A swami in Miami, or "love cult" injustice

The swami Yogananda (1893-1952) arrived in Boston in 1920. He stayed there for some years, before disciples bought a little hotel in Los Angeles in 1925. It served as a headquarters. From 1925 he also toured the United States extensively to give lectures and classes. It was not all beer and skittles. In 1928, in Miami, the police ordered the lecturing, class-giving swami out of town, and that's far from all -

An article in a Miami newspaper wrote of a Yogananda "love cult" where women paid good money to be taught yoga. That his fellowship was called a love cult in a Miami newspaper was not appreciated by Yogananda, so rebuffs followed. The issues at stake here suggest we cannot always trust newspapers in all respects . . . In this case Yogananda protested in a published article:

• He defied the idea that he ran a love cult.
• Someone he knew had been hit on the nose in Los Angeles (attestedly), but not himself.
• He thought that the (Miami) Daily News had too grossly distorted something else he had said in an interview and put a word in his mouth, a word he did not even know the meaning of.
• He pointed out that only few of his lessons were given privately.
• He referred to his accomplishments and cited a character witness.
• Yogananda said that in Miami he had suffered from false reports and injustice.

Aftermath side of the story: "Miami Only City Objecting to Him, Yogananda Asserts". Article (jpg)

The newspaper phrase "objecting to him" covers much ground:

• "Love cult" Yogananda ordered out of Miami in 1928. Newspaper, first page (jpg)
  
• "Swami seeking to hypnotise a police chief?" Article, part 1 (jpg)
  
• "Swami [not handcuffed] gazing dreamily at police chief". Article, part 2 (jpg)
  
• "A similar love org in the Alps" - Article, part 3 (jpg)
• Police armed with tear gas bombs against Yogananda lectures. Article (jpg)

The few newspaper articles are quite revealing. A Yogananda historian might say 'Hooray' to that (and perhaps not in the Australian English and New Zealand English sense of the word: 'goodbye').

At any rate, in 1928 there were quite a number of Miami wives who paid 25 dollars each to attend his lectures and classes and husbands who wanted to say goodbye to him, and violently too.

"He was a lion and held Miami in his grip"

The cat may look like a lion, but that does not make it a lion. (African)

On the front page of Miami Daily News of Feb. 8, 1928, it says that two woman followers went insane "as a result of the Hindu's cult teachings," according to relatives. One woman was hospitalised and described as "violently insane". (more: further down) [Seeing is believing: Newspaper article (jpg)]

"White and beautiful"

Yogananda writes that the "Miami papers called me "leader of a love cult" . . . "the women of Kashmere, India . . . are just as white and beautiful" as American women and "would have offered materials for a 'love cult' . . . Praise does not make me better." (in the "Miami Only . . ." article.)

There are many shades of pigmentation; there are pink people, light brown, medium brown, dark brown and so on. All are not black that are called black by a misnomer, and all are not white that are called white either.

One's colour is due to pigmentation; may be called "skin deep"; and probably protects against cancer caused by UV rays as well. (Wikipedia, "African Americans > Great migration and civil rights movement"; "Demography of the United States")

At any rate:

Colour is a natural lot
more often than not.

Mild tanning often helps in the far north.

Assertive like a lioness?

In The Roaring Silence (2013) it is pointed out that "Dzogchen is the direct experience of enlightenment. (BC)" and "the natural simplicity which is "the lion's roar of reality." Further, the roar "is simply a roaring silence." (Ib. 15, highlighting added)

In the gradual approach of Dzogchen, also called Great Perfection, visualisations are first steps only, quite preliminary exercises.

However, fair, advancing meditation could improve one's self-confidence, health, and intelligence . . . Some good accomplishments may help too. [◦Sampled research findings] Good self-help books offer tips as well.

In the book The Fearless Lion's Roar (2015), Nyoshul Khenpo Jamyang Dorje writes in the third chapter that "We cannot discover the self-originating wisdom of the Great Perfection (rdzogs pa chen po'i rang byung ye shes) by searching through books."

A word to the wise -

Now, as for assertiveness through affirmations: A superintendent of a hospital for nervous and mental diseases testified in court that

a woman patient had entered his hospital on January 31 1928 and refused to eat "unless assured that her food had come in contact with the swami". [She] imagines she's a lion, and attempts to roar and conduct herself as a lion does. She said, [this] witness testified, that the swami told her he was a lion and held Miami in his grasp.

Yogananda said the woman came to his lectures on request of her husband who asked that she be cured of sleepwalking. [Newspaper article (jpg)]

There is a well researched, soundness-helping meditation method to be found. Professor Jaan Suurküla:

Hospital admissions for psychiatric care were 150-200 times less common among the 35,000 people practicing Transcendental Meditation in Sweden, than for the population as a whole. . . .

The remarkably small incidence of psychiatric illness among the population of individuals who had learnt the Transcendental Meditation technique compared to the general population indicates that the TM technique is not only safe but also has considerable value in the prevention of psychiatric illness.

Considering that there are important differences between the TM technique and [other] meditation techniques, there is no scientific basis for concluding that these results are valid for meditation techniques in general. [More]

Now, as a swami teaching assertiveness, would you be proud of a lioness case and say, "Good!"? Or would you say, "She came to be cured of sleepwalking"? Or "row away from there" altogether?

Be a little careful as to what you practice. To teach others to roar and talk and act like lions, stupidly, may bring only little help and much wasted time. At worst there is a case in wait.

But wait, there is a yoga pose called "The Roaring Lion" or "The Lion Pose (Simhasana)." It may be beneficial in a well composed program of yoga poses.

There is a also a tale about being lion who had been raised by sheep, and later found another lion and changed its ways. Yogananda picked up this tale along the way, and thought the lion was a leonine Self.

"I am a lion" is also found in Yogananda's non-rhyming book Whispers from Eternity. He had been at writing blank verse from the 1920 (cf. Songs of the Soul. 1983, xiii-xvii).

Here is a little from Yogananda's blank verse book Whispers from Eternity. A "classic Yogananda, one may say, but his chief editor until 1971 changed large parts of it after Yogananda had passed away. The edition from 1949 is the last edition Yogananda liked (when he walked on two feet):

Make Me a Lion of Thy All-Conquering Wisdom

A lion-cub of the Divine Mother, . . . I forgot my roars which had frightened away all wicked, pestering sorrows.

O Lion of Realization, Thou didst drag me away from the sheep-fold unto the waters of meditation. And Thou didst say: "Open thine eyes and roar!" . . . The roar of Thy wisdom reverberated through me, and Thy hard shakings of spiritual urge made me open my eyes. . . .

Now, I know I am the Lion of cosmic power. . . . I will roar with the vibrant power of the Almighty! Bounding in the forest of experiences, I will seize the little creatures of vexing worries, the timid fears, and wild hyenas of disbelief, and devour them ruthlessly.

O Lion of Immortality, roar through me . . .! (Whispers, No. 43 (1949-edition.)

Although Yogananda thought highly of his first editions of Whispers, ranking the collection with the Bible and the Bhagavad Gita, time could be far better spent in deep meditation. [Yogananda for the World: Changes to Whispers from Eternity].

〰ೞ⬯ೞ〰

Muttering or Silent Repetitions?

The effects of what you choose you repeat silently depend in part on just what you repeat and the details and schedule that go into it. Affirmations are common, but research into the effects of silent repetitions is of more recent date. As the Chinese Dharmapada tells, it is better to recite one significant word than to recite thousands that are not - so find the one word that if well and mentally repeated makes thoughts go away so you cross over and reach Enlightenment. (16:1-3, abstracted, In Dhammajoti 1995)

Going for "gold" has its dangers. Still, gold brings affluence, and seeking it can too, provided the means are okay, and basically in step with dharma (what is lawful, what is righteous and more). However, if the "cure" is not better than the disease, better take more care.

In Yogananda's ◦SRF Church charter (filed 29 March 1935), he aims at teaching how to use "the unlimited power of God and Cosmic Energy" (2d). You cannot get more assertive than that. But the kriya "bridle oath" he made, stands in the way of many Human Rights - those facets of assertiveness. Other aims he devised in the charter - such as "human life is given . . . not for physical pleasure" may be found to have a morbid ring to them - unpleasant and far from healthy, that is.

Self-Realization Fellowship was formed by Yogananda. He said was sent to the West to spread liberating techniques of yoga. He did that too, but learning his and SRF's kriya yoga as an initiate costs freedom, such as the Human Right to change one's religion. "They take freedom away in the name of cosmic," sums it up.

If affirming bible-copying phrases rob time that could be better spent, for example in deepening meditation, the affirmations are not time well spent, but could be "enemies of great good" if you are ready for rising above many words toward higher sides of life and yoga-meditation, that is. One is to watch out for deflections.

⦾ Child play is fit and wise for a child. Lots of affirmations had better not come in the way of meditation.

The value of lojong also depends on the value of axioms that are meditated on

There are some sayings that help a meditator, but a lot who do not. It may be hard to know the difference. It is also possible to meditate on good sayings to improve one's mind up to a level. In Tibetan Buddhism it is called lojong. If you focus on insignificant sayings, not helpful sayings, time and effort has not been well spent. There was a woman who gave ear to Yogananda's so-called autobiography in her car, saying she had been through it a hundred times or something. Then she quit. She quit SRF, Yogananda, and probably quit reading and listening that book too. [Lojong]

Aside: If you want to learn what is in a book, you can learn all-round study methods to improve the yield and benefits of learning a thing. It is really simple. You focus on the main things and fill in also, using carefully spaced repetitions, and so on.

⦾ Lojong may work well if we steer out of insignificant sayings to dwell on. Such mind-training has been known since the Middle Ages.

⦾ The Patanjali Yoga Sutras 3.4 ff take us to much older and deeper ways of training or practising meditative focus. The method is called sanyama.

Who wants not quite good enough thought-seeds sown in infirm minds?

First, Yogananda talks as presented in an SRF trilogy (so far) are rarely structured for in addition to digressing at length, he "seldom made even the slightest preparation for his lectures; if he prepared anything at all, it might consist of a factual note or two, hastily jotted down," according to SRF. (Yogananda 1982 xi-xii)

A great idea is to tell first what is contained in a talk, then tell it and finally sum up the good points one might find. Such structuring has not been done full well by the publishers yet.

Second, verbal outpourings indiscriminately for a general audience may be of little meditative value and contain few really good ideas, generally valid or reliable ones to build further on. There is a danger that the good thought-seeds of Yogananda - yes there are some! - drown in the verbiage. They could be singled out, as SRF has done in part by making sections and headings. If the SRF editors would assist Yogananda-learners further, they could add some pinpointed end lessons too behind each sections; that could help also, and is one of the easier things to do. At any rate, good ideas to meditate on are said to be auxillary to deep meditation, and not the best meditation helpers in the world. Suitable mantras are taught to be best for many.

Third, the issue of metaphoric affirmations: Allegories or metaphors are not the "real things", not what they seek to allude to by tricks of language. Yogananda frolicked in giving out "not-real things" in his day. However, metaphors and allegories can backfire for two reasons: One, in the wrong heads such ideas may lead to hospitalisation from calling forth twisted ideas (A Miami newspaper episode below). Two, figurative ways of communicating have a common default weakness: they tell in masked ways of something that is not the "real thing, not the main thing, and hence figurative talk may be understood poorly too.

The inner Self comes to the fore in deep meditation, not by allegories and metaphors and lots of herding. And some "get hit" for it. Yogananda was struck in the chest till he lost his breath, he writes in his autobiography.

Aside: "There is a proper way to do it, and all the others," we can surmise. And to make "a thousand changes" in an autobiography for many decades after the author is gone, may not look like a proper activity. [Learn the details]

The sage Manu teaches this about prayers or meditative thoughts and mantras:

An offering, consisting of muttered prayers, is ten times more efficacious than a sacrifice performed according to the rules (of the Veda); a (prayer) which is inaudible (to others) surpasses it a hundred times, and the mental (recitation of sacred texts) a thousand times. (Chap. 2, verse 85)

Consider it a suggestion of what is the valuable turn.

In the older days of Yogananda's fellowship, many disliked that prayers and sermons and poems by Yogananda were gathered and made into a course that one had to subscribe to in order to learn yoga and meditation from his fellowship. They preferred that he kept the kriya yoga teachings as they had been from the start, without all the added "glamour". So these points are not new. (cf. Dasgupta 2006, 54)

⦾ Wonderful ideas rarely bring about hospitalisation when carefully and well communicated.

⦾ The difference between copious veneration of Yogananda and learning valuable lessons from his outpourings, is seen in how they are taken, that is, in how he is studied. There are up to very helpful study methods around. Tony Buzan's general study approach is rewarding to many.

⦾ In a non-classy setting the need to choose the good from the bad and the best from the good, is paramount. Good discernment is tall.

⦾ Yogananda said it himself, that if one uses only a tenth of the techniques he handed out, self-realisation would be had. Those are his words, according to one of his monks. The proper handling of his material is to select the very best tenth of techniques and verbiage. This percentage - a tenth - corresponds roughly with the percentage of key words or key phrases in a text also.

Ritualistic set-backs

Like fish inside a shallow pool,
With the passing of each day and night
This life becomes so very short –

From the Tibetan Dhammapada, 3.34 (in Sparham's translation of 1986)

Set-backs come when ritualistic talk and customs fail. And many gains could be had by taking one's life back from a sect's hold. Yogananda led American ladies to do what he didn't himself. He said,

I don't pray.
That may seem a strange thing to say. (1982, 121)

He did not say it with a line-break, but there are end rhymes in it that way - Regardless of what Yogananda affirms there, he led congregations in prayer. How sour it may be to lead public prayers when you say you don't pray - all in a Yogananda way . . .

We cannot all be like him - let us look into Whispers from Eternity - a book with flowing phrases and "answered prayers" by Yogananda. A gentle reminder:

To believe all you hear may contain future dangers.

⦾ Study the best and learn from the best to become one of them - that is a lot.

Yogananda's Dreamy University

As discussed earlier, fit and fair study that yields degrees is better than lots of unsound drivel.

You should not flinch from the real student idea, but stick to your part and ask for the best study methods for you, in your conditions. But former guru followers may not have much of a choice if they weep too much, and feel so troubled by their former membership that they do not manage to focus on textbooks. Still, a general counsel stands: Learn from the professionals and then learning gets better, and then the lot in life unless you find your whole life damaged. At any rate, solid improvement is to be hoped and not feared. For the lack of a jolly good education some suffer terribly. [More on study methods]

Unsound Instructions and Others

All realities seem unreal . . . the material universe is not real. – The body is unreal. - Yogananda, 1982, 182, 421]

Fair and sound evidence that it is so, is not found.

To menace others suggests trying to take their dignity or worth away. To imply they are unreal is like "You mean nothing to me!" and so on. Is Yogananda menacing or not? SRF contains a farcical mental universe - a body of teachings - to tackle as you accept the guru's repeated words: It is all unreal, quite like a movie.

It is better to get an education. A sound one. An accredited one.

Further reading: [Link].

Fantasy Figures?

Airy speculation without foundations is not a thing of accuracy. Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952), the founding guru of Self-Realization Fellowship, said:

"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, Spring 1974 SRF magazine, p 6. From a talk at Mother Centre, 8/17/39

There is a need to think it through. A larger perspective is fit:

• Yogananda said he had been a prince, Arjuna, and if so he was a former wife-sharer with a harem, and at least partially enlightened by Krishna as Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita's chap. 11. (Chap. 11 - might not be part of the original Gita.) What did he become after the said enlightenment as Arjuna? A killing tyrant in one and and one more murderer in several lives, according to his biographer (Dasgupta 2006, 111, 112).
• He said he had been the ruthless killer William the Conqueror in a past life. He did not describe William as an unreliable, ruthless tyrant and dungeon-murderer of his wife's former fiance, but that is what historians manage to tell. (Dasgupta 2006, 111)
• He had been a vicious and murderous desert marauder in a past life, as recorded by his biographer. The thought if it made Yogananda shiver. (Dasgupta 2006, 112)
• [There is more here]

One may do well to shun a reborn unreliable tyrant and marauder and his goadings. Yogananda hailed dictatorship and Mussolini in his own magazine, alas.

He dreamt it?

One problem with such claims is attestability - whether correct, attested satisfactory evidence is provided. For the lack of tenable evidence, alternative suggestions (hypotheses) abound, such as "he hallucinated, he had hypnotised himself, he fancied, he mistook dream images for past lives, he lied," and further.

The bystander is left with "He told it. Either it is true or not true. Either something in it is true and other parts not. Or nothing fits." A bystander has nothing to get hold on. The faith that seeks to affirm the "past lives" teachings, has nothing much to bolster it but a group-shared faith in the credibility of the guru - And that is what is at stake.

Ashram focus and prestige

Stories of past lives may remind of a family tree. The prestigious ones tends to get the focus, while highwaymen or worse often go unmentioned or blamed.

See what has been "guaranteed" in SRF's Hidden Valley ashram (a closed community for monastics and novices): "In one (question-and-answer session) satsanga, the administrator at Hidden Valley "guaranteed" that an unspecified number of the members of SRF's Board of Directors would have been rulers/pharaohs in ancient Egypt." (Falk 2009, 270).

Adherence to fit evidence is not to be done away with by tales of great, former lives . . .

Speaking of kings of ancient Egypt: Egyptians believed their pharaoh to be divine with sacred, magical powers, supreme will, and control of nature - but criticised and plotted against him or her too, and even plundered pharaoh graves as time went by.

⦾ It could be wise to find out what seems at stake where some people are said to be great ones by undocumented past lives.