• Self-Realization Fellowship's Kriya Yoga Pledge
• Sound Moral and Yogananda
• A Drift

Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) asks those who want to learn kriya yoga as members of their church, to sign a binding oath. They say they stand for the same as Jesus who is credited with "Do not swear at all (Matthew 5:34-37)." Yogananda claims the bond should last for up to life-times; it could have drastic backsides, but you may not be told all that up front in SRF. That guru also claims kriya may hasten your progress in a world of illusion, and his shortened and changed kriya yoga will also hasten much in an unreal universe, as Yogananda teaches most of the time. [Yogananda Dreams] What is more, Yogananda's changed kriya might be less than good enough, writes his fellow disciple Sailendra Dasgupta (2006, 108-10).

SRF's kriya pledge is an oath. It allegedly links a sworn-in guy to Jesus who warns against other Christs than himself (Matthew 7:15-20; 24:5; 24:24 etc.) and says his teachings, heaven and salvation are for Jews only (Matthew 15:24; 10:5-10). How many respect that? To play fair is not to hide any guru-claim on Christian souls or other souls, but to tell of them up front.

You may not be able to keep your kriya promise into an unforeseen future. Abraham Lincoln: "We must not promise what we ought not, lest we be called on to perform what we can't." [More on promises]

By submitting to SRF and believing in Yogananda's claims to be your guru for lives to come, you forgo vital Human Rights, including the freedom to change your beliefs and religion (from Article 1). [Human Rights to consider].

Self-Realization Fellowship's Kriya Yoga Pledge

Don't be bound by anything. That philosophy will save you. - Yogananda [Dr 26]

"No hoaxes" could be a better policy.

An alternative to binding yourself and fall because of it is to learn sound kriya in freedom, for the core method (called ujjayi) is public knowledge, and kriya yoga hinges on that easy pranayama method. [Ujjayi explained].

Demoniacs?

In John 8:44, the devil is described as "a murderer . . . not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him . . . he is a liar and the father of lies."

It the gospel of Matthew, Jesus says his teachings, heaven and salvation are for Jews only (Matthew 15:24; 10:5-10), and enlarges on that, stating that his teachings are for depraved (ill) Jews alone. [See gospel passages about it]

And what about the later-added Missionary Command at the end of Matthew? It is a later-added gospel forgery, holds Joseph Wheless, and also the Bible scholar Geza Vermez (2012).

As for Bhagavan Krishna, who is also honoured as a claimed SRF guru, it seems wise not to drag Him into any cult of Yogananda talk. Here is a reason why:

"The universe is an illusion," teaches Yogananda repeatedly. All the four SRF gurus teach similarly, but without counting in their teaching and appearances in that claimed, illusory world.

Two Bhagavad Gita verses say, "Those who are demoniac . . . say that this world is unreal, that there is no foundation . . . (16:7-8)

Evidence:

It would seem that these four gurus forgot to count in themselves, their kriya yoga pledge, all their teachings and so on, not unlike the wise men of Gotham in a tale. Thereby the four SRF gurus come dangerously close to not complying with the Bhagavad Gita's definition of demons . . . if they do not exist, that is, and their teachings and oath and further. It would be quite another matter if they did exist, or do exist, for then, according to the verses quoted, they would be demoniacs.

The one who is taken in by talk coupled with paintings (such altar pictures) to worship, and swearing all too much or badly, could be in for losing a lot in life later.

In Ordinary Wisdom: Sakya Pandita's Treasury of Good Advice (2000), Sakya Khenpo Sangyay Tenzin (1904–90), comments on Sakya Pandita's verse 233":

Without being specially lured, ducks are naturally attracted to lakes ornamented with enchanting lotuses because they find them so pleasing.

One must take care of people in considerate ways that make them happy. (2000, 155.)

Yogananda, however, wanted to attract a lot of "fish", "Behind every effort by Yogananda was the root purpose of attracting men and women to Kriya Yoga, no matter what the means," writes his biographer (Dasgupta 2006, 101, emphasis added).

Great-sounding words work as big baits also. With a human, calculating, pleasing, endearing words may be baits and cover hooks. It is not bad to to inspect a bait in your way so as to escape a hook. Beware of big, old baits if you can.

Here is the SRF kriya oath:

A Swearing Plot or not? The SRF Kriya Pledge

A house with a damaged top floor,
And a mountain crest that is very unstable -
Living under such conditions is always fearsome.

- Sakya Pandita, from v. 164

If we take a look beneath the rug of mojo-words, how is the state of the floor beneath it? If the gospels' go-and-maim-yourself Jesus is into the pact of the kriya oath, the goings may get horrible. And if he is not there and is not for other masters than himself and so on, then SRF goings might get worse beneath a "Kali-guy" who brought untruths to court and lost his case there.

An oath is like a bridle and serves to keep you bound and perhaps steer you into the future. But fit ways and Yogananda's ways may be different. Consider Yogananda. He wrote warmly for dictatorship, Hitler and Mussolini before World War II. Besides, consider how gruesome this would be if fitly verified: "Yogananda . . . During World war II he said it was he who placed the thought in Hitler's mind to invade Russia." (Kriyananda 2011:131)

If true it is horrible, if untrue it is bad for one or several other reasons. Many millions farm animals were probably killed as a result of the Nazi regime attacking the Soviet Union. Tens of millions of those killings might have had nothing to do with any "war karma" of the calves, lambs, piglets and all the other animals that were bombarded, taken and slaughtered - not to mention millions of village dwellers and others in many countries.

If Yogananda had done what he told he had done and is rendered without serious flaw, he takes credit for witchcraft, also called Black Arts. It must be pointed out that Yogananda-claims of contributing to a lot of war crimes during World War II did not reach the Nuremberg trials. Big claims are not always true, and if they are, not always verified.

Some do get disappointed in SRF. Between 2000 and 2005 one third of the SRF monastics left the SRF organization. (Parsons 2012, 170)

The Stand of Krishna?

According to the nothingness-teachings of the line of four kriya gurus in SRF, the kriya pledge (as part of the universe) is unreal. PUFF.

It is too indecent to tell the world is unreal without including yourself and your teachings as in the world, of the world.

Then, what is the value of what the venerated scripture Bhagavad Gita tells about demoniacs in 16.7-8? Given how the present Gita has come into being, those words should be studied in the light of the first Gita or something similar. Most Gita chapters could be like the Missionary Command of Jesus - later additions after centuries. However, many Gita points could still be very helpful and not self-contradictive Bible sayings over and over. [A Post-Vedic Bhagavad Gita]

Sometimes it helps to study the scriptures, and sometimes it alerts us to wider rangers of problems, just as science and study should do. "For each answer, ten questions open up," - something in such a vein. "Ten" is just a figurative way of saying "more". It may mean "many more" too.

The issue of solemn swearing

Solemn swearing in a mist is still supposed to be binding.

Being duped and victim of preposterous claims and oaths or not, that is the tricky question.

To promise much and submit to fraudulent teachings can be hard to live with - for: "Do not swear at all . . . Anything beyond this comes from the evil one. (Matthew 5:33-37, passim). Consider that what he says implies that Yogananda's SRF oath comes from the evil one.

Jesus of the Bible warns beforehand against having other masters than himself. Simply put: If you want to be loyal to the Jesus of the gospels, who warns against having other masters than himself, you cannot become an SRF member.

Secrecy or not

SRF-allegiance can bind and cramp with a plan against the gospel's "freely you have received". (Matthew 10:8).

During his last days, Buddha sets an example:

The Blessed One [said,] "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.

[◦Last Days of the Buddha (Maha-parinibbana Sutta, Digha Nikaya 16, 2:32]

Kriya Yoga Issues

1. Satyananda Yoga offers a kriya yoga medley in publicly available books.>: [More]. Satyananda books are compilations from teachings given by Swami Satyananda (1923-2009) and serve in part as step-by-step guides, in part as repositories. [Cy; Kta]. [Compare two kriya lines]

2. SRF's shortened kriya. There are several schools or lines that teach significant parts of kriya yoga and variants. Simplified Yogananda kriya.

Further, in SRF, guru speeches are formed into churchy rigmarole. Also, being a member may interfere much with the sex life. SRF is further marked by extreme claims against scriptural evidence. Nice, loving deals are different. [Scriptures made use of]

Kali-guys like Yogananda want much "fish" and drink much "blood"

Qui se ressemble s'assemble: Birds of a feather flock together (French and British together)

The guru forms bonds designed to last into future lives. If that guru is good, it may not be bad, but if that guru should fall and end in hell - who says he won't? - it implies the loyalty bond to him is far from ideal, or what?

At any rate, Yogananda said he had been the enlightened Arjuna and Krishna's friend, and later a vicious desert marauder, a brutal tyrant and so on, till he became Yogananda. Believe he talks of a long, black road before he became a Kali-guy giving kriya - his biographer Dasgupta says he was a Kali-guy: "From very early on in childhood, Mukunda Lal [Yogananda] was devoted to Mother Kali as his Divine Supreme Goddess." (Dasgupta 2006, 26).

Kali's iconography reveals her basic sides as a woman who violates human and animal lives, sacrificing lots of them. She is described as red-eyed, with small fangs sometimes protruding out of her mouth, and a lolling tongue. She is firm and well-shaped, naked, or just wearing a skirt made of human arms and a garland of human heads. She is accompanied by serpents and a jackal, holding a severed skull and drinking blood from it, and so on. The Encyclopaedia Britannic tells that Kali is Sanskrit, for "she who is death". Kali's iconography, cult, and mythology commonly associate her not only with death but also with sexuality, violence." (EB, "Kali (Hindu Goddess)"

"How different, how very different, from the home life of our own dear Queen!" - A comment overheard at a performance of Cleopatra by Sarah Bernhardt [Anonymous, in Sherrin 1996, 280]

In India, beginners in some forms of yoga find their favourite goddess, and she is probably not all like the British queen. The favourite - such as a goddess that is depicted as drinking blood from severed skulls of humans - is then worshipped and more may follow. Yogananda, for example, said he came to America to teach people how to die. "We ought not to fear to practice conscious death . . . Death will then be under our control," writes Yogananda in The Science of Religion (2008, 57-58).

Caveat. Saying it and doing it may be different at times . . . When Yogananda was in his forties, his brother Bishnu Charan wanted him to stop his heart at a gathering of millionaire merchants to demonstrate an extraordinary and inhuman ability and thus clear the way for financial funding. After the attempt, Bishnu Charan disappointedly said that Yogananda had "ruined everything. He wasn't able to stop his heart from beating."

Nothing about this failure was made public at the time. (Dasgupta 2006, 83).

In a poem, Yogananda also wrote fourteen lines that were edited out of Autobiography of a Yogi after his death: "Myself and . . . good, bad, salvation, / I swallowed up � transmuted them / Into one vast ocean of blood . . ." were among them. Yes, he writes he swallowed up himself and became an ocean of blood. It is in the first edition of a book that is presented as an autobiography, but a former SRF president, Daya Mata, when she was old, "signed a declaration, under oath, that Autobiography of a Yogi had not been written by Yogananda himself, but by a committee. Moreover, she also wrote under oath!) that he had written Autobiography of a Yogi as a "work for hire."

The judge who handled her claims in a court case about copyrights, asked SRF's legal representatives, "Are you saying that your guru was only an employee of yours, and had to do exactly as you, his own disciples, commanded him?" ([Yogananda for the World, Chap. 16] - [About an edited book that SRF still credits Yogananda with]

Again, "How different, how very different, from the home life of our own dear Queen!"

What aspects of life did Yogananda like best; murder and mayhem kept out of it? It may be left for you to decide.

What Yogananda teaches is that though he is long gone, dead, he is in charge of his sworn-in disciples of SRF. That is its teachings, at any rate.

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 Mother Centre, 8/17/39

Then a bit of questioning. Look at something Yogananda often said, "We are all crazy" (1982:425) and how he hailed dictatorship in his day - and brought "unreal" money charges to court also. Tsk, tsk.

The Yogananda quote above goes against most guru-disciple relationships, where disciples are free to leave a guru and go to another and another, for that matter.

We could profit from being well informed about most relevant aspects of a pledge and a guru before we swear off more than we may possibly foresee. Worth a look or three:

✑ [Yogananda, a false prophet]

✑ [Yogananda - A War Criminal?]

SRF Ideals - in part bogus

We can hopefully do better than succumbing to bogus. It may be good for a Catholic to know that SRF goes for evolution into God consciousness, while a professor of the Catholic Church considers that such a teaching is heresy. [Link].

It should could help to see that in their public aims and ideals, SRF hoist as flag of "harmony and basic oneness of original Christianity as taught by Jesus Christ and original Yoga as taught by Bhagavan Krishna," even though there is no such perfect harmony. For example, Yogananda teaches the soul is immortal (1982:297; 1993:296; 1980:25; and East-West, March—April, 1929, Vol. 4—2, "Spiritual Recipes"), while Jesus says the soul can be killed in hell. (Matthew 10:28; Luke 12:4-6; Matthew 5:29). [More discrepancies]

Former Lives Skeletons in the Closet

A study of several claimed, former lives of Yogananda reveals that he claims he was Arjuna, and therefore somewhat enlightened long ago, if the current Bhagavad Gita's chapter 11 has got it right. After the Arjuna life claim - where he was a polyandric with a harem, and also someone who was changed into a snake to seduce a woman - none of his so-called past incarnations seem to have been enlightened - he never taught kriya or stood up as a guru after being enlightened and made a snake in a woman's bed by Krishna.

Yogananda also claimed to be other persons, including a vicious, murderous desert marauder. Thinking of it made Yogananda shiver with horror from time to time, says his biographer (Dasgupta 2006, 112). Yogananda also claimed he had been William the Conqueror, the brutal, over-greedy and maiming tyrant, we are told [Link].

Much future swearing may be in store for the companion of a future marauder or killer - or former Yogananda. He wrote for dictatorship too in his own magazine in February, 1934. [Read and weep] [◦Find his dictator-fondness in PDF format]

Will Yogananda become a murderous desert robber again? you may well ask.

Besides, what if you got ready to rejoin him after one, two, or ten lives, and find that Yogananda was not teaching kriya at all in those incarnations? See what is let out about "Yogananda's past lives". The guru also said he had been William Shakespeare, a fighter in Spain, and others. [More]

It could work for good not to succumb to the guru's alarming stick-to-me-or scenario in the first place. [cf. Dr 26]

~ೞ⬯ೞ~

Sound Morality and Yogananda

Sincerity will save you. - Yogananda

Or maybe it will not, or if it will, not from a lot, and so on. Now, maybe great-looking words will fatten the cabbage for a guru and his cult if it makes inexperienced folks join it and start to pay tithe and bequeath their property, as may be asked for. As a sect member or marriage partner, the more control, assets and resources you give away to others, the more others may take away from you. Some old people know about such dangers from experiences with heirs too.

Some cult steps:

• Making baits. Yogananda wanted to attract many followers. The carrot, so to speak, is several great-sounding words and phrases and divine-looking promises in the end. However, do they stand inspection? Is there a hook of submission inside?

• Entrapment (binding) sets in after taking the bait, getting hooked, getting caught in a net, hauled in, and further. To the degree the kriya oath serves to bind and regulate submitting fellows to Yogananda, it could be a fetter.

• Cementing and keeping a catch. Then come guru sayings against losing disciples, called them traitors and such things, speaking of "extreme misery" or "colossal sufferings", and wasted opportunities etc. may suggest a need for a whip.

Some there are who praise honesty as a saving thing, but do not implement it full well, so that innocents may come to harm for the lack of it. Outcomes of honesty and bravery also vary along life's journey. You may need a moral backbone too.

Dharma and yoga

The Bhagavad Gita advocates a "no backlash" approach to yoga-meditation, without "colossal sufferings". You may find these topics elaborated on and substantiated further down.

In verse 2.40 this is said about meditative yoga:

Nehaabhikramanaasho'sti pratyavaayo na vidyate;
Swalpam apyasya dharmasya traayate mahato bhayaat.

Sivananda translates it thus: "In this there is no loss of effort, nor is there any harm (the production of contrary results or transgression). Even a little of this knowledge (even a little practice of this Yoga) protects one from great fear."

Lars Martin Fosse has "There is no unsuccessful effort here, nor is there any backlash. Even a little of this law saves one from great distress. [2007, 20]"

Explanation: 'Dharma' in 'dharmasya' in the Sanskrit verse, has a wide range of meanings, including 'what is right', knowing, practice, moral law, and also natural law (natural justice which upholds or supports), and religion in a sense which is attuned to a law that steers the universe and an essential function or nature of a thing - and it means much else. (Sanskrit Dictionary for Spoken Sanskrit).

Adhering to dharma encompasses adhering to moral. To cheat beginners in meditation is not of dharma, not dharmic. It violates the moral codes embedded in niyama and yama in yoga also.

To present old, selected sayings and push aside on other sayings that gainsay and do not support the selected ones at all, or not very much, very, very little, or not at all - that makes for a sect. A booming sect may finally be reckoned as a religion, or a variant of a religion. Are its members more moral or less moral than non-religious people? In a 2012 study that was published in the Social Psychological and Personality Science non-religious people were more inclined to show generosity in random acts of kindness, and to be charitable in other ways too. (WP, "Morality") Would you know?

Promising over your head may in time deplete your funds (widely understood), binding the central core we call heart, its feelings and actions far into an unknown future through, "A word is a word (a promise is to be kept)".

At the end of the day we normally do well in preserving savoury and useful freedom. To help us with it, the UN charter is made legally valid through a human rights law. Your country's back-up Law of the UN Charter is the legally valid thing, but you probably need to check many other things also. [Link]

In Self-Realization Fellowship, several sacraments in Christianity are dispensed with, and you may meet no tongue-talkers and no apostolic succession from the ranks of Jesus. Also, gospel words may be twisted to suit the guru and the other leaders. [Debating it]

Some call long-gone gurus unerring, infallible and the like - and thereby seem to play all-knowing and infallible themselves, through a faith, which is often by whim. Also, rather unprincipled or low guru followers are satisfied with transgressing against historical Christianity for the sake of present hypocrisy. Getting educated might have helped some.

The problems of verbiage and unclear teachings

If I had a thousand mouths, I would speak through them all to convince you. - Yogananda, Ak 111]

One mouth saying one thing, and another another thing, and so on could make blur. Along with a thousand mouths are a thousand times more tooth-aches, and corresponding dentist bills - more than one mouth and tongue at any rate. [More]. Examples:

Never believe that you live. [Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi. [Ha 88]

Hard work . . . has never hurt anyone. - Yogananda [Ak 204]

Opposed to it, there is no reason to take Yogananda seriously if he never lived as he says . . . Besides, "Work kills more people than war" may be fit.

Are you intrigued by lots of hazardous guru mentions? Don't. Being forewarned and taking heed in time can bring long-range benefits and one's own family instead of rags.

Sri Krishna

In SRF, Sri Krishna is thought to have existed, but many popular stories of Sri Krishna are fabrications. This is pointed out in The Cultural History of India, Vol 1 [Xm]. Indian Puranas (books) do contain stories that are shuffled or retold in similar ways. [Cf. Clh].

Krishna-worship in SRF temples was tactically established by SRF only after 1970, long after Yogananda's passing. [Link]

Paramhansa Yogananda did not put a picture of Krishna on the altar, nor did he mention Krishna separately when he prayed to the line of gurus. [F1]

Kriya tomfoolery

How the guru appears to find kriya yoga mentioned in various scriptures: He read the system of kriya yoga into the common Sanskrit word kriya, which means 'act (action), business, operation, undertaking,' and much else, tells the Sanskrit Dictionary for Spoken Sanskrit.

To claim that kriya-yoga is referred to in Sanskrit works where a general word for 'work, atonement' (and so on) appears many centuries before the term 'kriya yoga' was coined, suggests skylarking, and suggests something like "academically unfit or improper".

~ೞ⬯ೞ~

A Drift

An institution is the lengthening shadow of one man. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The shadow has been difficult to tackle. Devotionalism and "churchism" have got a hold in time, despite Yogananda words like ""Sectarianism is anathema to religion." [Paramahansa Yogananda in "The Essence of Self-Realization"]

Self-Realization Fellowship today has been called a cult by insiders there too, as by its former editor-in-chief.

You told Nehru we aren't a sect. I admit Master said we aren't one. Well, we are a sect." - Self-Realization Fellowship's main editor Tara Mata [Laurie Pratt] as rendered by James D. Walters [Kriyanana] in his book A Place Called Ananda, ch. 14. [Apa]

Quite recent evidence indicates that Self-Realization Fellowship itself in actual practice has discontinued some of Yogananda's guidelines for peculiar purposes. Yogananda-rallied Aims and Ideals of the Fellowship have been changed and removed too. [More]

Better be alerted to a cult's facade and fare before trusting it than finding out about it later. Also, Succumbing or submitting to insane speculation can mar and ruin.

One of the Yogananda guidelines that SRF seems to have cancelled concerns self-serving communities (Kriyananda. The Path [Tp]

Thus, The SRF publishers have treated some Yogananda guidelines as fallible and dispensable, "at least for now" in a sect directed by nuns he trained personally. SRF seems quite capable of selecting Yogananda tenets and guidelines that suit its current leaders and following, and downplaying or removing other of his teachings from sight -

Do not Believe Everything Big Guys Tell

Even though he claimed omnipotence on behalf of gurus behind him, and talked loudly of his indomitable will to bring about his needs, certain things he went for, did not get off ground and far anyhow. Among them are a publication deal in his mid-career; A how-to-live-school for children on top of Mt. Washington in Los Angeles. A world spiritual university there too; a city of light at Encinitas. [More about a mushroom-like university]

Actions can speak better than words. It is good not to be brainwashed, and it can be much useful to check along such veins. The facts mentioned above talk against Yogananda's self-claimed "indomitable will" and "supreme effort", as you can see.

The inner sides of humans had better not be overlooked and overgrown, at any rate. Conscience, an individual, mature moral, a growing sense of "I Am" (identity), and much else reside in the depths (inside), not just your last meal. In this connection, professor Haim G. Ginott: "Promises should neither be made to, nor demanded of, children . . . We should not encourage such fraudulent practices." [Bpc, 61]

[Autobiography of a Yogi study] "Do not swear at all . . . Anything beyond this comes from the evil one. [Matthew 5:33-37, passim] Consider that what he says implies that Yogananda's SRF oath comes from the evil one.

Krishna says the world is real and those who teach differently are demoniac. All four of the SRF gurus say that the material world is illusory. Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya, and Yogananda.

The long departed appeared

Romantics dream of love. Yet it can be unwise to let secret and snug hopes influence your thinking and fare. It may not help to be taken in. Here is a more or less romantic Yogananda tale.

When he was eighty, Yogananda's aged guru Yukteswar told Yogananda: "My task on earth is now finished; you must carry on . . . I leave everything in your hands. You'll be able to successfully sail the boat of your life and that of the organisation to the divine shores." [Autobiography, Ch. 42]

But one night in a Mumbay hotel, Satan (with a catlike tail) leaped on his chest so that Yogananda could not breathe. Right then the long departed and buried Yukteswar appeared and shooed the devil. [Self-Realization Magazine, Summer 1976, p. 8-9]. [Yogananda lamed].

From this we see that Yukteswar did not leave all (and not all of the devil either) in Yogananda's hands. Yogananda could not manage his own "sailing" either. He needed help so much that a passed Yukteswar appeared - all according to Yogananda.