Yogananda on Women

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Yogananda on Women T
From the Art of Constructive Criticism T

Oval Fragment Relief from the tomb of Nakht, Egypt. Dynasty XVIII 1450 BC.

THREE EGYPTIAN MUSICIANS from ca. 1450 BC. Music was a source of pleasure and relaxation for Egyptians. The main instrument was the harp, followed by the flute. We see a flute player, a harp player and a youth playing the norva, an instrument that is close to our banjo and made out of a turtle shell. The three instrumentalists are lightly dressed with transparent clothes and veils.

Alert
If you feel disconcerted, upset, offended and troubled over the content, take heart. The SRF brother Anandamoy was asked about what to do in such cases, and answered that the good thing to do was to focus on doing the techniques, and don't be bothered - something like that. If you want to go deeper into just that approach, which I recommend above being a twit, please visit this page: [LINK]

Paramahansa Yogananda on Women (Partial)

Some women catch a cold and some go for gold. The bound, beautiful woman should fight the drinking habit and insensitive indignation with female gold-diggers, says Yogananda. There is more:

The bound, beautiful woman should fight the drinking habit

WOMAN - BOUND: "Women . . . bound by hereditary habit and custom, still attend church without any conscious reason . . . for no apparent reason. But do not misunderstand me, - I am not condemning church-goers". [Yogananda, "Christian Science and Yoga Healing". East-West May, 1932, vol. 4-7

A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN CAN BE A FRIEND: "Sometimes a beautiful woman may fall in love with an ugly man, or a handsome man with a physically unattractive woman . . . A fat, distorted body may harbour a real friend. Therefore, to be sure that your eyes have not deceived you . . . ascertain whether you are mentally and spiritually congenial. Delve deeper into a person's mind and guard yourself against being prejudiced by little peculiarities." [Yogananda, in The Art of Gaining Friends - Including: Why Love Your Enemies?" Excerpted from Inner Culture, March, 1936

LIQUOR - "Women. Fight the liquor habit. You can never really like it . . ." [Yogananda, in "Never Fed, Ever Satisfied". East-West, October 1927 - November 1927

FLOATING - "In the present Spanish Civil War, the death struggles of thousands of men, women and children are floating in the ether causing floods in America, storms in England and Portugal, and earth-quakes in India." - Yogananda, in "Nations Beware" (Humorous excerpts). Inner Culture March, 1937 VOL.9-5 ◊

SUGGESTING MEDICINE? "Medicine has its uses . . .why deny facts?" - [Yogananda].

Some women catch a cold and others catch gold

WOMEN AMIDST CLAY COULD BE CATCHING COLD: "We find some Western ladies wearing shoes with fifty dollars' worth of jewel-studded heels - and most of the Eastern women going wholly without shoes amidst clay and rain and may be catching cold." [Yogananda in "Your Most Important Engagement". East-West 2 and 3 - January - April 1927

BEWARE OF A BLACKMAILING WOMAN: "Many people will remember the case in London a few years ago of ". . . Hari Singh of Kashmir, who was blackmailed by a woman and her accomplices. . . . The woman and her accomplices extracted seven hundred thousand dollars from the Prince. . . . The Prince told of this unfortunate experience to one of the English judges. The judge felt a righteous indignation." [Yogananda, in "Spiritualizing the Newspapers", East-West, March - April 1928 ◊

The dogma-fed, church-going women sometimes does good, but hardly enough to remarry her

TO FILL A BIG CHURCH WITH WOMEN DOES SOME GOOD: "To create a big church in a town and fill it with creed-led and dogma-fed men and women does some good." [Yogananda, in "Yogavatar Shyama Lahiri Mahasaya's Ladder of Self-Realization, for Salvation for All". Inner Culture, March 1937

CAN BE FREED - "Women should remember that their worldly life can be freed from endless physical and mental ills." [Yogananda, in "The Second Coming of Christ". East-West, May, 1932 VOL. 4-7

HAPPY THROUGH A WIFE? RATHER IMPOSSIBLE: "[A John] thought: "If I get a wife, I shall be happy" . . . then married a nagging, tongue-lashing woman. He divorced this wife, and . . . married again, but the second wife was worse than the first . . . In this way people try, but they never reach their goal." - Yogananda, "Creating Happiness". East-West August, 1933 Vol. 5-10.

Summary

The still beautiful woman that is bound to home life or service, should fight the drinking habit and other bad habits to her ability. It stands to reason.
While some women stop in life and just catch colds, it would be better to go for pure gold. Have lovely items in your home. Gold, silver, precious stones for such as display and adornments, and for thinking lovely thoughts about.
A very dogma-fed, church-enslaved woman sometimes does good, but hardly enough for a sane man to remarry her if his first marriage was hell.

Beautiful woman in your home, think lovely thoughts day and night, instead of just wishing to remarry.

From the Art of Constructive Criticism

Keep your body healthy and see what you can do

Be very successful in the art of living as soon as you can.
It normally pays to put a stop to twisted, arrogant correspondence.
Be as bland as you can, meticulous, grand-looking, summing things up. Also, cool curtness could be a way out.
You can probably find a better way than talking down on someone in defence. Self-preservation has many other and higher facets.

DAO SEARCH

Let self-help take over

Go for fairness and meticulous tact in deals.
Let what you assert be just and not fictitious.

An amount of self-help works.
It's good to go for an education.

Try to be accurate enough from the start in what you do

Troubling unmet others is not our idea of behaving full well.

To see things fairly, get in order, tidy up

The art of giving constructive criticism is a boon.
Self-convolutism may fall.

There are many defence mechanism against seeing fairly. [LINK]
To combat at least some of them, see if there is help in tidying up as soon and as well as you can.

Summary

There are other shackles than getting cramped through cult enslavement and being fed with lies. Yet these teachings may help you, at least in the long run:

Go for self-help and an education that supports it.
Remain accurate in work and dealings.
Get well in order, and see as fairly as you can.

Misty Yogananda lore

Did you know that Yogananda talked strongly for things that are quite like the ones below?:

Handiness can be helped by getting presented various good and decent all-round sides to it, and even in general.
A thorough, constructive exchange of practical ideas is often helped by various truth-offerings of others.
It should help to encourage many others to live a practical, fulfilling life.
Persevere in your own practice to know the supreme joy of absolute pinpointing and realisation (hamsa).

[Q.v. East West, Vol. 1, No. 1, November-December, 1925.]

Literature
Ay: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Autobiography of a Yogi. 1st ed. New York: Philosophical Library, 1946. Online. [oaks.nvg.org/pv6bk12.html]

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