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Said Past Lives of Paramahansa Yogananda

SRF STUDIES
To become a victim of SAID past lives is foolish.
No more blind believing. [Paramahansa Yogananda, Ak 456]

He wanted others to believe in him that way . . .

Introduction to Yogananda's "Past Lives"
The Theme "Past Lives of Yogananda" T

Supporting "well medleys" are presupposed throughout:

A NOTE. To produce the text(s) that follow, we have used keynotes and whole sentences from kriya-related postings on one or more on-line discussion boards. We camouflage sources somewhat - there are both advantages and inconveniences in that. But some key points stem from scarred and afraid cult members and former members, and for their sake nicknames are changed and sources masked a little.
Also, here and there key words and names are changed for the sake of artistic freedom and for creating a helping distance to harsh realities to some. Many offhand-looking words are explained in the glossary 'Offhandish', and key terms of yoga in another glossary, called 'Yoga terms'. You get to them by clicking on the 'search rose'. Our special arrangement of chosen items in the survey is better explained on the 'Model' page (bottom). There is more to look into through the 'well medley' text link right above. - Max Sacre (pseud), therapist

Introduction to Yogananda's "Past Lives"

A Lot of Guru Followers Believe Him so Blindly

The author James Donald Walters, also known as Kriyananda and a former vice-president of Self-Realization Fellowship, states:

Once I asked Master [Paramahansa Yogananda] a question with regard to William the Conqueror. [AD 1027-87] [Master said he was William the Conqueror in a previous lifetime.] I asked, "... Can an avatar not realize he has attained that stature?" Master said, "You never lose your sense of inner freedom" - a very wise answer.
One could say that an avatar incarnates . . . to fully express his realization. Before they fully express that consciousness, they go through different experiences to show us how to react to what we have to go through to achieve freedom.

Geoffrey Falk talks of the same subject:

Yogananda claimed to be the reincarnation of William the Conqueror [. . .] and of William Shakespeare.
. . . (These questions regarding previous incarnations are not openly touted by SRF, but they are well known behind the scenes, and never directly denied by SRF ministers.)

Mr. Falk also writes in another place:

Has anyone else gotten hate email . . .? My inbox just got deliberately clogged with 118 copies of the following:
"I've been seriously itched by your gossipy statements about Hidden Valley I've spend more than 3 years there and it's been the best time of my life so far! You're an ungrateful piece of @#%$, highly unethical and disturbed. And for your info I've been in SRF 2 times as long as you."" [Geoffrey Falk (10/13/02 4:05 pm)]

Falk also states:

I spent nine months as a resident volunteer at the men-only SRF Hidden Valley ashram outside Escondido, from October of 1997 to July of 1998, having been a loyal member of SRF for close to a decade at that time. To the best of my memory and knowledge, the following points are all true:
Before being officially accepted to live at Hidden Valley (HV) as a resident volunteer, one is required to sign a pledge affirming that he will regard his supervisors at the ashram as vehicles of God and Guru, and obey their instructions accordingly . . . Yogananda claimed to be the reincarnation of William the Conqueror - reputed to be able to heal scrofula with a mere "king's touch" - and of William Shakespeare. [(12/8/01 7:37 pm)]

"A loyal member of SRF" may not be a worthy moonbeam to sail on, then, considering the implications and turmoil in the fellowship. Shakespeare's words "To your own self be true," is often quoted in SRF, and sometimes forgotten or repressed for the sake of submission to some sort of "otherness", be it church policy or selected decrees that serve a community at the expense of the individual members.
On other pages we present William the Conqueror as he is remembered in historical sources, works by historians, and a few other works, such as encyclopedies. And there are links to some good sites online. A page of highlights is here: [LINK]

Yogananda claimed to have been William Shakespeare too. The evidence for it appears to be marred, muffled and dead. You should learn to ask for evidence first, before authority-fixed belief creeps in and makes life less savoury to you.

Trust Your Way into the Eddies of Living

The issue on this page is the guru Yogananda's claim that he had past lives, remembered some of them, and told about them to disciples. Some of these disciples, in turn, seem to pat their own backs by the guru's "memoirs". The results of that again do not seem particularly ennobling.
The quotations and rendered quotations that follow, is our evidence. It is admittedly only second-hand evidence of guru memoirs at best, although Yogananda tells of past lives in his famous Autobiography of a Yogi [LINK] too.
"Hearsay evidence" is not as classy as first-hand evidence or scientific studies if our aim is to gather evidence of past lives - but it is not. We use it as evidence of rumours and attempts to use William to support a long dead guru's claims of this and that, and what comes out of it. We have termed the discussion boards where the postings appear backwaters, as an indication of far from enough foreward-motion in them.
To investigate the possibility of former lives demands a particular methodology, such as the designs (over-all patterns) employed by Dr. Ian Stevenson. If we are to play fair in such a field of outlets, we have to learn how to study the main problems of "remembered past lives" first and foremost. That comes first. [Link]
But it is something - a reminder of what cult membership does to the mental aspects of some. They swallow tales of past lives wholesale, and may be unwilling to see anything bad in the guru's former lives too, unless the historical evidence is massive. The main issue is: They believe blindly, as told. In this they are like farm cattle; it is a metaphor of cult or sect members too. This utterance is tactlessly ignored by so many in Sect Country:

No more blind believing. - [Paramahansa Yogananda, Ak 456]

Along with it one had better mention another lesson:

No more cheating.

Conformity has Its Price at Times

A main point is that Yogananda talks with two mouths, as he does from time to time. One result is confused disciples, another may be neurotic wrecks. But there are more sides to this: In the book Man's Eternal Quest, he tells of two women who came to him, telling that a psychic had told each of them that they had been Mary Stuart, queen of Scots. He brought them together and asked, "Which of you were the real Mary, then?"
They could not tell. The guru wanted to expose how ridiculous it was just to believe in tales of one's past lives without a shred of evidence to support it. Then it shows up that Yogananda himself tells of past lives of himself, disciples, and others. And evidence is largely wanting.
Yogananda did not go for proving his ideas of his past lives, even though he had ample time and resources to do so. Hold that against him. For most of his disciples today have a loyalty obligation to him, and so they may not reach doubt in such matters, no matter what Dr. Stevenson, others and we tell them about problems, traps, and intricacies of ascertaining former lives of persons. Their minds are formed in a cult way - dogmatism is at the root of it, and it is bad for one's personal development. Below we bring evidence - not of past lives of anyone, but of what tales of past lives can lead into if many people believe as told.
Opposed to that, show some good sense.

The Theme "Past Lives of Yogananda"

Why Is Cattle a Confused Lot?

It takes two to a tango. (Proverb)

But sometimes all it takes is being captured in the first place, and then made dumber afterwards. Try to understand what may happen in the dwarfed minds of certain sect followers, or "farm cattles" as we call them:

After a while my brain becomes a lump of mashed potatoes trying to figure it out . . . [needthestar]

We have assembled quotations and half-quotations and renderings from a confused lot - in a backwater of a sort. These few highlights may combat the too superficial, wide-spread romantic attitude of almost too foolish wholesale admiration of royalty.
The following is rooted in statements by former SRF members and reluctant SRF members and Yogananda followers are most of them. Here you can see what they think. Their world-view tends to be narrowed. And they seem to have deep problems with understanding historical facts - that may lie behind not a few quack-quack-quack utterances in thes pond for the believers - and many of those who post on the board look glum and not all too happy.

One big backwater is the discussion board called the Elephant Seal, but it does constrain its topics to those who don't are critical to Yogananda, the Hindu monk or "guru-bandit" who said he came in the name of Jesus and Krishna and so on, but never complying to some of the most basic features of Christianity, for one thing. Some serious offenses are too great to be grasped at once.
After trawling the Elephant Seal Backwater I chose the following evidence of cultish belief among many SRF insiders and members. What stands out is that not a few in those circles believe as told - in part stemming from SRF dogmas. And what many believe in this instance are occult things that tie in with many other beliefs in a system - some use them as marks of many New Age cults (SRF is one):

Reincarnation, past lives
Karma

On the other board they often don't question things well enough. But some try to inform and seem informed.

Handling brambles

Some worshipping guru followers discover that their guru is a villain, others that he has told he was a rude bastard of a villain in one of his former lives, and neither of these two options may feel all good at the time.
But all the same the followers go on gloating by proxy and whim most of all, using unverified assertions is that. As a result the "Great William-Yogananda myth or farce" is put into play - devoid of adequate evidence, and with a certain degree of aloofness from the rigors of science -
What we look into seems far worse than errors - we look into one of the results of dwarfing the minds of possibly innocent Americans.

The William-Yogananda myth has been made by devotees that were told . . .

A. That Yogananda was William and that they look alike, some take for granted, devoid of adequate evidence

Prior to William's reign, if a baron rose in rebellion against the king, all his serfs and nobles had to follow him. William introduced the system of pledging loyalty first to the king, . . . This enabled England to endure when other countries fell apart into warring duchies." - Sw. Kriyananda, in "The Light of Superconsciousness," p. 195-6. [ugizralrite (10/31/03 4:18 pm)]

Sri Yukteswar, during Master's life as William, was the Italian priest Lanfranc, his spiritual mentor. Lanfranc wrote what some historian called 'one of those obscure medieval treatises'". [ugizralrite (10/31/03 4:18 pm)]

COMMENT: The first quote is largely fair, albeit a little biased toward the end through speculation. Since what happened happened, it is not perfectly fit to say what caused what. Some alternatives to feudalism could have been better. After all, it is easier to rule and defend islands than a piece of the continent. An example: What happened the Spanish armada.
The second poster, evidently takes for granted that Yogananda (called Master) was William - he believes as told by the boss.

It was on the mile-long ridge where now the village and ruins of Battle stand, some half a dozen miles north of the sea of Hastings, that this man won the great fight. It was his inteligence, his will, his tenacity, which had done all....
I don't take his or anyone else's inner realizations, at least from the page of a book, as hard evience. [ranger20 (11/4/03 11:28 am)]
A short, broad-shouldered northern Frenchman, approaching his fortieth year, a man with long arms, powerfully built, and famous for the strength of his hands, clean-shaven, square-jawed, obese, vigorous-all that-decided, at about five o'clock of an autumn evening on a Sussex hill, the destinies of England and, in great part, of the world. [ugizralrite (10/31/03 4:18 pm)]

COMMENT: Some guru hailers symptomatically want to see mainly the said good sides of William, including facial features. We don't have any witness accounts of how his face looked like. He was just above average and grew fat as he got older, contemporary accounts tell. Perhaps some go against historical fact in attempts to create a myth - in this case it is the William-Yogananda myth.

William was tall and had weight problems. People tended to make fun of him because he was fat. There's definitely a resemblance between him and Yogananda, especially in the way they carried themselves (barrel chests out) and in the eyes. [/i][etzchaim (11/2/03 8:43 am)][/i]
Dawnrays, you say "thanks for clarifying" whenever someone writes something that verifies what you want to believe. [Etzchaim]

COMMENT: Don't believe blindly: There are not any mentions from the time of William that warrants the bogus similarities that "Etzchaim" unfortunately wants to tell of above. She seems to have studied some portraits of William, not knowing they were made centuries after his death. Therefore, it is vain to muse and fuss about any likeness between Yogananda and William based on such items of culture. But here is a contemparary description of William:

In later life William became very fat. In 1087 William was told that King Philip of France described him as looking like a pregnant woman.

William went to war against King Philip of account of that. But here is a more detailed quotation:

According to a brief description of William's person by an anonymous author, who borrowed extensively from Einhard's Life of Charlemagne, he was just above average height and had a robust, thick-set body. Though he was always sparing of food and drink, he became fat in later life . . . William was . . . fierce and despotic, generally feared; uneducated, he had few graces but was . . . shrewd.

Thus, when Yogananda adherents talk of William as tall, don't believe it. When they talk of William's eyes, we have no evidence of them or other facial features either. But when they talk of him as fat later in life, that is what the old sources say - "William: Quite average and very fat late in life" is then opposed to Yogananda's "tiny and very fat" - just to put the record straight, Yogananda was just a bit above 5 feet tall.

Master said he was William the Conqueror in a previous lifetime. . . . I asked, 'Is it possible for someone who is liberated not to realize it? Can an avatar not realize he has attained that stature?' Master said, 'You never lose your sense of inner freedom.' A very wise answer! - Sw. Kriyananda, in "Avatar," a talk at Sunday Service at Ananda Cooperative Village on February 1, 1998 [ugizralrite (10/31/03 4:18 pm)]
The general SRF scuttlebutt, and I believe the accounts of Kriyananda, is that PY was Arjuna in the far past, so the warrior experience is there, . . . [Is it?]
the historical life of William would seem to represent a devolution. Who knows [ranger20 (11/4/03 11:28 am)]

COMMENT: The freedom to be a despot is talked of - Note the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Version E, entry for 1087:

King William and the chief men loved gold and silver and did not care how sinfully it was obtained provided it came to them. He (William) did not care at all how wrongfully his men got possession of land nor how many illegal acts they did.

The critical moment at Hastings was not a matter of "intelligence, will, tenacity," but . . . They loosed a final flight of arrows, and one struck King Harold in the eye. At the loss of their leader, the Saxon ranks broke.
. . if not for that arrow, [ranger20 (11/3/03 10:48 am)]
Ugize wrote: Big Boy, N Paulsen says, "I was beside him in this battle, and was of such stature I could look him straight in the eyes while standing beside him as he sat astride his horse."
A man so tall that standing he can look another man, atop a horse, straight in the eye! How is it possible?
[ANSWER: Pony-sized horse, large human. Some hulks of Scandianvian descent have been over 2.30 m, like the quite well-known Ivar Boneless]
An average [present-day] Percheron from Normandy would be 17 hands (4 inches per hand) or 5'8" from the ground to shoulders. 14 hands at 4' 6'' otherwise, the observer will have to be nearly a foot taller than Yao Ming who's 7'-6" Horse is now a bit too small for a conqueror. But it's our world now.
Adjust the size of the observer. He IS 8'7"! The observer IS one giant of a man.
the observer is simply…the horse, carrying a weapon…his rider into battle?
or Wm the C was a dwarf riding a pygmy pony. [stermejo (11/1/03 3:1pm)]
Yogananda . . . Didn't he once say that he loved England? . . . If it was P.Y. he certainly played it to the fullest...burning, slashing and all....how pleased . . . [needthestar (11/4/03 5:36 pm)]

COMMENT: More and more foolish? Does it get better than this? Here is what Britannica Encyclopedia says:

William went out to give battle. He attacked the English phalanx with archers and cavalry but saw his army almost driven from the field. He rallied the fugitives, however, and brought them back into the fight and in the end wore down his opponents. Harold's brothers were killed early in the battle. Toward nightfall the King himself fell and the English gave up. William's coolness and tenacity secured him victory in this fateful battle.

B. Some think aloofness from children and compassion to foes should be favoured by kriya yoga. Think twice.

I don't tell people I am not angry; I let them think I am. - Paramahansa Yogananda quoted by [ugizralrite (10/31/03 4:18 pm)]

What the new administration and the new dynasty . . . did, was to make precise what had before been vague . . . to organize . . . - Hilaire Belloc, in "William the Conqueror," Tan Books and Publishers, Inc. [ugizralrite (10/31/03 4:18 pm)]

COMMENTS: You can organise to get it better. Some stern ones may scare others into driveling fools or farm cattle to that end too -

"One more characteristic was to emerge prominently as William grew older, especially after he had become King of England, his greed for gold:
'Into avarice did he fall
And loved greediness above all'.
"So wrote an English monk who 'had looked upon him, and once lived at his court....He was a very stern and violent man, . . . no one dared do anything contrary to his will. He had earls in his fetters, who acted against his will. He expelled bishops from their sees, and abbots from their abbacies, and put thegns in prison, and finally he did not spare his own brother, who was called Odo' [and Otto]." - From "William the Conqueror" by David Walker, quoted by [etzchaim (11/3/03 2:16 pm)]

"In "The Path" [the autobiography of Kriyananda], Master refers to a previous incarnation of Hitler's as Alexander the Great.
Charles Linburg's previous incarnation of Abraham Lincoln . . . Charles Linburg was a great man, he was extremely sympathetic to the Nazi regime and used his huge popularity and influence to campaign against our involvement in WWII. [dawnrays (11/4/03 12:44 pm)]

COMMENTS: Greed is a trait that could be carried on to future lives . . . Many gurus is the West have been exposed as greedy, fooling people too.

"In a way all great rulers I guess are blessed with greater realization than bad ones. This could be due to their spiritual leanings,
SRF is definitely out of line as far as their expectations and there is no doubt about it. I speak from first hand experience and yes, . . . They are classically obsessive/compulsive for one thing. They are extremely obsessed with cleanliness, order and quiet almost beyond belief (hence their dislike for children). [dawnrays (10/30/03 10:04 am)]

"It does appear that William left some to be desired in certain aspects of compassion to his foes . . . [dawnrays (11/4/03 12:44 pm)]

COMMENTS: William was a ruthless tyrant. Yogananda spellbound some and bound some of them through the SRF loyalty pledge none may get out of unless the still largely secret golden key makes the guru prison door swing open. "Don't leave God's emissary foolishly" and "I killed Yogananda long ago [Yogananda]" may have to be turned to do that work . . . Yogananda killed God's emissary! [Link]

"William the Conqueror . . . points to the effectiveness of kriya or pranayama. . . . you get a loving yet stern master like P. Yogananda? . . . if these two are the same soul, then P.Y. made drastic spiritual progress . . . by accelerating his evolution through kriya meditation. [redpurusha (11/4/03 8:30 am)]

COMMENTS: If Yogananda had said that is one of his former lives he was Fenrir, the horrible wolf of Norse mythology, one that became hailed as loving and compassionate through gentle breathing (kriya) over and over, most followers would have had to go for it too, we figure. And some would say; "This points to the effectiveness of special breathing which accelerates a big, bad wolf's evolution drastically" and things like that. So beware of what guru followers agree they need to say in their confused areas.

They discover that their guru had been a villain. That can't be good

C. "I . . . had always thought of William as one of history's leading villains. And now I discovered he was my own guru!"

"It was the Church which had been the principal support of William from the beginning. That universal society with its chief at Rome could not deny the moral system for which it stood and the general acceptance throughout Christendom of William's claim. . . . [ugizralrite (10/31/03 4:18 pm)]

"It's interesting to note that England went to India and brought the knowledge of the West . . . England is the oldest continuous government in the world, [ugizralrite (10/31/03 4:18 pm)]

"'Why should a fully liberated soul like our Master play such worldly roles?' raises a question that many people must have asked. I know he himself said he was a general in Spain during the Spanish efforts to drive the Muslims out of Spain. And he also said that he was William the Conqueror: a real shocker for me when I first heard it, as I'd been raised under the English schooling system and had always thought of William as one of history's leading villains. And now I discovered he was my own guru! [ugizralrite (10/31/03 4:18 pm)]

COMMENTS: You are slowly being let in on that Yogananda had told insiders he was a general in Spain, and William Shakespeare II? And present in the stable when Jesus was born? And his disciple John? And Arjuna of the battlefield, and a successful lawyer, even!

"The more highly evolved should be running the world,
What is wrong with William and Yogananda making mistakes? From what I can see, it's the blind refusal to admit that neither he nor SRF has done or is doing anything that is not completely enlightened, that is the direct cause of the problems in SRF.
When it is accepted that maybe, just maybe Yogananda wasn't perfect, the tendency is for the baby to be thrown out with the bath water. [etzchaim (10/30/03 12:56 pm)]

"Admit that William may have done some things that were wrong. On his death bed he said so. . . . when he didn't get what he wanted and felt insulted, he behaved badly and created karma. [etzchaim (10/31/03 8:12 am)]

COMMENTS: The SRF sect or cult talks of karma, reincarnation (past lives) and loyalty to one's guru, and surely speaks of what may happen to someone who takes his leave and lets the cat out of the bag -

There is only one guru uniquely the devotee's own. But if you turn away from the emissary of God, He silently asks: 'What is wrong with you, that you foolishly leave the one I have sent to help you learn the divine science of the soul? Now you shall have to wait long, and prove yourself, before I shall respond again.' 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

Great fear and pain may ensue because of this teaching. It hardly corresponds with Original Christianity on the one hand, or with Original Hinduism (whatever that may be) on the other, for in Hinduism one has the freedom to change gurus, or try to do it.

D. "Past lives, past lives" is the tune a lot of followers have to pay to play.

I remember another life centuries ago, when someone I loved very much [Duke Robert, the son of William?] was inimical to me and hurt me; but I triumphed over him. I met him again in this life, and again he became treacherous [Swami Dhirananda?] But I have tried only to help him. He shall pursue me no more.... I also recall my own past incarnations, beyond all doubt. In the Tower of London, for example, I found many places that I remember from a past life, places the present caretakers didn't know anything about. - Paramahansa Yogananda, idem, page 277. [ugizralrite (10/31/03 4:18 pm)]

"In this one incarnation I can sleep and dream that I am in England as a powerful king. Then I die and dream I am born a devout man. And then I die again and am born as a successful lawyer. Again I die and am reborn as Yogananda. . . . I used to find such pleasure in discovering my past incarnations. But that has lost its enchantment." - Paramahansa Yogananda, idem, page 167. [ugizralrite (10/31/03 4:18 pm)]

COMMENTS: "I remember" - anyone can say that. If you trust a bird-catcher, you may get caught.

"I recall many of my past incarnations.... Quite a few people have heard me mention a previous life in which I lived for many years in England. Experiences of that life come clearly to my mind. There were certain details about the Tower of London that I remembered very well, and when I went there in 1935 I saw that those places were exactly as I had seen them within. From childhood I knew that in one incarnation I had lived by the ocean. As a little boy I used to see in my mind's eye many places and events of that incarnation.... From childhood I was interested in creating buildings.... This interest was prominent because I had done much building during my incarnation in England. So many experiences I recall from other lives!" - Paramahansa Yogananda, in "The Divine Romance," pages 152-3. [ugizralrite (10/31/03 4:18 pm)]

"William was a big man . . . Those beasts are HUGE. [etzchaim (11/3/03 9:48 am)]

COMMENTS: Many, many male children and many girls like building toys. Maybe one half of the population can say, "From childhood I was interested in creating buildings.... This interest was prominent because . . ." Add your own reasons - but remember it is as natural for little children to play with building sand castles and build with other materials, as it is for beavers to build their huts and dams.

Alluring looks into alleged past lives of Yogananda have lost their enchantments

E. "After a while my brain becomes a lump of mashed potatoes trying to figure . . ."

"This man was William, William the Bastard, Duke of Normandy, thenceforward to be King of England and the principal figure in the western world...." [ugizralrite (10/31/03 4:18 pm)]

"William the Conquerer . . . Yogananda in a past existence had been William the Conquerer.
"I experienced in a vision the Battle of Hastings as King William conquered England. . . ." Norman Paulsen, in "The Christ Consciousness", p. 108. [ugizralrite (10/31/03 4:18 pm)]

COMMENTS: In the sect or cult SRF the saying goes that he was one of many Christs too - note how the construct "Christ consciousness" differs from the words used in "Original Christianity", which Yogananda says he is 100% in harmony with (it is a fraud).

"Abbot George Burke, in "An Eagle's Flight," as asserting . . . that he [Yogananda] was John, "the beloved disciple"" [ranger20 (11/4/03 11:28 am)]

After a while my brain becomes a lump of mashed potatoes trying to figure it out logically . . . [needthestar (11/4/03 5:36 pm)]

COMMENTS: In the sect SRF Yogananda is the beloved guru, an avatar, a Christ, infallibe to some, although he errs - his title is Love-Incarnation there, that is, Premavatar.

F, G. "In retrospect I wonder" [why] "he ripped a good portion of [his wife-to-be's] clothes off and hit her, in public"

Master had told Daya [Mata, contemporary president of SRF] that she was one of his daughters when he was William the Conqueror. One couldn't help feeling that there was a certain regal quality about Daya Mata, as also about Virginia, her sister, who now bears the name Ananda Mata, and who also was closely related to Master during that lifetime. I came to believe, though Master had never told me so, that I was Daya's youngest brother, Master's son, in that incarnation. Many other disciples had asked Master if they were with him then, and what role they had played. He was pleased to answer them. But even during the time when many monks were asking him this question, it never occurred to me to do so, though I felt I must have been close to him, and had always felt an affinity with that period of English history. In retrospect I wonder whether he didn't prevent the question from arising in my mind. At any rate, once the thought of having been his youngest son entered my mind, I went to the Los Angeles public library and . . . discovered there many facts that went far towards supporting my theory, characteristics and episodes that were subtly reminiscent of similar ones in my present life. - Sw. Kriyananda, in "A Place Called Ananda", chapter 4. [ugizralrite (10/31/03 4:18 pm)]

Dhirananda was Duke Robert, the son of William, during that incarnation. He burned with jealousy then, and his jealousy continued to burn strongly in the present life. [ugizralrite (10/31/03 4:18 pm)]

I don't know much about William except that he was generally considered to be a great King.
He was also considered ahead of his time as far as having a generally fair minded attitude and was the author of "the Doomsday Books".
He was a very wily, smart and ruthless warrior and King.
Being a monk is not always the correct or right choice for one's life. [dawnrays (10/30/03 7:0 am)]

COMMENTS: Speaking of regal qualities - they are invented. In history, many regents were idiots as well. They are on top of a bullying system, basically or historically. Today the system gives them a representative role for most part, and very little political power. More important, retrospects don't help if there are no facts to begin with.
Yogananda's claims of having been this and that historical figure, may be treated as perhaps sick - at any rate as part of his larger swindle of uniting Christianity and Hinduism. The results are neuroses in some. We cannot tell how many. (There are so many alternative hypotheses).

Twenty-six unfortunate citizens were lined up and their hands and feet were cut off, partly for vengeance, partly to terrify the garrison. The savagery was successful. William was rarely driven to that point of anger again . . - From "William the Conqueror" by David Walker, quoted by [etzchaim (11/3/03 2:16 pm)]

I'm wondering why it is so difficult to admit that William may have had some major issues? I don't know of anyone who has studied him . . . who would hold him to have been a saint. [etzchaim (10/30/03 12:56 pm)]

William was ruthless. He may have even gone too far and suffered for it. [dawnrays (10/30/03 1:24 pm)]

COMMENTS: The results of mentally combining a ruthless warrior and a soap crooning guru can be astounding.

You admit he was ruthless! He also instituted beheading. . . . the heads did roll. . . . and appears to have been very perceptive about appointing wise ministers, both in the church and in the administration of his kingdoms.
Normans who were loyal to him. Those that weren't found their heads rolling. When his intended spurned him, he ripped a good portion of her clothes off and hit her, in public. They married, though, and . . . she had 9 children with him . . .
Yogananda himself has said that he created a huge amount of karma in the life he lived as William. Maybe, just maybe, he did a few things not so enlightened [etzchaim (10/30/03 12:56 pm)]

As I go through biography after biography, there were some definite issues, particularly with pride, violence and avarice. [etzchaim (11/3/03 2:16 pm)]

William was . . . a great and also a very spiritual man who . . . never missed a day's mass in his life, and whose only close friends were saints. . . . avatars do enter into the unfolding drama of history. . . . They may play these roles for the sake of their disciples, to help them in their evolution and also to prepare them for roles . . . in future lives, in serving God. [ugizralrite (10/31/03 4:18 pm)] (7) [/i]

COMMENTS: William is here called spiritual because he went to mass. But that is just being devout or religious, perhaps. Being spiritual is not exactly the same as observing the rituals while killing and maiming helpless or innocent others.
One had better take "A follower can be fooled, deeply fooled" into consideration the sooner the better. As observed elsewhere, some facets of Fascism are observed in cults. And Fascism can be dangerous to you.

Summary

The William-Yogananda myth has been made by devotees that were told . . . - without any chance of finding out in a rational way, and without fair evidence. Some think aloofness from fair handling and faulty reasoning is very much helped by kriya yoga. In a cult it may work the other way round, we regret to suggest.
They discover that their guru had been a villain. That can't be all good. One said he "had always thought of William as one of history's leading villains. And now I discovered he was my own guru!" — "Past lives, past lives" is the tune a lot of followers have to pay to play. Neuroticism may follow.
Try to get out of the cult the sooner the better. Alluring looks into alleged past lives should be dropped in favour of present tasks and deals. If not, "After a while my brain becomes a lump of mashed potatoes trying to figure . . ." "In retrospect I wonder why" may not help as long as basic ways of dealing with these matters are not presented to begin with. What is guru taught, however, is the method "delve into your own past by focusing on memories". It may be interesting if coupled with painstaking research in addition.

Lots of Yogananda stories abound in lack of proper evidence, including some in his autobiography. A guru may be a rascal or villain in more than one way. Thus, get out of the cult as soon as you learn to observe the signs of a cult. Or you will succumb to narcissistic plots.

When liars figure

Louis Sterne of London tells this story of his father Simon Sterne who, while dining with Chauncey Depew and Edward Atkinson, was appealed to by the latter:
"Now, Sterne, you can bear me out in this; you know," (quoting certain statistics) "and that figures never lie."
"Never," said Mr. Sterne gravely, "except when liars figure." [Of]

Historical site on William the Conqueror

Adjoined

Where salient points from contributors and contributions are selected from one or more discussion boards related to the Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) teachings, pseudonyms are normally used.

Ak: Yogananda, Pa.: Man's Eternal Quest. SRF. Los Angeles, 1975.
Ap: Mieder, Wolfgang (main editor), Stewart A. Kingsbury, and Kelsie E. Harder: A Dictionary of American Proverbs. (Paperback) Oxford University, New York, 1996.
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.

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