Sri Yukteswar Teachings 8
 4  1  11  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Half-taming a Monk?
 |
| Sri Yukteswar's favourite disciple, Paramahansa Yogananda, refused to get married. |
SOME LOOMING sayings may dwarf the rational mind because the statements look big. A
view like that is in step with a statement by Lao Tan in Dr. Raymond B. Blakney's
translation:As honest words may not sound fine,Try to go on as an able individual here on earth too - and why not marry the best spouse you can get? To be a dandy is rather acceptable.
Yogananda was fond of big-sounding phrases and monky business.
Excuse the term. |
 |
Stick to carefully faceted and smart thinking that is good for you and note that much that's conform through law can be at variance with religious instructions against whore-marriage or better. Laws serve to regulate common deals and protect some among men.
Very common love is far from the worst there is, as its fruits may be excellent. Adhere to poignant to stay relevant.
"The flux of the human heart is gone forever at the transfixing touch of pure love."
Non-decadent words may help sound fulfilments. We will study these words below, and some other phrases later.
1
"Once on a time deep and non-rudimentary men saw gurus cheating -
what's next?"
A GURU: "Ordinary love is selfish, but divine love is without change. The flux of the human heart is gone forever at the transfixing touch of pure love." - Swami Sri Yukteswar, a guru in SRF .The tenet just cited looks romantic. Now chew on it. In nature, animals, birds and fishes hardly trust one another and humans, but there are exceptions. Exceptions make a following.
Sri Yukteswar is presented by his loving disciple Paramahansa Yogananda as a Yogi-Christ and "a master in every way" [Ak 96]. However, Jesus forewarned against many false teachers, and some were also labelled false Christs. Christian teachings tell that all Christs but one are false Christs. That's a central idea of the New Testament. Knowledge of this can be good if administered before Hindus make proselytising mishmash terms of old established ones [Cf. Matthew 28:18-20].
If verbal baits resound deep inside yourself, you could be in for fumbling a lot. Perhaps because simple or deep or unfulfilled childlike needs (basic id urges) are played on to get to you. You're not likely to get mature or good for being hooked. Look to the fish. The bait's in essence a part of a plot, and gurus are both man-fishers and man-shepherds. At least Jesus told his chosen disciples to fish men.
Now, earlier the fisherman used to make a living from just getting fish - now an increasing number of millionaire fishers farm salmons too. And the shepherd makes a living from shearing all animals and slaughtering some at the proper time. If you want to be a fish and a sheep who is serving the family of someone else, maybe the goings may get bad and feel wicked in time. They were not pleasant for martyrs at any rate, if that matters to you today.
There is much to be on guard against in the life. It must be good to check how your own allotted role is in the reciprocal web of interconnections set up - before you commit yourself to an unwelcome and inferior part that robs you too. You may eventually become someone who takes his share in paying for idolisation of others in a flock, and it is wise to ask beforehand how that may be good for yourself. OK forewarnings in unknown terrains are favours.
2
Good and bad things are considered through mental ideas - verbiage helps that, and the
able mind soars freely too. Learn Zen for that artistry
REAL AND good wisdom can hardly be bought; it's considered as folly in the eyes of
the world. This theme is repeated several places in the New Testament, which is of the world
as it's in the world.What is more, the wisdom guru Sri Yukteswar stated he had been told to show that deep Christianity and Hinduism are the same. If he had been told to show they are different, he could have completed that mission too, you may guess. What Sri Yukteswar did was this: He obeyed a behest by Babaji, who is the first and prime guru in the guru dynasty that we find Sri Yukteswar in. Obeying one's chosen guru normally comes first among Hindus, no matter what, no matter how bad the goings get. That's the lot of the disciple, as set up. To this day disciples formally pledge their possessions, lives and so on to their guru in order to get his favours. We bring some examples of this on other pages. (3)
Well, maybe ordinary love is not the worst love around. It has been mentioned by Yogananda that some gurus fall, and if they do, at times they drag followers with them. What is more, common, love-making love produced most jokers and gurus as well.
What is called divine among men, can be an offspring of the mind that soars into fancy, into the realms of imagination. more often than not the term "divine" stands up as a sort of idealised or extended good based on lots from here on earth. It is wise to take things like these into account.
In addition we think there is another grave problem in the area. It is linked to this: "Why call him idealised "lord, lord," and never do the things he dictates?" (Paraphrase) "Why do you call me, `Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say? Luke 6:46. Self-Realization Fellowship has become property rich according to reports that have surfaced, and has not sold off and distributed all possessions to the poor. Nor has the Vatican or most persons who call Jesus their Lord and don't do as he say. We congratulate and don't underevaluate it.
3
Have a woman in bed - it speaks of fulfilment!
"Have a woman to look down on - in bed, for example - as blandly as you can, but
don't look down on married men for it. It's quite an art. And it speaks of
fulfilment!"Let us look into the concoction, seeing the avatar (godman): He talks down on ordinary love, the kind that most likely gave birth to himself. It's bad. On Internet Lahiri Mahasaya, one of the fathers associated with Bramble Farm, is quoted in this way:
"Woman is the destroyer of man. Do not look at her" (etc.) (Saying no. 77 in a row) found here.A womaniser often talks in a different way to make hay. The expert in that field exploits insincerity and insecurity. The marketing experts of neat-looking and often unnecessary cosmetics, gain billions yearly from overt flattery in public - and maybe it makes things stupid and much too expensive even for mankind in the end. Global figures are astounding even now.
However, if you link up somewhat to "don't look at a woman, at any cost", many consumer idiot phenomena might be in for betterments in time.
It depends. It highlights insincerity of deals in the cult. (a) The Bible says no to services led by women, and Bramble Garden says yes to original Christianity. There may be none more authentic than the one described in the New Testament letters. (b) The saying against looking at women seems lost in those circles. Instead they might boast of woman's lib! How sound is that? You never know till you marry, is a bet.
Maybe we should beware of Bramble Farm's president and vice president - aren't they mature women - nuns - that are looked at and looked up to, much contrary to the directions of the apostle Paul? If the genuine Christian course can be done away with for the sake of shows, the alternative might be terrible underneath the surface.
What about Mother Marty? Those who owe their birth to her, but later refuse to talk with Mom because of mishaps and mistrust, might blatantly prefer apostles of narrow mind and little understanding. Believe it or not, even Jesus did that - God! He felt hurt when his own family did not stand up for him when his hometown neighbours wanted to push him over the edge of a cliff.
Maybe life isn't what it seems at times. The Old Testament has: "I found woman - worse than death". Also, the less comforting one: "While I was ... not finding - I found ... not one [upright] woman (among a thousand). See Ecclesiastes 7:28.
If in this way you could flourish; it could prove fatal. Yet it depends on this and that, isn't that so? Be that as it may. A good outlook helps us to maintain balance. System analyses or Game theory can help us in many ways, and one can be called "turning the tables". Another: "Emulate the bigwigs a little better, to preserve autonomy yourself". And for the lack of these things some appear to flounder. Perhaps they get "outsmarted like hell" and love it. Freaking may be it! (5)
Let's say Master Grass Snake is a disguised Yoga Christ deep in the brambles. The question is what Christ: It is one marked by a little personal effort, just as much guru help and maybe twice as much help from Brahman, or God. That's the teaching.
The gurus who get over-eager to call friends and fathers Christs, have forgotten there is supposed to be a horrible crucifixion for it, even feeling much alone. We surely find that nice point overlooked by too eager verbiage-mongers.
Sri Yukteswar is publicly called a Yogi-Christ by his emissary, but also jnana-avatar - that is "divine wisdom descended into human form". It seems romantic.
How much is a grass-snake's hocus-pocus sentences worth in the cold and clear light of clay most often? A little - it could happen. That's quite sure, and coincides with my own experience.
The worshipped avatar under the magnifying glass, idealises changeless love in the
quote. But nature or living things are not changeless. Nature, the possible mother of all
sort of things, is deeply different. We perceive that what is changeless, hardly lives. Life
is marked by flux and change, even at Norwegian territories quite near the North Pole and
South Pole. So there's a fairly good chance that the yoga idol misleads us here.We had better not be hoodwinked by apparently giant statements or guarantees. Look into some of them instead. You have to be brisk for that. Perhaps you can use thought (Gedanken) experiments that Albert Einstein often took to to visualise things across the "logic" of others. It those ways he succeeded and didn't fail.
7. More grand-looking Sri Yukteswar sayings
"Everything in the future will improve if you are making a spiritual effort now." - Sri Yukteswar
He who decreed it, had longed for a son to train in yoga. After much success in yoga, Sri Yukteswar still did not have any son, and his wife was now dead. What can we learn from that?Apart from "too much of a good thing is a bad thing", will every kind of murder, rape and perfidity improve? - By saying "everything", the guru over-generalises, for "everything" encompasses good and bad and adiafora, ie "things in between somehow".
It is good to gain merits for this life and the future, but such fruits may not get ripe in this life, teaches Buddha. One should do good; there is no questioning of that, but it is wise not to succumb to exaggerations of profits either. [LINK]
If someone intent on limiting the wide, general assessment in the hope of favouring himself or herself thereby, there are good and bad ways to do it (check the chapter "Summing up" below). If you hope that solely good things may improve through the guru's phrase and so on, look at what really takes place. One example, the guru of Yukteswar did not demonstrate that it worked. One day he mentioned he had better be hit by a flying stone in the coming. He did not evade it either. In the light of that it had better be said that Sri Yukteswar's counsel may be too simplistic, and often out of tune with how reality works. Another matter is whether he puts himself beneath his counsel and the lovely promise it holds. Does he make it come true for anyone? Ask for evidence first, to avoid succumbing to false or grossly simplistic teachings.
"Everything will improve because it won't" - isn't that some teaching?
The goose or cloak you lost twenty years ago? Will that goose or loss improve? Will new teeth come up if you're nearly eighty? Why should they?More important, if you're hanging around in a dire pucker, isolated and with next to nothing to help you to live on, will much gasping and panting (kriya) help? Many people who gasped and panted greatly, will say no. Now, will a little guru panting help you? Will 1200 rounds? Not so. For maybe half of our lives are intertwined with many others, and depend on their marring acts also. We have to be fair to admit it. For example, if no North Americans would have helped Yogananda he should have starved to death during his first three years or so, or gone home to India.
About Yogi-Christ Lahiri (so called by Yogananda): "His stalwart body developed a small boil on the back." Then it was time to go. He did his kriya, but all the same not everything in his body improved. He died too. There you have it. A proof can hardly be better than that. Look at the bigwigs and note the difference between their cherished sayings and what they lived up to all along - something much different. In fact, great-looking sayings from any grass snake had better be looked on as huge soap bubbles. They look shiny in many rainbow hues, some of them, but are not substantial enough to be counted on outside the show business.
These stories were to inform you that we had better not trust everything we are told, without sound reservations on our parts.
Very often a secretive influence is underneath the words and tales you hear: "Build your life as I say and serve me well." And frankly, it may be far too shortsighted, and very often largely unfit where you live, and where sound moderation and meticulous work should function all right. ¤¤ Think of this:
"Everything [bad?] in future will improve [its badness?] if you are making a spiritual effort now."But what about your supper - and the bad soup you got two years ago? Is it so sure that it will improve? Or doesn't a master's "everything" mean anything? In fact, if you look much and solidly for verification, you'll end up saying: "Guru jokes don't fit in - not enough to serve a handy man."
"Forget the past. The vanished lives of all men are dark with many shames."
That is not a good counsel. One should derive benefit from the significant lessons of the past. If shame and remorse works for good in somebody, one should perhaps neither lessen nor deny them their good work either."Roam the world as a lion of self-control; don't let the frogs of weakness kick you around."
Self-control may or may not be needed in a set of circumstances. What is labelled weakness may not be the ability to weep and sigh.Self-control is fairly often opposed to acting naturally, which suggests "drawing strength from the natural many a time." And it could be a basic means of winning a better hand - [In Tibetan Tantra one finds a similar outlook.]
What could needed is some balancing between the two. "Not too little, not too much" of the two together could be good.
How live up to the general counsel is often the open question.
"Attachment is binding. It lends an imaginary halo to the object of desire."
Good."Look fear in the face and it will cease to trouble you."
This is dangerous counsel. You should not overestimate your powers or prowess. Fear is often well rooted, inside or in the outer circumstances. Don't be ridiculous."Disbelieve in the reality of sickness . . . an unrecognized visitor will flee."
Too demanding. It may easily be perverted as well. To get sound counsel, try to recognise what is the matter with you. Good diagnosis often helps. Next, find proper steps out of the plight. That is generally good counsel."Remember that finding God will mean the funeral of all sorrows."
That is not the witness of gurus that fall ill, grieve over Yogananda - and so on.
8. Harvested Terse Statements
THERE may two or more sides to an issue. It often makes sense not to go wholeheartedly for a generalised tenet through an enormously biased mentality. A general saying often needs to be interpreted and made to work. There is help against being taken in by great-looking or bombastic statements - our "well-teachings" help. [LINK]In short, maturation may be helped by adding "well-well" to tall statements. One goal is to reach fairness - of outlook, of statements and the like. Another goal is to learn to make the implied lesson(s) involved in the first (tall) statement useful locally. It's quite an art. And it may not be easy.
Now and then it could be fit to believe a bit in a generalised, terse statement and act accordingly.
- If the statement appears to be always sensible or right, one may do accordingly without hesitation. Maybe some grand laws of mathematics and norms of social climbing are fit for that.
- If that statement works for good most nearly always, acting sensibly on it could be fit in the long run. In these cases one may encounter losses - even though the odds seem very good. Beware of that and act accordingly. "Don't put all your eggs in one basket" may (or may not) be linked to such circumstances.
- Then, if the grand-looking statement works half of the time, theoretically, you might as well flip a coin. This means: Go for something better.
Learning lessons
A man who believes in great promises with next to nothing substantial under them, could need to reflect better and get rid of stupid attachments."Some men live well by deceiving innocent ones by godly words or taking them in somehow by other measures. Get out the verbiage that serves others, think better yourself and go all the way. Much bad may be harvested by blunt ridicule of common sense."
You could lose straight, common sense and fair, reciprocal deals if you dispense with realism and calculating. Theory is a help to master handling a fare. Handling fares matters. Play on belief is often through fancying. Much unsubstantial belief appears to be like thin air - but see where the money goes, and the power and the influence. That's good standard counsel.
Keep your money and firmer assets to yourself and benefit family and kin first - Charity starts at home. If you do that, you may find many opportunities to regret. If you don't do that, those opportunities may multiply and your goodness may be spat in the face.
Don't get naive. Avatar Hinduism that grow rich by freaking "get true, original Christianity here" is not the only fraud that is successful where there are millions of gullible or inexperienced ones..
What to do?
- If you find yourself deep in a sect, be guarded and seek to get out of there if you can.
- Get mentally over the bluff helper and counsel that is good for nothing. You may get impregnated -
- If your membership is lenient, build good assets as fast as you can to get out of there, do good for yourself and your family members, maybe under cover for a while, then perhaps you can work your way up.
 |
 |
 |
 |
| 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.
CLICK on 'Literature' for the references of about 2000
works.
ANNOTATIONS: Code letters (acronyms and initial words) in square brackets in the text refer to works. Click on 'Literature' to see examples. Page references are put right after code
letters. And the abbreviation cf. means "compare". [MORE].
SITE SEARCH: The 'Search' link gives access to dictionaries and more.
REFER: Prefer the standard 'location address' on top of the page(s).
PILOTING: Note the clickable text links on top of the page. [MORE]
DISCLAIMER: Two disclaimers intertwine: [A] [B]
© 1999–2006, Tormod Kinnes. All rights reserved — Revised in August 2006