Christ, a Norwegian-American

Find out where the land lies through well made inquiries.

"If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it might as well be a duck." What about: "If someone is called a Christ, walks like a Christ, and speaks like a Norwegian-American, he might as well be one of the Christs."

The Norwegian-American Christ Gundersen (1908–45) lived in Brooklyn, but does not appear in Yogananda's list of many Christs . . . But no one can deny that Christ Gundersen was a real Christ and a a real Gundersen. (Zempel 1991, 185)

Wanting Benefits

Having "the highest" is one issue below. Another one is 'modifications', and a third 'misleading innocents'.

Buddha teaches that it is the fit method that brings benefits, not necessarily what one expects or believes. [Bhumija Sutta]

Key issues: validity, reliability, good evidence, and relevance.

Best Methods Are Surrounded by the Others

The sixth step of Patanjali's yoga is dharana, handy focusing through upliftment of mind.

The seventh step is dhyana, deep meditation, Zen, when the mind is deep-going or undisturbed.

The eighth and final step is samadhi, unification. This is the result of reaching.

There is the mantra ways, where you mentally repeat a chosen sound that works well for you (cf. Alper 1989). André Padoux writes:

For mantras, the idea that the highest level of speech is pure consciousness is surely one of the reasons for the superiority, in mantric practice, of silence over actual speech, of the unsaid over the said. . . . [W]hen one looks at how a mantra is put into practice by an adept, one may well ask oneself whether the real nature of mantra is not consciousness rather than speech, the answer perhaps being that mantra is speech, but that speech, for India, is ultimately consciousness. (in Alper 1989, 298)

"It's all the same to me," said the boy, he was about to get a spanking (Saying):

Now, in a state beyond Oneness, there are no differences. Or are there? In Tibetan Buddhism there are, and also many different kinds of classified voids. The word Advaita (in Advaita Vedanta) means non-duality. Oneness is, ekam sat, is an esteemed Vedic teaching. Behind oneness and twoness (duality) is "Behind Concepts", also called Transcendence. In Transcendence the whole world (samsara) is detected also.

That light which shines above this heaven, higher than all, higher than everything, in the highest world, beyond which there are no other worlds, that is the same light which is within man. (Chandogya Upanishad 3.13.7)

The Self in my heart is larger than the earth, larger than the mid-region, larger than heaven, and larger even than all these worlds. (Chandogya Upanishad 3.14.3)

That is about how it is taught by Guru Padmasambhava also.

The Sole Reality [Primordial Essence] is also the . . . Universal Mind (in Evans-Wentz 1968, 199).

Guru Dev, Shankaracharya Brahmananda, tells how to choose well established mantras to meditate on. The TM [Transcendental Meditation] movement has incorporated his thoughts in the TM practices. Basic TM is, simply put, best in tests. There is research on TM. [◦Link]

Today there are more than 650 scientific studies of the various benefits of Transcendental Meditation, independently conducted at 200 universities and institutions in 33 countries. The best methods can take the mind inwards rather effortlessly. It boils down to making good use of one's time, also by decent, very effective yoga-meditation methods.