Swami Yogananda: "Creating Happiness"

Your individual happiness depends to a large extent upon protecting yourself and your family. [Swami Yogananda. "Creating Your Happiness". East West, Vol. 4-12, October 1932.]

Most people . . . do not follow the ways which lead to happiness. [Yogananda]

Evil actions produce misery sooner or later. [Yogananda]

It is worthwhile to cultivate the habit of being happy. [Yogananda]

Source: Swami Yogananda. "Creating Happiness". East West. Vol 5-9, July, 1933]

Spiritualizing the Newspapers

Newspapers have more or less become the tin gods worshipped by the mass mind. They can make or unmake a man, at least in the public eye . . . Newspapers ought not to introduce poisonous news into the tank of human minds, for the thirsty, undiscriminative masses drink poisonous, unwholesome news wherever they find it and hence suffer with nervousness, worry, fear, and subconscious criminal suggestions. - Yogananda

Criminal Suggestions

If people want to eat cocaine, opium, cobra poison, or to indulge in a flattering religion which is afraid to even constructively criticize, or to hear only those lectures which gloss over and explain away their faults, should the business men, religious leaders and lecturers reason, let us give the people what they want, let us sell them poison, flattery and untruth, let us thus kill their souls and choke their mentalities of progress, it doesn't matter since we are getting rich? . . . [The swami does not like that. - TK] - Yogananda

Is not sensationalism responsible for taking a large part in suggesting crime to children and to weak mentalities? - Yogananda

Murdering Reputations

Some newspapers . . . don't stop at anything. They libel a man, writing half-truths or evading the true facts about him . . . They give head-lines to scandalize him, and syndicate their news, for most papers take it and swallow it wholesale. - Yogananda

Many people will remember the case in London a few years ago of "Mr. A.," Hari Singh of Kashmir, who was blackmailed by a woman and her accomplices. Under threat of blackmail and of newspaper headlines of scandal, the woman and her accomplices extracted seven hundred thousand dollars form the Prince. - Yogananda

No Public Man Is Safe

Some syndicating news agencies at times make wholesale productions of lies and baseless scandals . . . Some newspapers . . . rejoice when they turn those furious burning lights on some innocent person. Most papers gloat at the prospect of scandalizing someone. - Yogananda

The Remedy

Let the leading business men, ministers, and worthy public men of each city come together to form a board for educating the newspapers. . . . The newspapers must be taught by the board . . . - Yogananda

A Friend's Suggestion

Half truths and distorted truths are worst [sic] than the blackest of lies. . . . Sensationalism creates the desire to rejoice in others' shortcomings. Christian newspapers that have sinned and indulged in sensationalism should repent. - Yogananda

All from Swami Yogananda. "Spiritualizing the Newspapers". East West, March-April, 1928 Vol. 3-3.

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Yogananda Dictums applied to Discussion Boards

- and how to build them.

This essay is formed from an article by Swami Yogananda. Gist from the Yogananda article we take off from here, is above.

Contradictions can be wholesome, especially if civic

Let us save the masses from the drug of sensationalism, trying to be fair and constructive. - Yogananda

Cult postings are subjected to moderators and their weaknesses and madnesses, as the case may be

The discussion boards must be instructed to respect the rights and freedom of others as they sometimes love their own. - Yogananda ◊

Muddy and defiled water may be an outcome of cowards more than indiscretion of individual posters

If some discussion boards want to make half truths or exaggerated truths sensational they should make the real truth prominent and interesting too. - Yogananda

It is [not good enough] to attack a defenceless, forcibly-made-voiceless person. - Yogananda ✪ 

I believe . . . evil travels with the wind. [Yogananda seems not to have taught exactly how it happens, though. TK] - Yogananda

Since even lousy boards can influence opinion-making they don't want to turn the wrathful spotlights of public opinion on themselves. - Yogananda

Summary

1. Contradictions can be wholesome, especially if civic.
2. Cult postings are subjected to moderators and their weaknesses and madnesses, as the case may be. Think twice before you submit to fools.
3. Muddy and defiled water [content] may be an outcome of cowardice and not just indiscretion of individual posters. Shared cowardice may make up and mark a cult.

Contradictions that are submitted to cultish discussion boards may be in for a hard fate through common cowardice of cult board guys.

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The Healthful Life

Each morning do bathe in the ocean of X-Ray which God has created for you. Without a daily bath in God's sea of X-Ray, you cannot be healthy. - Swami Yogananda, East-West, March–April, 1930 Vol. 4–4: HEALTH RECIPE – Bathing Daily in God's Ocean of X-ray.

COMMENT. However, and no matter what the guru is taken to say above: X-rays are classified as a cause of cancer - which brings much pain, possibly death, and treatment bills. (Wikipedia, "X-ray"). To expose yourself to X-rays at home daily is not a good way to keep your health. TK.

There are many sides to a rewarding, fulfilling life, and being healthy is not all there is to it - but it surely helps a lot. Yogananda tells you not judge a book by its cover, but search beneath common adaptations instead, to avoid getting tilled - Being sincere with yourself is good, and a prerequisite for genuine progress - which requires being genuine. Example:

One of the SRF monks asked Paramahansa Yogananda a direct question: "Sir, are you an avatar?"

"The Master's answer was: "Yes. A teaching of this importance could not have been brought by a lesser one [bathing in X-rays?]." [Self Realization Magazine, Spring 1985:24.]

An avatar is a divine descent, Yogananda thought well of himself, wearing bangles for his protection.

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The Balanced Life by Yogananda

These capsules are extracts rooted in the article "The Balanced Life" by Yogananda. It was first published in the first issue of his East West magazine, dated November-December, 1925.

Healthful Work

There are some who look normal so far as their outward physical form and appearance is concerned - They may be detected and brought into the distinct consciousness – If you were to see their mental bodies, what a surprise and heartache you would have as you observe them to be abnormal, diseased and deformed. - Yogananda

Instead, be occupied with constant healthful worth-while activity. Healthful work in a good environment might help so that you don't have to become too sick for recovery. - Yogananda(3)

Spiritual aspirants must guard themselves. - Yogananda (5) ⚴

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Long-continued over-study of all sorts of philosophical principles and treatises . . . It is proper to assimilate the fair ones so as to test them out by own practical experience. - Yogananda

Stay free from the greedy plans that [some sorts of] cheerfulness [glee may] cover. - Yogananda

Carry out plans that are not to your loss. - Yogananda

You can learn during sleep. - Yogananda

What counts for very many is sincerity in seeking personal happiness. - Yogananda

Be happy and go for wealth and the right sorts of happiness. Wealth and fair happiness go along with a free conscience and blessings. - Yogananda

Summary

• Eat good food [tackle that] and don't shut out the ultraviolet rays [don't overtan either. Find a nice balance].
• Don't be a prince who forsook his palace and lived so long in a slum that he forgot his original state. [Easy to say -]
• Soul is individualized Spirit. Many methods of meditation exist. Among them TM (Transcendental Meditation) has been much researched, and can help a lot.

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Intelligence and Humour

"So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence," writes Sir Bertrand Russell in Science and Religion. There is barely praise of robust humour either, but over a hundred inconsistencies. To this, a German proverb: "What does running along help, if you are not on the right road?"

To make sermons sweet and short, try a few well-chosen proverbs. A few pointed stories may work well too. All of the proverbs below are from A Dictionary of American Proverbs [Ak], but one.

In Belfast they still could tell you about the football game that took place between the 100 percent Catholics and 100 percent Protestants. A British sailor attended the game. When the Catholics made a skilful play he applauded, and when the Protestants in their turn scored, he again joined in the shouting. At this point an Irishman jabbed the sailor in the back and said:

"Man, haven't you got any religion at all?"

Alternative Sermon

1. A wise son hears his father's instruction.
2. There is something sweeter than receiving praise; the feeling of having deserved it.
3. Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy.
4. A wise son getting praised, should make it a point to deserve it.
5. A fully liberated guy should never forsake his various strengths, to be on the safe side.

In Short

In der Kürze liegt die Würze (German) The German proverb tells that "Short is spicy", "Keep it simple, sweetie", or "Brevity is the soul of wit". More literally: "In brevity lies the spice, or interest".

Learning makes a man fit company for himself (American)

Was hilft laufen, wenn man nicht auf dem richten Weg ist? "What does running along help, if you are not on the right road?" (Speed gets you nowhere if you're headed in the wrong direction) [Gp 66].

Lately, in 2001-2002 some thirty percent of the monastics that served Yogananda's organisation, SRF, quitted, and most of them in one year (2002). The disillusioned guys found they were victims of the fellowship - how it had become. They had had their share in it by complying earlier. It is not easy to find any of them taking much responsibility for having contributed to what SRF in turns became, or coming up with great anti-cult solutions that get implemented. Maybe they work by discreet means. And maybe they are resigned.