5. Human Discussions
6. A Man's Death

Human Discussions

'Miao' is a Chinese term for the secret, innermost mystery, writes Dr. Lin Yutang in The Wisdom of China [Wic 31n]. Suppose two knowers of gurus talk with one another about secrets. One says: "Miao," and the other perhaps "Miao, miao," and so on, perhaps even to tunes as in an ◦opera duet for two cats. That matters a lot for human communication.

The verse form used by Khayyam was also popular as a means of expressing mystical concepts.

Juan Vives (1492-1540) was converted from scholasticism to humanism. "Yet it must not be thought that Vives was simply reproducing the teaching of Erasmus." This was largely so due to psychological interest in the art and realm of teaching. "Vives led the way to the revolutionary conception of education as primarily a process of learning determined by the nature of the learning mind." and memory could be trained by reasonable, orderly arrangement of facts and by the association of reasons with what is taught. From this platform, so to speak, higher faculties - particularly imagination - can rise up and do its perhaps budding work [Hiw].

Write prudently, soundly. And good metaphors ask for handling skills.

I can recommend the Rubaiyat translation Robert Graves and Omar Ali Shah above Edward FitzGerald's free rendering if you want to know the ideas of the original poem as free from intruding alloy as possible. The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, published by Cassell, London, 1967. There is another translation by Edward Whinfield online too.

Yogananda "surfed" the FitzGerald version to make a so-called spiritual (read: tendentious and biased) commentary. What is more, the work has got two American publishers and adherents of Yogananda bolster up the lamentable text. I think time, efforts and resources could have been better spent. I have pointed out rather grotesque and amassing errors of methodology in the guru's hailed work.

On the other hand, professor Robert Graves with Omar Ali Shah had what it took to go for something better than the guru eventually did when he discarded a scholar's translation and chose Fitzgerald's take as a means to interpret Omar Khayyam, not Edward FitzGerald. Graves and Ali Shah went for making a good translation. And you cannot have eminent studies of a poem if translations of it are discarded for the sake of something rather different and interpret it by pretences, it seems fit to say. On the other hand, it is fit to respect fellows that show a measure of skill and genuine competence.

First get a fair version and build from that, rather than hinge your output on sometendentious take. Why? Maybe the disgrace of being found out after acting persistently in silly ways comes your way later, along with the risk of getting nicknamed. It behoves both man and angel to get a good platform, unlike some leaky pitchers that never hear or learn, perhaps shying away from sound and clever inspections for irrational fears or other deep-going reasons they hardly understand.

Among things that can be worse than mediocre slapstick performance is mediocre stuff that is ritually hailed. Consequently, it may not pay to trust any parroting disciple who is likely to be stuck as a Cadillac driven into a bog.

The Swine of the Mystic

Ulysses and his crew once got to the island where mystical Circe reigned. She changed his crew into swine. Where good guys get fat, guess they have a hard time, and maybe they are being eaten somehow, on some levels and in some subtle ways.

There is a reason why Self-Realization Fellowship, the publishers of Yogananda's so-called spiritual commentary to FitzGerald's Rubaiyat seldom or never say he spoke for dictatorship too in his day. And the fellowship is still editing, sifting and adding to Yogananda's sayings, almost sixty years after his passing. Hinduism Today (1994; No 10: "Wine of the Mystic") reveals how SRF has changed all of his outputs considerably, and long after his passing. There has to be a time when editing and changing an autobiography becomes inappropriate, but SRF may not feel that such a time has come yet.

The sooner and better eminent men and women unite forces against ridiculously founded and texts and seducing texts that outsmart good people, the better the human world could be, by and large.

Victimisation effects of the SRF Lessons on myself: Castrated, home-laming as a result of the guru's "No sex at all for unmarried ones." [More] All too difficult adaptations locally, fairly often. See his dictates about a way of living that entailed "walking barefoot and bald in the icy winter cold", and previous aims and ideals with comments. Or suppose you are a long sleeper [More] and are guru told to make do with five hours of sleep a day. Or that you don't think you benefit from the guru-prescribed fasts every weekend. Allow yourself the benefit of doubts, and things could work out better [More] The guru talks for idolatry to weep over, a fervent form of idolatry with toned-down rationality. And so on.

In sum: Yogananda follower, outsmarted and awfully offended. That was hardly what I had expected from the glowing hype from and surrounding Yogananda.

Some good books help us to compete well, and other books may be rewarding for other reasons, but none of them should inspire anyone to forgo previously hard won advantages and good stands in the fight for an occupation or a living; lose able handling, comrades, partners for the sake of gasping alone for hours each day.

Yogananda's guidelines are full of preposterous errors. He managed to advocate dictatorship. And suckers hail him by, "We find his guidelines infallible" – many such guru guidelines that have been removed as more convenient for the organisation he left, than to follow up on them, for example going for dictatorship in publich, guru socialism, self-supporting communities, and much else. So the fellowship edits their guru, refuse to live up to some of his guidelines, and call them infallible. What is sick if that is not?

It is good to aim higher than sluggard adaptations to the quackery of orators. That hinted at, it is far from enough to feel outraged or ashamed. Something has to be accomplished as well. Let sound shouts ring: "Let those who need shelter, have it!" And before the measure of all human lives be filled.

The master interprets the morning in question as a dawn of awakening away from "delusive earthly existence" as he calls it. But would the master have been at all without an earthly existence?

The History of Gullible Faith, A History of Blunders and Nonsense

In the book The History of Western Education Drs. William Boyd and Edmund King write that in the humanist philosopher Deciderius Erasmus' view, sound and proficient education "is as much a matter of social as of individual concern." [Hiw This thinker, Erasmus (1466-1536), was born in Rotterdam. He had marked faith in channeling one's tendencies: "Nature is strong, but training supplemented by practice is stronger still. There is practically nothing which it cannot accomplish. ... Erasmus had this profound faith in the possibilites of the right direction of the mind." In this way the authors sum up his stand. [Hiw Erasmus' over-all view gave vent to what is called northern humanism. One generation after him, Juan Vives (1492-1540) was converted from scholasticism to humanism by the writings of Erasmus. At last he settled on what we may call the verifiable method: He found that against a corrupt fare due to presuppositions "in the air" "the only cure for it is to begin with the individual facts of experience and out of them to come to ideas by the natural logic of the mind." This method is called induction. The capacity to induce can be trained. [Hiw "Yet it must not be thought that Vives was simply reproducing the teaching of Erasmus." This was largely so due to psychological interest in the art and realm of teaching. "Vives led the way to the revolutionary conception of education as primarily a process of learning determined by the nature of the learning mind." and memory could be trained by reasonable, orderly arrangement of facts and by the association of reasons with what is taught. From this platform, so to speak, higher faculties - particulary imagination - can rise up and do its perhaps budding work. [Hiw 180]

A Man's Death

King David's son Absalom was riding his mule, and as the mule went under the thick branches of a large oak, Absalom's head got caught in the tree. He was left hanging in midair. The mule kept on going. Enemies saw the king's son hanging in the oak. One of them plunged three spears into Absalom's heart. Then ten others struck him and killed him. [2 Samuel 18:9-16. Extract]

Some - American publishers and adherents of Yogananda - bolster up his tendentious Rubaiyat commentary by nice layout, and some talk against gross incompetence of quack interpretations, from a view that disappointing renderings hardly "spiritualise". So go for having a good platform to escape hanging in midair, so to speak, only to feel stuck and getting cramped. But that is not the worst that may happen.

A man that three spears in the heart cannot kill, may all the same be clubbed to death. But make hay in the sunshine, which matters to many folks, and don't get hanged by silly guru works in the air -

To be fair comes rather close to that ideal, opposed to quackery that can lead astray by incompetent assertions and other strides.

Guru-Plotted Confusion Is Not Good to Continue Inside

SRF is still editing the master's sayings. The use of Yogananda's tendentious, superimposed verbiage on top of a poor version of a Persian classic, may evoke a cascade of ouches or "This is the gait of some cult at work."

It is hardly enough to feel outraged in the face of the dangers encroaching where guru followers go for upholding a faith with many flaws in it, a house built on sand. But on a rainy day a good Rubaiyat translation could be welcome even to cult adherents. Let us hope that. Some rainly day a victim of guru phrases might rise to think, "It ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe. It doesn't matter anyhow." And if that one finds it good to count more on an even keel, he or she is hopefully sound and mature enough for mirth, as the American proverb suggests, "A little nonsense now and then is relished by the best of men."

Compare Yogananda's "There is no material universe; its warp and woof is . . . illusion." [Autobiography of a Yogi, ch. 30] You should not teach like that and go on as if there is any Rubaiyat. So, "Awake, for the morning puts the stars to flight." Interpreted: You own awakening puts to flight the guru swindle that there is no universe, but he and his words are real in it -"

In conclusion so far: "Croak well or let it be. First-class is first-class, and Yogananda's Rubaiyat-grasping text is not, for its footing is not OK. You go to adequate sources instead. A peace of advice could be: "Forsake the bowl of unrelated inspiration from not too good translations." Such a walk can be warmly recommended within normal bounds somehow. And to be very careful is part of the art of living. Manage to access in straight manner by yourself. But maybe it does not help if you are struck in the mud of guru subservience. Further note, in highest Mahayana Buddhism there is no difference between the highest state and seeing into everyday existence. [Cf. Tiy; a preface]

You mean to think twice and actualise common sense enough about guru humbug tomorrow? How does a manjana story often end?

Go for freedom degrees that matter instead of making yourself an underling from mystical soap quackery. And be not confounded.

Ap: Mieder, Wolfgang (main editor), Stewart A. Kingsbury, and Kelsie E. Harder: A Dictionary of American Proverbs. (Paperback) Oxford University, New York, 1996.

Hiw: Boyd, William, and Edmund J. King. The History of Western Education. 11th ed.London: Adam and Charles Black, 1975.

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

Tiy: Evans-Wentz, Walter Yeeling, ed. Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines. 2nd ed. London: Oxford University Press, 1967.

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