Gold Bangles in SRF

Surface is surface, and useful as such.

If a person's horoscope is true, it is supposed to be in step with the most significant life happenings of an individual. When a person is old, then, we have a good chance to see how far the birthday chart (birthday horoscope) was a good, general (wide) indicator of the person in earlier life phases, before changing for better or worse or conformity at large.

Those who know ladies in their nineties, should perhaps also bear in mind that most people are a conform bunch in some group o19:54 27.05.2011r other.

What should help anyone is to prepare for individual progress, in part by not getting all too involved in unrewarding, enervating, and too tedious daily happenings. Refraining from getting involved in a big town council as a representantive of a political party, can be a good example of time saved for possibly more rewarding pursuits, for example making a million dollars in a classy way.

God Wearing Bangles?

The SRF guru wore three bangles

The nun Gyanamata (Mother of Wisdom) about her guru Yogananda: "He's my God!". And he wore bangles for protection.

In SRF (Self-Realization Fellowship) they learn to wear astrological gold bangles, like their guru. That wisdom is hard-won, it is held. Judged from pictures, its former president, Daya Mata (1914-2010), has been wearing one too. There is an Indian tradition in SRF for such things, to set out to "kid" the universe by wearing a bangle of intertwined gold, silver and copper strands - available on ◦request.

And if you choose not to wear it next to your skin but put it in a drawer in the bedside cabinet, it is just a gold, silver and copper investment.

Interestingly, a manufacturer of this bangle writes, "The body may rebel against this . . . My body hated the thing." He eventually came to believe "the bangle acts like an umbrella." [◦Link]

You are perhaps right to wonder, "If I use such a "lightning rod" to make the universe less hostile or me less vulnerable as if wearing an umbrella when it pours, and more invigorated or whatever, while considering that Yogananda teaches the universe is illusory, does it really work?"

It looks like a good question. See what he said, did, and set it motion - all three of them, do not make do with just confusing tenets. That is sound counsel. The bangle was written about, used, and made for others in SRF and further, as you can see by following the request link. And neither he nor his guru Yukteswar were the inventors of such gadgets in India either.

A swindling agent, is that it?

A Birthday Chart is like a somewhat "Tentative Portrait" of all females born - for example those born on 31 January 1914 in (or near) Salt Lake City, Utah, Mormons or otherwise. Such a chart could perhaps be thought of as a Surface Gate. But Daya Mata's fare, like that of Yogananda, is helped by "swindling the swindle" (universe), in their opinion. And to swindle a swindle, that is a swindle too.

Could it be that a birthday chart is a blind alley in such cases? Martin Schulman writes about Yogananda's birth horoscope and concludes it was was negative, but the yogi had been wearing three bangles - one of nine gems, one of gold, silver and copper, and one of lead. Well, Schulman was led to think that the love guru's history might not be negative after all. [Kaf]

Birth chart: Yogananda was born in Gorakhpur, India, on Thursday, 5 January 1893.

A quick glance at Yogananda's birth chart does well to incorporate the placements of the north node (company) and south node (basis), considerations of angles to them and what planets appear in angles to them. For arriving at a synthesis, the whole pattern of heavenly bodies, their placements in houses and star signs matters too. Some themes may stand out. Furthermore, trines (angles of 120 degrees) should be great, while squares suggest working areas, oppositions suggests tensions, and so on. In short: red lines: difficult; blue lines: easy - at least on the surface of things.

Grand trines (triangles of trines) are considered great good things, or some specified "things" "well oiled".

Lesson: If you find no angels in the sky, at least there are sky angles.

I do not share Schulman's views on the nodes, for that matter. The node theory is from hoary Indian astrology, relating to Ketu and Rahu, which are the placements of the nodes in "constellations". I am unsure of how well founded the Rahu and Ketu astrology is, though, considering that the constellations in the sky are of different shapes and lengths, and one constellation of the zodiac, Ophiocus, seems to be totally missing in such calculations [Zae].

There is much to explore in this field, in part along lines that Yogananda's disciple Kriyananda goes into in his book Your Sun Sign as A Spiritual Guide. However, he treats the constellations as if they were of equal length, which they are clearly not. An issue like that needs to be well clarified and not slurred over [Ssg].

Constellation whereabouts
Name	Star sign dates*	Constellation dates* (2000)	Days/ degrees
Aries	Mar 22–Apr 21	Apr 18–May 13	25
Taurus	Apr 22–May 21	May 13–June 22	40
Gemini	May 22–June 21	June 22–July 21	29
Cancer	June 22–July 21	July 21–Aug 10	20
Leo	July 22–Aug 21	Aug 10–Sept 16	37
Virgo	Aug 22–Sept 21	Sept 16–Oct 31	45
Libra	Sept 22–Oct 21	Oct 31–Nov 23	23
Scorpius	Oct 22–Nov 21	Nov 23–Nov 29	6
Ophiuchus*		Nov 29–Dec 18	19
Sagittarius	Nov 22–Dec 21	Dec 18–Jan 21	34
Capricornus	Dec 22–Jan 21	Jan 21–Feb 16	26
Aquarius	Jan 22–Feb 21	Feb 16–Mar 11	24
Pisces	Feb 22–Mar 21	Mar 11–Apr 18	38

Rooted in a table by David Hasenauer in the Encyclopedia Britannica.
[www.britannica.com/bcom/magazine/article/0,5744,43234,00.html]
Or: [www.tribuneindia.com/2001/20010317/windows/main4.htm]

The dates given in the column of "star sign dates" may vary with a day or at most two in a leap year cycle of 4 years. They are approximate, then.

Birth chart considerations

To the degree such a bangle offers real help as a "lightning rod", in Yogananda's words, you should take care not to create more bad karma under such an "umbrella of protection", and why? You cannot carry with you the physical gold from life to life -

In astrological theory, the birth chart (aka. birthday horoscope, radix) indicates an inner stamp on life. It is a graphic chart of how the solar system looks like at the moment of birth - all placements viewed from the earth onto the zodiac belt.

One seeks to understand the horoscope by key parts of it, and patterns. Trines are "good marks" or tokens of mind ease. Trines in a birth chart (and birthday chart) are 120 degrees with some leeway. The birth chart's trine aspects can be thought of as "heavenly oiled". It suggests that "things" (occurences, developments, phenomena) harmonised with them, may run smoothly, basically, unless off-set . . . Textbooks in astrology lists up what such aspects (angles) are generally taken to signify. In interpreting them, one is to take into account the placements (in sign) of each of the planets involved, and the sun (which is a star, not a planet).

Finale

It is not full well to forswear the non-harmful effects of horoscopes, astrological bangles, and anything without good evidence, thinking, "Good eye-glasses would work better."

What is good evidence? You may notice that in SRF and similar organisations they wear bangles out of belief and a guru's word. You may also notice that that manufacturer above uses single cases to back up that his bangles are useful. Such cases, when recorded in reliable ways, are called anecdotal evidence, but that is not high-ranked in science. However, if much anecdotal evidence - many single cases - are classified, that could change the value of the single pieces for the better somehow, to the end of making findings more reliable. It depends on how well such investigations are done.

Finally, it is good to subject the uses of such as bangles to the scrutinity of double- blind research of two controllable, much similar groups of persons. The double-blind testing procedure is designed to eliminate biased results by this: Neither those who hand out real bangles and fake ones, know which subjects get the "real stuff" to wear till after the study is completed.

To my knowledge no such tests have been done on the SRF astrological bangle. In the meantime, there is good reason to say, simply, "If you want to try wearing one, it may not harm you. To note down the changes in your life after you started wearing it, could be fine too, for it could be used for future studies."

There is more to wearing well designed and calculated bangles, stones, gold, silver and copper than meets the eye. Those who seek progress and adhere to good and safe ways at the same time, may benefit for some reasons or others.