [harass or] make sexual advances?

8. Must you clear what you say about the group? Are you told what to say about the group? Are you free to come and leave as you will?

   In SRF you may come as you wish. And on the surface level you may be allowed to leave - but with guru words of dire fears and colossal sufferings for life-times for leaving too.

   "There is only one guru uniquely the devotee's own. But if you turn away from the emissary of God, He silently asks: 'What is wrong with you . . .?' . . . He who cannot learn through the wisdom and love of his God-ordained guru will not find God in this life. Several incarnations at least must pass before he will have another such opportunity." - Paramahansa Yogananda, SRF magazine, spring 1974, p 6. From a talk at the Headquarters, 17 Oct. 1939.

   Why add "colossal sufferings" to this picture, and expose a hidden curse? The guru writes in his autobiography that the head of the line of gurus, Babaji, said, "Repeat to each of your disciples this majestic promise from the Bhagavad Gita [2:40]: "Even a little bit of the practice of this religion will save you from dire fears and colossal sufferings." [Autobiography, Ch 34. Thus, when you leave the cheating guru, dire fears and colossal sufferings are your lot, is very well implied in what he puts forth.

9. Are indecent threats directed at former members and those who express a desire to leave?

   Apart from "dire fears and colossal sufferings" for untold life-times? Isn't it enough?

10. Are leaders honest about the activities?

    SRF wears a Christian facade of Jesusism, which hardly stands inspection: Among other things you swear unconditional allegiance to a bunch of avatars from India - and Guru Jesus. However, a Jesusian does not swear at any time, on his word. Swearing is not fit for a Christian-Jesusian. And SRF is marked by shallow facade-making and pretences too, not just inconsistencies. [See Wikipedia, s.v. "Jesusism" for more]

11. Is there a high degree of secrecy?

    Yes. The core methods of SRF are guarded secrets, although they may be learnt from other lines freely nowadays, happily [see Cy; Kta]. But Jesus (one of the SRF gurus, it is claimed in SRF), says one should not do such things, but give away freely what was had freely.

    Buddha too says in the Maha-parinibbana Sutta, (Digha Nikaya 16), 2:32, that he gives his teachings open-handedly. "I have set forth the Dhamma without making any distinction of esoteric and exoteric doctrine; there is nothing, Ananda, with regard to the teachings that the Tathagata holds to the last with the closed fist of a teacher who keeps some things back."

    It should be fit to adjust accordingly, at the very least for adherents of Jesusism, unless they are asleep.

If you consider that "yes" is a fit response to half of the questions above, try not to taking on a further, subservient role in that setting (group). The group appears to have traits fit for authoritarianism, which cults express in their own ways, openly or secretly indecently, as the case may be.

Gross Self-Contradictions Suggest Neurotics

The suggestions below pertain to SRF only:

• Are you allowed to dress and behave all on your own most often? -- Not as a monk or nun or novice unless you start your own order - which Nayaswami Kriyananda, a former SRF vice president - has been up to very recently.

• Can any member stay pertinent, handsome and neat as she or he likes? -- Maybe and maybe not. If you are a monastic, the rules are set, like all of them or not. If you are a lay member of SRF, it might depend how far you are from a centre and its enculturating influences, if any. "Far from court, far from care," is a proverb to bear in mind.

• Do your leaders deride frank and common guys? --

• Is there any unfit secrecy policy; or unsociable fractional strides? -- Yes, as for the kriya teachings. Fractional strides in SRF are probably repressed, if any. But around 2002 one third of all SRF monastics left. Earlier, after sister Daya got the leadership, many kriya yoga initiators left the organization too, writes the Yogananda biographer Dasgupta. [Psy]

• Do bossy dictates from above cause problems in sexual and other quite personal matters? Here is a handful:
  • SEX. Yogananda's "have sex once a month or less" to married couples can ruin a marriage. It has done so too. He also advocates no sex at all for singles among his devotees.
  • CLOTHING. His "good old regulations" of attire, going forth hatless, barefooted or in sandals even in winter, may not come in handy either;
  • FASTING. His dieting guidlines with plenty of unnecessary fasting look like a dated nuisance to me.
  • SLEEP. His sleep guidelines are incomplete and skewed. Yogananda's "five hours of sleep at night are enough," do not suit the long sleepers, for example. How much sleep we need is in part individual, and sleep deprivation is nothing to go for. See for yourself: [Sound sleep and Yogananda]

Fares are Good if They Bring Lots of Good Opportunities

Learn how to live well and hope for conditions that follow suit. You can hardly have the one without the other.

Stay away from silly fares in order to breed good opportunity also.

1. Stay away from silly networks for your own good - the sooner the better.
2. Go for candid, good fares where you're allowed to accomplish things on your own. If you go for candid, good fares fairly often, fairly well, you could thrive better and accomplish some rewarding things on your own, eventually.
3. Hold on to good chances and neat opportunities the day you can. It's better to take to what is normal winner truths that hearsay canon - and not waste opportunities either.

Stick to the Balanced Mate and Good Ideas

1. Stick to carefully faceted and smart thinking that is good for you and note that much that's conform through law can be at variance with religious instructions fairly often. Laws can protect people from unbalanced missionaries.
2. Balance neatly. Some good ideations (ideas) help.
3. Find a cosy mate and don't be overtly short-sighted. He who talks down on woman, forgets Mother. (Norwegian).

In "Celtic Christianity" monks and nuns typically took to communal living quite like families, and were allowed to have many children in their settlements. [see Aoe]

It is unwise to leak out your own basic frivolity; keep it well guarded. Much nobility shows the way here. What do you think?

Be still very fit for bland, local applications if fit and systematic. Think well in deep, private matters; it may be the best you can do.

Maybe your basic grounding is too scarred for you to cope well.

To Have Assets to Help You Remain Sincere, Is Well

1. Best sincerity is in congruence with one's footing and good grounding. Often you can allocate much more better. It could pay to go for that. There are many sorts of beginner's problems, and we have all been beginners.
2. Have your strong marks and sides. it could be that at times the best we are allowed to deal in is systematic presentation. Tidy, quite independent living is worth going for. And good things can take time.
3. Preserve good assets and gain new ones. The good life is well composed, well aligned, and hardly marked by flares of anger.

Don't Let Weird Teachings Be Your Lot throughout Life

1. Study basic subjects first-hand. You don't have to become a recruit of anyone to learn excellent yoga at home. Yogananda was an orator who talked big and used the Bible to promote his kind of yoga - in part with astoundingly wrong bible teachings into it. The late Catholic professor Mateo finds he teaches heresy, for one thing. The triune God of Yogananda is his accommodation of one of the Hindu trinities to Christianity, and not the other way round. You can read into it for yourself: [More].

   To study well, stay awake if the weird mist comes from the hills of dwarfing. Find better things to do than worship Kali, the man-slaying goddess-mother of Yogananda.

2. Good teachings stand the light of day - and clever inspection. One should not get into complementary patterns with fools, but avoid their company, teaches Buddha.
3. Much trusted gurus may get too puffed up and far too whimsical-categorical. Trust no neurotic with highly distorted talks of how illusions are reality.

Cults Considered

To obey is "always" an option for a small being. Maybe to get neurotic too.

Recruitment of new cult members under the flag of original quack Christianity had better be stopped. Hopefully those who haven't been initiated may feel free to leave.

The boss who started the church that came to be called a cult, may at times call those who leave "quitters or traitors", without finding fault with his own inconsistent sermonising and bullying.

Many cults claim their self-contradictory guidelines to be infallible or God's will and things like that.

It is easy to be fooled by telltales. But it tends to show up in the long run and in retrospect what the fixed aims of a movement really are, beneath the fine-looking facades and subterfuges. Greed for power, dominance over people, and much wealth and splendour may come to the fore in time - things like that.

A Coming Soap Actor

I knew a coming soap star in Hollywood when he was trying to enter SRF, before he found he was not cut out to be a monk. But while he sought to enter, he said, "Master said all you need to know is in the SRF Lessons." Well, it is not like that. An Arctic Survival Course is missing in them, for example, and learning Swahili, or an occupation, how to build a tennis racket, and much else.

In many cloisters those who have the roles of superiors, dissuade flourishing correspondence with the men of the world, for the influence is thought to be unhealthy . . . It might be the other way round.

Another eager intellectual liked to study, but gave it up for a long time while he hardly got along around the SRF Hollywood Centre. But he taught me to play tennis. I rewarded him with a horse for it.

Don't try to get complementary to cultish fever and its maiming of innocents.

Men in India who strolled around from place to place stark naked, if they were not monks, were they inferior to them? Some are venerated still, like "Nangta", the naked wanderer Totapuri who taught Ramakrishna how to meditate.

Real worth resides inside, and "it takes one to know one".