Stretching One's Wings

In nature, eventually the little nestling has to stretch his or her wings and try to make it all right. And savoury family upbringing and education helps something similar with fair humans. And "The best leaders ... almost without exception and at every level, are master users of stories and symbols [Tom Peters]." It is said that it is a sign of welcome growth and development if the pupil eventually gets dissatisfied and next as good as his or her teacher, if not better, which happens at times too.

Taking Off from Yogananda's Biased Commentary. It matters what light we study old or wrongly produced books in. Now, Edward FitzGerald's version of the Rubaiyat is a free rendition, not a translation, and certainly not a complete translation. Britannica says "FitzGerald's translation was so free in its rendition as to be virtually an original work" - a free adaptation and selection from 12th-century Persian verses. Moreover, the Americanised guru Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952) chose the Fitz rendering for his commentary, Wine of the Mystic (1996), where he allegedly peers into Medieval Omar Khayam's mind through FitzGerald's rendering from a larger body of Persian poetry that is traditionally linked to Khayam. The tables are thus set for tendentious and embarrassing soap interpretations next.

As compared to the Persian original, many of FitzGerald's images tend to run wild, and Yogananda bases his "spiritual commentary" on rather much of the FitzGerald-generated imagery that to a large extent is lacking in the Persian translations I know of.

Tendentious procedures, largely untenable interpretations and masters, "great ones", may slowly prove to be an unwelcome mixture. A decent learner is hardly satisfied with crusts and crumbs from soap authorities, but will go for a decent translation of the poem first and think twice about Yogananda's fervent take. Feel free to try for something better than mistranslations or crusts if you like, and if you have not done so already.

Healthy persons have largely sound mental associations, but if we turn to cattle, many of them are just too gullible. Hail where hailing is not out of place.

Some Points

Good and salient points won't strangle your delicate inner mind, contrary to blind and gullible belief and disbelief of fervent fools.

It should be fit to go for general understanding first, guard one's goings thus, and learn to adjust for the sake of fitting in with ease. But general understanding may not fit everyone. One of the reasons is that local conditions differ. Another is that individuals tend to differ. What is more, subjectivity can appear too.

This said, a hag may be a maladapted female, just that. In the Trojan war a sleekly set-up gift brought on Troy's destruction. The great "gift" was a trick. Not all strangers and aliens are cruel like the female witch in the Grimm tale, the witch that poisoned Snow-White out of envy and fiendishness. The dwarfs strove to teach the innocent child how it is best to be guarded with strangers to be on the safe side and not expect good from many aliens. That is a handed-over, human tradition.

Trickery abounds. Religiousness is often used for trickery purposes. That is "a classic".

Freudian concepts help us to surmise to some extent. And quite boring and tedious understanding may be true or good enough in most cases, if well shod. Let that view come in addition.

It should pay to sort hearsay from soundly documented facts, with culture strains in between them. We must go for facts to avoid being made fools of. If hard facts have not been uncovered, we have to be much guarded and gauge odds, probabilities and estimates, keeping a healthy amount of reserve, so as not jumping to conclusions, or worse. Cognitive conditioning by words or otherwise is not fit for human beings, is not evolved at all, or is it?

It is good to remain on the safe side as a honourable fellow. Common sense and healthy scepticism may go hand in hand and assist good judgement over and over.

The scientific enterprise is built up from clever enough doubts put in to system – it is the general research approach with its alternative hypotheses, testing, and so on that is thus summarised.

This is human: first learn a little, then accomplish from it in good and due time.

Ak: Yogananda, Pa.: Man's Eternal Quest. Self-Realization Fellowship. 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. Los Angeles, 1971. – ONLINE 1st edition

Say: Yogananda, Pa.: Sayings of Yogananda. Self-Realization Fellowship. Los Angeles, 1958.

Sus: Graves, Robert and Omar Ali-Shah. The Rubaiyyat of Omar Khayyam. London: Cassell, 1967.

Wic: Yutang, Lin: The Wisdom of China. New English Library. London, 1963.

Wm: Yogananda, Paramahansa. The Wine of the Mystic. Paperback. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1996.