Yukteswar Teachings 9
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Gedanken Experiments and Yukteswar
BELOW is ample evidence that certain teachings may lame our higher reason -
GNOMIC or self-assured utterances may easily invoke faith in those who need thoughts
to cling to somehow. Often we find persons believe what their hearts have huge needs to
believe, no matter what the external world (the school of life) teaches. These persons may
have many problems.We should let rational outlooks help our children and young ones, because it may not work to bring in fair thinking after Santa Claus (whoever) has indoctrinated many. Below we apply thought experiments to throw light on neat-looking assertions attributed to Yukteswar by his disciple Yogananda. They hardly seem to be of enough worth to be counted on.
We have found his dogmatic teaching wanting, and we make some
fun. A surprise? |
Panting for a while - Einsteinian ways of thinking
We must hang together, gentlemen . . . else, we shall most assuredly hang separately. (Benjamin Franklin, 1776)
IMAGINE a disciple of Yukteswar dangling in the bitter cold near the North
Pole. Ten thousand pounds of lead are tied to his tongue with an octopus grip, thousands of
pounds are hanging underneath him there.Let us guess he cannot raise his tongue to become a success at tongue-lifter panting, that is, kriya yoga, after all. The image is for helping us consider. There are times when all we can do is to weigh odds for a while, before proceeding further, well clothed and equipped.
The temperature can be roughly 50 centigrades below the freezing point. The disciple of Yukteswar is dangling wholly naked in a pucker as an ice-bear approaches and grunts, "According to Yogananda, here is what Yukteswar said:"
"Forget the past ... The vanished lives of all men are dark with many shames. Human conduct is ever unreliable until man is anchored in the Divine. Everything in future will improve if you are making a spiritual effort now.—Those who are too good for this world are adorning some other". [LINK] [Ha 116, 118]It does not help you if it sounds good but does not hold water. Here are much better teachings - better because they are saner and quite true to facts of life:
- Learn from the past so as to improve your lot in life and build good future effects.
- Unreliable conduct is seen in gurus said to be united with God too. Fit gurus may be rarer than it appears to be. Further, many of them go unrecognised by all unless they meet with influences in harmony with them, with some of their aspects.
- Everything in future will hardly improve if you are making a correct spiritual effort now, but hopefully some things will, due to your influence. Try and build safeguards to let it happen if you can, to the degree you can. "Man should try to build himself a lot of good karma" - [Buddha]
- Let others try to adorn the world; you go about your business.
Second thought experiment and many others
A GROUP works best if you are of one mind, and a thought experiment works best if you are well versed. We grant one more Gedanken experiment. The disciple's tiny grandson is caught by the mob and is given cement shoes, as they call it. They find a river and throw him in, while they shoot six bullets in his back, saying the murderous:"Everything - every murder - in the future will improve if you are making a spiritual effort now. That is the faith." The chances are the grandson is done away with.
"Everything in future will improve," decrees Yukteswar according to Yogananda: Should we think every bruise and cement shoe he has got, will improve? We think it's fair to warn against believer idiocy brought on by quite tendentious guru verbiage. Find a nice way to get self-assured yourself, and refrain as much as you can from mere parroting or guru slogan rides.
- Ask no pirate questions and hear no lies.
- To mind your own business is fair.
- Every man knows his own business best.
- You should not be troubled by the fallibility of Yogananda or Querkus in SRF, for "the wisest man may fall", and "fools set stools for wise folks to stumble at". This counsel is of handed-over British wisdom. [Dp].
- Neither repress nor forget the depraved past; live on top of that. Trees do. Learn from it instead. It is most often fair. You need a certain amount of stubborness or obstinacy to live along.
- Not everything in the future will improve if you do kriyas - "gasp inaudibly" a lot - right now. To pant as cleverly as they can is the lot of some saints-to-be, and how often such folks are humbled!
CONCLUSION SO FAR: Something like this needs to be said, "Do not take bigger bites than you can chew" - Not to exaggerate or overstretch can bring a measure of good karma your way - hopefully.
5. India Has Much to Learn
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They say "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise". It may seem so for a
long while, even though Yogananda said ignorance is mankind's worst enemy, just like the American proverb, "Your ignorance
is your worst enemy." But Yogananda also says "The greatest enemy of happiness in this country is the bills"; not the devil on Yogananda's chest - [LINK].
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You can study much else in the light of that.
"The Hindu scriptures declare that those who habitually speak the truth develop the
power of materialising their words. What commands they utter from the heart come to pass.
(Yoga Sutras II:36.) [Pa 239n]So which is the greatest enemy: the devil, ignorance, or bills? Let us put it aside for now. Yukteswar also said to the young Yogananda, "I shall give you my hermitages and all I possess." [Pa 94]
It sounds nice, but Yogananda did not get it.
"On earth my standards were uncomfortably high". - Sri
Yuktewar [LINK]. |
However, Yukteswar's flesh-and-blood family inherited and took over of his real
estate in Yogananda's life-time. Yogananda did not get it (all). These strong findings are based on Yogananda, and reveal no uncomfortable highstandards, suffice to say.
All right detective work should pay
Beware of goings that sooner or later oust you out, gives you a bad name, and not very supporting surroundings and conditions. Being allowed to have one's say is something important. It should pay to inspect well so as to reach fair judgement, as the gospels say:"Stop judging by mere appearances, and make a right judgement." [John 7;24]Now, what if a trillion Americans believe Yukteswar is always right and thereby have a shared problem? They may indeed export facets of their problems onto others that are beneath them: house-cats and other pets . . . We should take advantage of our own intuition and find peace in truth and peace, and both should be of higher realms than error and terror."I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account". [Luke 1:3]
"Therefore consider carefully how you listen." [Luke 8:18]
Are the basic alternatives to adequate study, sound inspection and reaching fair judgement really worthwhile? One may not trust what is said through the force of authority and stupefying authority alone. Good evidence is to be sought before judging; that approach is often needed. [Cf. LINK 1, LINK 2] Here we go:
- In one place Yukteswar's foremost disciple calls him "a master in every way". [Ak 99] It looks good.
- In more than one place he talks of that every word a master utters, has to come true, and yet it did not happen. Babaji is into a near-identical teaching when he meets Yukteswar for the first time, and Yukteswar's disciple Yogananda came to the conclusion that the word of Yukteswar obliged the cosmos.
- The disciple Yogananda maintains Yukteswar had control over all natural forces. Look into the vast universe and consider that, not only violent hurricanes and climatic changes for the worse.
Deeply impressive words of Yukteswar failed to come true - Yogananda did not get those hermitages."Big words don't fatten the cabbage," they say in Ukraine. Things and plans may work out well if assisted or supplanted by sensible realism and proper efforts, and so on.
The fewer to stare, the better the fare. (American)
Truthfulness against unsound dogmatism
UNFIT and dwarfing fares and testimonies should not be made to play in the minds of people. Bungling with the trustful, deep mind of inexperienced ones is a grave offence. What is bad or comes out bad "tomorrow", should be avoided for healthier solutions.Vedic teachings say truthfulness is solid and is not to be sold out, basically [Mux 22n etc ]- yet some gurus allow for white lies and worse. Buddha does not. His gentle way says "avoid lying", and details how to behave in certain encounters. [Compare John 4:23] [
Be worthy of the respect you hanker after.
If the guru decrees one thing and the cosmos shows another, trust the world evidence, after all
In his work Charaka (Book of Medicine), Shyama Lahiri says the mind is able to plan. However, the ultimate Self cannot produce anything. So the intelligent who know that worldly attachment is a fire that will burn them, restrain themselves, and perfect restraint is called Moksha, [Yogic] Liberation. Otherwise the intelligent should take care and favour their health, he says [Iv 179, 181, 184, 187, 194, passim].If "fairest gems lie deepest," as a proverb suggests, the worth that the public thinks highly of, may not count much. Or maybe it does. It depends on the society, its level, its fairness, and value systems, if any, and enough respect given children and kind servants.
The evidence is that Yukteswar was not quite up to his word on at least a few occasions - but that again rests on the value of Yogananda as a truthful witness (Skr Sakshi).
The gullible minds of little ones can be more easily lured, tamed and pruned than others.
Authentic should be better than canonical
Self-Realization Fellowship has wiped out facets of Yukteswar's face in their altar photo of him for the sake of something like 'Yukteswar must look good in our sight'. Authenticity is at stake where that often occurs; "photo face lifting" has been quite considerable in SRF. Here is another attitude to cultivate: Where they canonically hail a guru as a Christ, a Master, they should have the courtesy to keep his face intact.Authenticity matters much, and to be deep as well. For the lack of any of these two, things may turn neurotic. One saying: "They hail his words and not his face - do away with them."
With a little light, avatary
Another could be related: "They hail even words that did not come true. And did not hail a face that stood the test of time."Now, many things could go better for the one who seeks to adjust to the lessons of life, as many such lessons might help some to get wiser or live better lives. Beware of all crank ones. In his commentary to the Amritabindu Upanishad Shyama Lahiri says that putting the attention of the mind away from the ultimate Self is the defect, dosa. But regular, correct focusing (riveting) of the attention on the area between the eyebrows helps overcome some defects of mind. And a few months of kriya practice makes one like the gods of mysterious powers he says too. In the marvellous state of Mind after doing kriya right and long enough, a liberated one (Jivamukta) "acts and yet he does not act, he speaks yet he is silent" [Ut 47, 60, 64-65].
Who is crank? It is good to know that in order to avoid cranks - The sayings and actions of very advanced gurus and yogis are not always very cogent, are not always ideal for normal, gross persons to make anything valuable out of. Realized yogis may seem absent-minded in extremes too. One one occasion Shyama Lahiri had a need to bandage his foot, bleeding after getting hit by a stone. Then he bandaged the wrong foot.
Buddha too repeatedly warns against company with fools.
Through being hoodwinked to dirty in mind and dealings
A beginner needs to be taught the fit things to do to. it should help to go for righteous vibrations. Some of them can bring good knowledge about Self and much else. [Iv 89-90]. First one should try to get out of nasty conditions and its conditioning. Impressive looks and words that get hurt in the face by truthful documentation, are probably bad for anyone.Depending on publicly wise guys could fail if discretion and seeking within is of more worth.
Out of conditioning: study matters
YOU CAN learn to inspect well. Relax, observe with as little prejudice as you can, and learn to think better. To some it includes thinking twice. It stands to reason.Now, if the results of a fair and neat study of given tenets looks like washing a guru's face with soap and water, maybedecency wins. It could take time.
You are allowed to be circumspect with teachers from afar; it is part of the Indian tradition, at any rate. Also, there can be different angles and different perspectives involved in more deals that you suspect, and more than one angle can be valid and interesting. It often comes to the fore in brainstorming.
Rise above the animalistic dogmatic levels and stand tall
OTHERS may not see as you or your dad used to do. They may not have the same morality or the same outlooks. For individual assets tie in with the uniqueness inside.So maybe the wise saying holds water a lot of times against non-favourable, gruesome, and even morbid conformity: "Where they think (and act) the same, they should learn to do it better". There are occasions where the saying fits and others where it does not. And there are forms and variants of conformity that do good. The question is which is which. Science fails if it does not help man on and up into better conformity than that of being ensnared, taken in, bossed over in ruthless ways, and so on.
For the lack of that, and why not also liberating fun and wisdom - some people learn to role-play, enact but not function from deep inside, and learn to do that quite well. Often such conformised activity appears to be on the level of animals - say, baboons. Some boss-serving maxims can be too good and too smart to find out of till it's much too late. And so on.
If you cannot trust yourself ...
Do not give away your assets as a beginner. Getting stained from giving too much and from assisting undeserving guys is hardly the best one can do. These are old lessons. You also know - is not that often so? - that you cannot really trust yourself in all respects. There are limits to lots of good sides in a nature too. You can overtax your strength and goodwill. To take care and show enough sensible moderation, is a part of Buddha's splendid middle way.Big bosses may turn your head away from self-help and sanity. The bible's "I Am" (deep inside) likes to give wealth and influence when pleased, the Old Testament says. [Deuteronomy 11 (esp. v. 13 ff.]
Can you date well If you cannot trust yourself full well?
"India has much to learn - " said Babaji to Sri Yukteswar
We learn from the Autobiography of a Yogi that Sri Yukteswar one day strolled about and reflected. He was told by the secretive guru Babaji,"For the faults of the many, judge not the whole. Everything on earth [why not EGOHOOD too?] is of mixed character ... Many (Indian) sadhus ... wander in delusion"THUS, based on this version and a few other ones, there should be hope for intelligent men in the West too: they can learn kriya.
Sri Yukteswar: "I have been thinking of the leading scientific men of the West, greater by far in intelligence than most people congregated here ... They are the men who could benefit greatly by meetings with India's masters. But . . ."
"I saw that you are interested in the West" ... Babaji's face beamed with approval. "I summoned you here.
"India has much to learn ..." [Best source: Autobiography of a Yogi, ch 36] [Ha 332-3]
"Judge not (the mountain lion) that ye be not judged." - Have you wondered how true that
is?
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In science belief is tackled as a working hypothesis or a bundle of such items. You should not go much into what somebody else believes, but what he or she can document and assesss with courteous accuracy and plausibility.
Still better: "Don’t ask what you can do for reincarnation theory, but what it can do for you." (Compare John Kennedy’s sayings about what to do for you and America)
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| Literature | SECTION | First Page |
Link
Sailendra Das Gupta:
Kriya Yoga and Sri Yukteswar Literature
Ak: Yogananda, Pa.: Man's Eternal Quest. SRF. Los Angeles, 1975.Alk: Beck, Thomas: Astrologisk leksikon. Teknologisk forlag. Oslo, 1993.
Aso: Asimov, Isaak: Om tall. Dreyer. Oslo, 1980.
Ebu: Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica 2006 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD. London: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2006.
Ha: Yogananda, Pa.: Autobiography of a Yogi. 12th ed. Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF). Los Angeles, 1981.
Hom: Berne, Eric: What Do You Say After You Say Hello? The Psychology of Human Destiny. Bantam. New York, 1973.
Hos: Yukteswar, sw: The Holy Science. 7th ed. Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF), Los Angeles, 1972.
Mas: SRF: Self-Realization Fellowship: Golden Anniversary. SRF. Los Angeles, 1970.
Maso: Mayo, Jeff: Astrology. Rev ed. Hodder and Stoughton. Sevenoaks, 1979.
Mux: Bühler, G. tr: The Laws of Manu. Banarsidass (Reprint from Oxford University's 1886-edition). Delhi, 1984.
Pa: Yogananda, Pa.: Autobiography of a Yogi. 11th ed. Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF). Los Angeles, 1971. – ONLINE 1st edition
Say: Yogananda, Pa.: Sayings of Yogananda. Self-Realization Fellowship. Los Angeles, 1958.
Scf: Yogananda, Pa.: Scientific Healing Affirmations. Self-Realization Fellowship. Los Angeles, 1958.
Scp: Yogananda, Pa.: The Science of Religion. Self-Realization Fellowship. Los Angeles, 1953.
Sob: Self-Realization Fellowship: Paramahansa Yogananda in Memoriam. SRF. Los Angeles, 1958.
Viom: Jolly, Julius tr: The Institutes of Vishnu. Banarsidass. Delhi, 1965.
Whip: Yogananda, Pa.: How You Can Talk with God. SRF. Los Angeles, 1969.
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