Baffling Yogananda Matters
 4  1  7 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
"Thank you for your efforts."
- RS
"Thanks for the entertainment."- C
 |
 |
 |
 |
Baffling Paramahansa Yogananda Matters
"I was never born, I never died." - Paramahansa Yogananda affirmation, 1945Be on your guard against swindle. - TK
 |
| Yogananda taught the world is illusory, but was eager to publish his autobiography! |
During the guru's thirty-odd years in the United States, he became one of the most prominent advocates of yoga in its history. Yogananda's influential autobiography is on-line here: [LINK]
The guru founded Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) in Boston in 1920. The fellowship was headquartered in Los Angeles in 1925, and became an American church in 1935, and later turned sectward. Around the year 2000 circa one third of the monastics of Yogananda's Fellowship Church left the premises. Many were disappointed with the conditions "on board" and their supervisors and leaders. "He knows where the shoe pinches who wears it", is a saying.
(1) Kriya yoga methods may now be more spread outside of Yogananda's SRF than through it. (2) Annoying changes in the guru's teachings have been detected and spelled out. (3) Some persons publish Yogananda material outside of SRF, because large parts of it do not infringe on copyright laws. [Link]
The fellowship appears to be a cult now. But not all guru teachings are a big mess.
Here is . . . a cordial invitation for you all . . . Why suffer when you can enjoy? . . . let the days of misery and peacelessness be over. [Maharishi] [MORE]
Yogananda's Erroneous, Old Teachings
We prefer to look into marring teachings of Yogananda first and foremost, and do not deal all that much with senior nuns and others that try to lead SRF on."All is not fair as fair seems (proverb)" is a handy idea to carry around all the same:
In the light this and his "Make a right judgement [John 7:24]", let us consider something Yogananda said:"Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, "I am the Christ, " and will deceive many." - Matthew 24;4, 5
And many false prophets will appear and deceive many people." - Matthew 24;11
I am the gate. - The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. - I am the good shepherd. [John 10:9,10,11]
"You have only one Master. [Matt 23:8]
Constructive doubt is intelligent questioning, and fair, impartial examination. Those who cultivate this attitude never prejudge an idea. Nor do they accept as valid the unsubstantiated opinions of others. They keep an open mind, and base their conclusions on objective tests. They seek above all to verify those conclusions by their own experience.
This is the proper approach to truth. [Paramahansa Yogananda]
Going for Clarity of Thoughts
When negative forces predominate, a well-timed retreat is necessary in order to stay on the path to success . . . the best tactic often is to keep still, lay low, and hope that the moment passes . . . Be extremely careful . . . the withdrawal can be effected quickly and smoothly . . . The key is [in part] taking advantage of the element of surprise." [From the Book of Changes (I Ching), hexagram 33]In the light of this and life happenings too, clumsy ballyhoo on top of swindling won't solve all things full well, as "Timing is critical, as is positioning after realignment. Considerations of personal security are critical."
If this terribly fine counsel is followed well, it could lead into the essential conditions that are hinted at through "Clinging Like Fire" (hexagram 30), such as, "The great man continues the work of nature in the human world. Through the clarity of his nature he causes the light to spread farther and farther and to penetrate the nature of man ever more deeply."
Fit Passages
Yogananda's yoga teachings are said to actualise the Christianity of Jesus. However, the guru found it fit to interpret many Bible passages to make them suit his sort of Hinduism, though. You find astounding evidence here: [LINK]
Big titles on joking legs?
How many Christs?
Here are some more quotes for us:
Jesus did not say, "If anyone tells you, "There he is, emerging from a deep mine" - believe it," but we won't go into that here. We won't develop an all-round gloomy outlook either. However, in searching for reliable knowledge, it is often good to ask things like:
"Prophets like Christ and Lahiri Mahasaya". [Pa 283n] (2)
About Babaji and Christ: "... these two fully illumined masters ... one without a body". [Pa 307]
"Yukteswar, a modern Yogi-Christ". [Pa 194] (4)
"Lahiri Mahasaya ... and many other Yogi-Christs had blessed the soil." [Pa 95]
"Babaji ... deathless guru". [Pa 346]
- What are the biblical characteristics of a christ (messiah)? Find out.
- How many of the necessary characteristics are observed in guru christs?
- How right does it appear to be to try to reconcile the contrastive and opposed claims of Jesus and gurus, trying for a unity that seems absent in the first place (impossible too)?
- Is a man gone bad because someone else and hardly himself wants him to be known as a Christ, firmly linked to "original Christianity as taught by Jesus?
Bluntly, idolising titlephrenia can be hard to sell outside the customary, old traditions. A strong urge to show off by great titles may go against the American wisdom proverb: "Big names often stand on small legs." [Ap] Part of luxurious or exotic-looking flaunting customs may smack untidy to persons who think that "empty barrels could make a lot of noice and havoc as they are kept rolling", or that "balloons don't go deep". We don't think Yogananda should have come on so hard in Christian terms, because "fair play is a jewel."
Words such as these too (see near top) should mean a lot if you decree to be in unison with original Christianity as taught by Jesus, while much of what you actually form or live out, speaks a lot to the contrary.
We should be able to play fair. And that should be thought fit by gurus too. Here is a hard one: In the Bible, Jesus doesn't talk of having more than one master, himself. What is more, he never ever goes for guru christs or yogi christs like Mahavatar Babaji. Jesus refers to one Christ, one Master, and mentions false Christs and false prophets are like hungry wolves. Because Paramahansa Yogananda taught Jesus is one of many Christs and gurus of SRF, and also claimed to teach "original Christianity as taught by Jesus Christ" it appears he talked mud in the name of the Lord, and it helped him to gain a formidable following ...
How do you deal with teachings by gurus who are called Christs by Yogananda and thus equal to Jesus many times? That is a problem.
From Guru Teachings
One's searching must not be all dogmatised
In science and otherwise, pay attention to methods, that is, to how ideas are had and tentatively verified in the first place (it corresponds to basic research too). How they are applied or made use of may be interesting after that (applied and mastered principles).Also, neither lore nor individual searches must be strictly ritualised and dogmatised, the guru tells us.
This signifies that "You can see for yourself." In the light this, learning to "halfway suspect" in a scientific and polite way and inspect should be nothing to be afraid of, nothing vicious. If you don't have to believe blindly, you are free to inspect. Learn to inspect well. Good yoga is essentially of methods - doing things of yoga and contemplation (meditation) rather like an athlete who trains himself or herself year in and year out, perfectioning many details, and not really putting much value in faith alone. I can recommend method -
I had steadfastly refused to join any society because I didn't find in them demonstrable truth. But when I found my guru and this path, and saw through my own experience that it worked ... (Cf. Paramahansa Yogananda, in Man's Eternal Quest) [Ak]No more blind believing. - Paramahansa Yogananda [Ak 456]
Enjoy God, is a Yogananda teaching
Jesus said "I am the life", etc. And Solomon said: "I commend the enjoyment of life, because nothing is better for a man under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany him in his work" (Ecclesiastes 8;15). That is savoury wisdom. Compare with Yogananda's:Strictly speaking, it was not "India" who mastered such things, but God - according to the guru dictum that "God is the Sole Doer." [See Ak] Many of the gurus of SRF teach that.
A state of joy. That state is God. ... Without being happy you will not even be able to find Him. ... The happier you are, the greater will be your attunement with Him. Those who know Him are always happy, because God is joy itself. - Paramahansa Yogananda [Ak 110]
We may also teach you to laugh -
The guru equals God with deep inside knowledge (gnosis); ample, fine gladness; the essential deep, inner life; a certain love (prem); and a subtle light is at times into it.Thus, at least in public, the SRF gurus could stand for "have fun far and wide if you're up to it", and without sinning, we may add. Rise to poke fun if you are in the right place at the right time, to make your best qualities recognised and appreciated in tune with rationality and major ancestors too - It could improve one's lot and lead into handy deals too, in time, maybe lovable encounters as well -
"I don't take life seriously at all." - Paramahansa Yogananda [Ak 219]
"Don't be like those who, day in and day out, take life so seriously they are afraid even to smile. ... enjoy life." - Paramahansa Yogananda [Ak 353]
"In ... eternal joy ... nothing else matters". - Paramahansa Yogananda [Ak 439]
But marring teachings that slice off handed-over Christian teachings, may look too simple to some, much like "Without fun there is no fun to life (our saying)".
Backwards Teachings - Don't Believe Them
Breathe in while you say such as "Won lanrete", and then reverse it too - The guru decrees that God can play the world backwards. We don't believe it is true, for we have seen no sign of it to this minute (backwards: etunim) . . . Yogananda actually insists that "It ain't over when it's over"! Or perhaps it should be "revo s'ti nehw revo t'nia ti" - You think about it . . .
It sounds too good to be true to us here. But we surely gladden from highly interesting ideas, to say the least . . .
But let us stay with the reversal idea a bit further. Think of how eating would be, and a toilet visit. The food would come out of your mouth, and your evacuations into your rear end, straight from the WC water! You start in life by being senile, perhaps, and end as a newborn baby. The end is sure: into a vagina that closes after us - and for some: into a belly scar that likewise closes!
But in between the start and end of life you walk backwards without seeing where you go to, roughly, not wholly unlike the blindfolded. Major life aims will be reversed, and you no longer have to strive to become like a little child to stay in tune with Yogananda and Jesus, for sooner or later childhood and its ready laughter (with the inward breath) will come to you too. Those who learnt how to laugh awkwardly on the inward breath might now laugh differently one more time. But there is more: Those that were rewarded in this life, would have their rewards and status withdrawn in the reversed clowning plot that Yogananda speaks of. Oi-oi-oi.
Still, be warned: In this country you are hardly free to teach thoughtlessly like that, loud-mouthed and long and rather alone. If you're not expected to be an immigrant, you might be fetched for some funny farm. That's how conform Norwegians are these days. [KINKY LINK]
But let us put such inferior concerns aside, so that we can link up to basic ideas that Rudolf Steiner promoted. He said:
This beholding of our experiences in backward direction has a special value for spiritual training: it helps us disengage our thinking from its accustomed habit of holding on to the outer, material and sense-perceptible events . . . The pupil needs this liberation if he is to make his way into the supersensible world. He will find too that by this freedom his thinking and ideation are strengthened, and in a thoroughly healthy manner. It is accordingly good also to review other things in backward order — a play, for example, a story, a melody, and so on [Rudolf Steiner, in Occult Science - An Outline, its chapter 5: "Knowledge of the Higher Worlds"]
Modern Stability Teachings
The ability to stand alone is not to be undervalued. In order to produce thoughts of your own, first trust yourself somewhat. Scientists need to be much independent in order to maintain unbiased thinking and so on. The need to be firm and much self-assured is there. A certain deep trust is like a riverbed that ideas may gradually come to course through in time. The better part of those ideas might suit you and help you.
 |
| M-hm! |
Another time, perhaps long before it, he had been asked by a mother to hold her new-born baby just a little. He did, but suddenly he couldn't hold it any more, he just couldn't do it. He almost dropped it. He had to hand it back at once.
"This child was a cruel murderer in a previous life," he learnt. He couldn't handle it! [Ak 222]
Strange - was it fiction?
SOAP OPERA canon may disappoint, and it has its twists and turns. The guru did not say he himself was to stand unshaken amidst the crash of breaking worlds, but that others - you's - were to. Yes, a mother could manage what he could not one day. So-oo?This story should be sipped along with two more, that dig up how Yogananda told he himself had been William the Conqueror in a past life, that is, a despot of grievous sins, stained from rivers of blood and inflicting many injuries on others, according to old sources and historians - But the following quotation from medieval times has got it wrong. It is a wrong idea that William killed his beautiful wife for the fun of it in AD 1066. Note that.
The story of the killing is not corraborated by other historical documents. The death year of William's wife is said to be many years later, in the early 1080s. We don't know if that is a comfort.The day that he rode out of the castle to his ships, and had mounted his horse, his wife came to him, and wanted to speak with him. But when he saw her he struck at her with his heel, and set his spurs so deep into her breast that she fell down dead; and the earl rode on to his ships, and went with his ships over to England.
His brother, Archbishop Otto, was with him.
When the earl came to England he began to plunder . . . [Saga link, see § 99]
- The Former William became Me, said the Yogi
- William the Conqueror: Medley
- Medieval Snorre on William the Conqueror
- What Cult Members and Others Say
Literature
Ak: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Man's Eternal Quest. Los Angeles: SRF, 1975.
Ap: Mieder, Wolfgang (main ed.), Stewart A. Kingsbury, and Kelsie E. Harder: A Dictionary of American Proverbs. (Paperback) New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Ay: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Autobiography of a Yogi. 1st ed. New York: Philosophical Library, 1946. Online. [oaks.nvg.org/pv6bk12.html]
Ebu: Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica 2007 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD. London: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2007.
Ha: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Autobiography of a Yogi. 12th ed. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF), 1981.
Mas: SRF: Self- Realization Fellowship: Golden Anniversary. SRF. Los Angeles, 1970.
Pa: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Autobiography of a Yogi. 11th ed. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF), 1971.
Say: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Sayings of Yogananda. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1958.
Tq: Cohen, M.J.: The Penguin Thesaurus of Quotations. Penguin Books. London, 1999.
 |
 |
 |
 |
USER'S GUIDE to abbreviations, the site's large bibliography, letter codes, dictionaries, site design and navigation, tips for searching the site and page referrals. [LINK]
DISCLAIMER: To help us out: [LINK]
© 1997–2007, Tormod Kinnes. All rights reserved. [E-MAIL]