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"So many missing pieces to the "puzzle" provided at last! Heartfelt
thanks."-JW
Contemplation and Figuring
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| Welcome to hilarious teachings. |
One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvellous structure of reality. [Albert Einstein]As for pretty identical outlooks, look up the Zen man's haven, where cool insights are arranged according to method and plan in a way that goes a long way towards what's below."
Contents
| Supporting reservations are presupposed throughout: |
Already enlightened or not?
Death of a stag - sort of
EDMUND Waller had a tremendous, international reputation for wit, in spite of his
"obstinate sobriety."Once he was shown the Duchess of Newcastle's verses on the death of a stag, and declared that he would give all his compositions to have written them.
Charged with overdoing his flattery, he answered,
"Nothing was too much to be given, that a lady might be saved from the disgrace of such a vile performance."
- Be saved from disgrace in any decent way you can find.
- Watch out, and less hypocricy gets maiming. hopefully.
Already master-enlightened, or what?
WE HAD better concern ourselves also with operating wavelengths of interactions. For
example, "Bah, bah, little lamb" shows concerns that eventually make it "clear" in abundance
to a little tot that sheep are sheared and made use of under us, not above our heads. With
Superman the stand is different, very different.Speaking of supermen: Bramble Farm avatars set up a cult of insincere deals as far as evangelical Christianity is concerned - I feel sorry about that. Insincerity can make hospitality tricky, very tricky. Insincere guys and hypocricy should not be more welcome than a fart.
As someone said when he farted in his pants: "One is not better than human." (A Swedish proverb)
As for Yogananda's sayings "You are already enlightened, but you do not know it."—"Your self is your only saviour" - they are far from all right together.
What is more, there are no major winning deals below being already enlightened, which Yogananda claimed everybody is.
Some folks have great needs to whitewash facades of religious-looking stoutness. And some cowed people take overtly neurotic delight in casting a slur on sound and reasonable intentions and fair, easy-going attitudes of others without regrets. It is not as should be.
From "Parental advice" (a poem)
Who laid the egg that hatched the moon?Was it the earth, I wonder,
Was it the sun, the clouds, or rain,
Was it night or thunder?
- John Farrar (1896-1974)
More on contemplation
THE ART of living has many facets. And there are many snares. One is of alienation. Now,
let us look at this: "At the end of the rainbow is wine to be found."The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is nature smiling to you. But since many city dwellers have limited access to mild, good or wild nature in the West, and more is to come along that vein, efforts to get on the sunny side of the street may come first as a matter of life and necessity. Then, after good enough living is in sight or better than that, good and sound efforts, dreams and luck have to keep pace with one another. You also have to keep pace with dominant others in your sphere of influence, to keep things tidy. Through things like these, major gains may come much more easily. And unwelcome deteriorations may set in too. It depends.
Having to compets with one's neighbours or many others for a living and esteem, may bring on stress, and much stress tends to make unsound. Unsound may later make unfit, and to become unfit for living is not that much to boast of. The fact is that nervous tenseness causes wear and tear in very many. Medical doctors estimate that 50-70% of all common body diseases are related to stress, wholly or partly. And good yoga and relaxation counteract gross effects of stress. This has been shown through research studies, and many there are of them too.
Now, there are stages of good yoga and contemplation and some rise high above the need for rest and relaxation and regaining health more or less. Let us say there are stairs in a staircase, but if you are not interested in climbing all of them, the stairs and floors higher up may stand unused for long. Maybe fine vistas could have opened up if you climbed the stairs, but how far you climb and how often may be up to you. This is by far no pushing attempt.
Come on, get it over with.
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However, maybe you'd be glad to get one nice clue: According to major sources the secret of good yoga is that best wine is found within. Some call that wine bliss or lots of heart-gladness. it is a metaphor, like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It is good to strive for that - by drifting inwards mentally and gaining strength not to seek and search but glide inside and "above" much less.
Once higher states are gained, they have to be protected, have to be stabilised and integrated too, and that's not little. And maybe they may be expanded and given up for the still higher states. We keep an open mind for things like that.
Good things may come in stages. Those who rise above the unfulfilled person's desperate cravings, may slowly develop things linked to what the humanistic psychologist Dr. Abraham Maslow calls B-needs (Being-needs). You may gain such health that you want to let loose more of your talents, experience better, that is, realise or actualise yourself too, and not leave it to the artists and cougars [cf. Puse] [Our Maslow Reader].
But let us dwell more on good things to train. The meaning of good enough yoga is that your part is to train yourself, very much like a sprinter. Through efforts that are marked by ease and not very much tenseness, you may come to this: you feel your awareness enter into higher levels of mind. Put in other words, you glide inside through steps and stages. This diving inside is known as contemplation in good circles in the West, and some may call it meditation.
Koans
Maybe you do not want to get initiated in techniques formed by others, if you think you are good enough already, enlightened and further. If so, the post-Atlantic initiations could fit you better, even though they may not serve you better:
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How? How to do it? That is next, after being set on the track somehow. These hints are formed to show the way better than various koans, riddles, that you may come across in Rinzai Zen and otherwise. In fact, there is a major technique at bottom of each of these counsels. That's the beauty of it.
Training oneself can be hard and time-consuming. Getting hints is easy. Those who do not need yogic training, could have a better fare (for themselves, at any rate) than those who fail to make it without these aids and therefore get assistance from training and getting tougher through it.
On the other hand, degenerate ones do not think they need training, either, as they take to products and prop themselves up through that, as long as it lasts.
Besides, there are several good and documented effects of yogic methods in general. That means that some might try out these means to augment the quality of life. Some may want to explore tenets first-hand too.
More on training
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| Through proper boundaries, try to benefit yourself too. |
Training is often done by steps and stages, but real mastery of accomplishment demands a much integrated practice. There is much to learn from artistic accomplishment along general lines. One should not discard fitness and soundness for one's training, and try to keep in touch with nature too, to escape big calamity in the future.
These things often help, and can be planned for in advance by many. We can and should go for gains in respected, respectable ways by keeping pace and being well integrated inside, and strive to "cement" those benefits in time - maybe step by step, for many good things come by stages, like the art of calculation..
What maya is held responsible for
An old Viking spoke up to his friends. His eyes revealed he was there in full when
he said:Handling brambles
The
guru's maya is at least partially responsible for all the Indian swami instructed - is not
that fair to tell? Yogananda's much naive American audience in time lowers and flatten the
concepts most used, and the spectacle, it seems. Self-Realization through gliding
inside one's deep layers, is a feat to accomplish.
The audience in time lowered the
concepts most used and the spectacle
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| If meditation builds plots of enchantment - take care. |
Self-realisation is a concept that carries different meanings also. Yogananda's verbal utterances appeared to drift a lot to "find God" - and concomitant "West Coast Goading" - "looks enchanting". The concepts he found fit to use, tended to "otherness-God" instead of "one's self as God". Thus, a much dualistic note set in and marred the first dominant refrain of gliding into Self through swami-meditation. 'Swami' means 'one with the Self (swa)', basically [cf. Scu].
He did not swim or row across the Atlantic on his own
Most persons do not feel for rowing across the ocean in a dingy all alone. He whom hundreds of thousands of impressed Americans consider to be a big boss - even with capital letters - had to get to America by boat. He did not swim across the ocean. And still followers hold him to be God - one of Them. That's how things happen to be in that circus. "The road to the divine is not a circus," he said.Further note had to beg his way for the boat trip. it is described in more detail in Golden Anniversary Booklet published by SRF (SRF). Its international headquarters in Los Angeles is called Mother Center.
A Hinduism society was founded by Yogananda in or near Boston in the United States in 1920. Some think it happened in California, but that is far from it. He did not go there till years later. A lot Christians have been taken in on that one, it seems fair to say. Apart from that, where is the Biblical evidence that apostle-given Christianity is to be lorded over by Hindu swami-monks because they tell so?
The world-wide society consists of lay members and of those who have taken monastic vows. The latter generally play the role of clergy in the movement. There are now centres world-wide, and several independent groups influenced by his teachings. ¤
Maya is held responsible for all
the Hindu guru instructed through his faulty notions and illusions (that sort of maya) - is
not that fair to tell?
ADVANCING Hindus seldom travelled by sea a century or two ago. One reason: they lost
caste in such a case. After the master went by boat across the ocean, he sat down to write
his Autobiography in 1946, and later confessed God (not himself) made him edit it
too. That seems to imply: (1) God either did not write it in the first place, or (2) he
later saw he did not good enough work. We mention these tidings because Yogananda and two
other masters of his line declared that the Lord is the Sole Doer. It should not be
necessary for God to do things twice if time was short - which the master often indicated it
was in his case at that time.Yogananda also dictated other works, and his tendentious commentary to the Rubaiyyat has recently been published by two separate publishers - one is SRF. The master's books have become very popular and influential, even though there are horrible untruths in some. One big one is that maya is Nature, the Bible's Satan and so on. But the Gospels' concept of Satan is different. [[Cf. Ha 275 and Daff].
For a long time before that, the swami lectured and taught in many US cities. He started to dominate some of his initiates to the degree that he made monastics out of them. That looks morally defective against God or the Self in all (already enlightened etc). The farmer finds it fit to do things along the same line, but there are nuances and degrees of things like these to take into consideration too (of course). The farmer is "aided" by animals in his charge; they seldom realise full well that they are deeply exploited by him. Or if they do, there is little they can do about it.
The concept "master farm" may hint at something in that vein, a farmer and his crew has striven for an upper hand and control of humans that work for next to nothing by idealism or whatever - and if later conditions manifest as a sour soup, look behind that to who set up things - was it the fox? It could be good and sound counsel if you bear in mind the figurative "Tell that fox" by Jesus; he was talking about his king - The Law of Moses stated that slavery is from God. Now, who made the farm of humans?
- The master's own personal master that allegedly was with him and guided him as from afar?
- His master's master, who said (1) he would be with all who practice tantric kriya yoga, and (2) through enlarging perceptions?
- His master's master's master, who (1) let him go across "the pond" and (2) said that he himself (not Yogananda) would be spiritually responsible for all that were taught kriya yoga and behaved solidly well as instructed? [Pa 501]
- Maybe all of them in one unified gel - or do they take turns in handling man like house-dogs [a term from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad translated by Paul Deussen into German, from there to English -] in the name of science, Jesus and help to great men?
This teaching does not rule out the Bible's "There is a time for everything . . ."
Who was it, finally?
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| "These farm teachings - moo." |
You had better not succumb to his half-ritual "cry for Divine Mother till she appears". You can get very maimed by that indiscreet master show. And it is a way that may not suit Western man - and not Eastern, Southern and Northern either too well - Do we exaggerate?
The master taught a specific set of yoga methods, kriya yoga, including a concentration technique of "plugging the ears" and tuning in to what you hear in specified ways. Tibetans have used that method, James Hewitt informs in Teach Yourself Yoga.
Prayer or devotion is used alongside with these methods.
Kriya and the SRF meditation method (Hong-Sau) can be great help to some, for example persons with an overweight of bad karma (vasanas). If good mind impressions or karma are burnt too - well, that's not exactly good! Good and bad, burnt alike through the practice. So if there is much good deep in you, good karma waiting to bear fruit, maybe you should postpone burning out everything? It has to be decided on.
Handy teachings may entertain and
astonish, may instruct and amuse, but seldom all of it at the same time
THE GURU was a teacher of yoga. The first Indian spiritual teacher to reside in the
West for over 30 years altogether, set up Self-Realization Fellowship. And now there are
centres that live to spread classes in kriya yoga and also offer what is called Churches of
All Religions - it works like Hinduism. Centres and groups have services that combine
elements of Hinduism and "veneer Christianity" - it can become ludicrous if you inspect it.
There are many other ways of figurative surfing than those used by SRF around too. For
example, movie makers surf drastic happenings in their shows.Much depends on the side you are on.
Summary
Imagine your task is to serve. If often happens that the highest levels of
the task dwindle, and what is accomplished lies on some lower levels. Accordingly,
churches that wanted to help poor people on three levels - soul, mind, and body - could end
up using the resources on material business mostly, or on minds and bodies. Even then,
maybe not in the very best ways.- The audience in time lowers the concepts most used and the spectacle.
- A yogi's illusions (that maya) can be responsible for much wrong and awkward he teaches.
- Handy teachings may entertain and astonish, may instruct and amuse, but seldom all of it at the same time. Pick a choice and adjust as you go too.
1. Gradual dwarfing of significant outputs tends to work to our loss if the proper
counter-measures to that are found and employed.2. From searching for fossiles to performing with false teeth - could a dwarfed higher intent lie in it? A resolution: Let vermin act.
From wanting to kill to enjoying a harsh show - could it be a good trend? Show-buziness? Yes. Let violent persons enjoy entertainments as much as the British . . .
Everything deteriorates in the hands of men. [Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in his novel Emile, opening line] - The suggestions here indicate how to put that to positive use.
Detractions
The paleontologist and Quaker Edward Drinker Cope (1840-97) refused to take a gun
with him on his fossil-hunting forays, even though these led him into territories where
hostile Indians lived.On one occasion, when he was surrounded by a distinctly unfriendly band, Cope distracted these captors from wanting to kill him, by removing and putting back his false teeth. Enthralled by this performance, they made him do it over and over again and in the end released him unharmed.
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Adjoined
Ak: Yogananda, Pa.: Man's Eternal Quest. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1975.Ap: Mieder, Wolfgang (main editor), Stewart A. Kingsbury, and Kelsie E. Harder: A Dictionary of American Proverbs. (Paperback) New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Pa: Yogananda, Pa.: Autobiography of a Yogi. 11th ed. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1971. – ONLINE 1st edition
Say: Yogananda, Pa.: Sayings of Yogananda. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1958.
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