Clinging Yogananda

Clinging Yogananda

There are some who look all right, but smoke. TM can help many of them, research shows.

The first few capsules are related to Yogananda's article "Fixing Habits in the Brain at Will", first published in his East West magazine of November-December, 1925.

Young guys naturally like sex, but Yogananda's patched course of blunderbuss lessons based on talks of his, teaches what comes very close to the monkish and not impish "Masturbation or seminal emission dries the brain, so refrain. Sex once a year is all right for married couples." [Link to Yogananda quotations on sex]

There are some who look all right, but try to live up to the Yogananda way of sex - and regrets have followed.

Lecture Bits

The following sayings are inspired from Yogananda lectures in "Bits of Wisdom".

When serving others [one] had better think, "I will help my own first. I cannot otherwise be all right and happy."

Loyalty to a spiritual custom without frankness spells hypocrisy in the end.

If you are in fault, free yourself from error quickly.

When a disease is persistent and long-continued, and medical aid and other ordinary methods fail to cure it, doctors call the disease incurable. Medicine otherwise has its uses . . . why deny facts?

Can you nourish yourself by only listening to a talk on food? Apply your knowledge.

A firm, good habit is your greatest friend, and loyalty to the spirit of a custom even without clinging to the form, is wisdom.

Who is a Yogi?

• An Enlightened One dives deep within the soul through meditation, and brings God-realization.
• Struggle to attain success . . . that is true sacrifice (for many).

So That Is the Secret!

How did Yogananda become a famous yogi? He sought out gurus and tried to get boons from them - he was quite clinging. That is in part what stands out in his autobiography [Ay]. There are some examples:

In the first he demands of the kriya yogi Yukteswar, "Promise to reveal God to me!" and an hour-long verbal tussle ensued, for Yogananda was determined to press hisadvantage, he writes. "You are of exacting disposition," said Yukteswar and gave in after an hour. [Ha 102-03]

In the second example Yogananda furnishes, he fell moaning to the floor in front of another meditating man, called Master Mahasaya. The latter got sympathetically distressed by it, but Yogananda clutched his feet and begged: "Ask Divine Mother if I find any favor in Her sight!"

"Shamelessly gripping his feet, deaf to his gentle remonstrances, I besought him again and again" till the other capitulated. [Ha 75]

And then he tells of one scene where there came a knock on the door of his home in India. A young man who looked like Yukteswar's guru came in, and Yogananda got choked with awe, prostrate before him. The young-looking man said a few impressive things to Yogananda, and then started toward the door, adding, "Do not try to follow me." What the guru Yogananda did? "Please, don't go away," he cried repeatedly, overcome by emotion. "Take me with you!" He was once again disregarding what he was told, and tried to pursue the other guy. [Ha 343-44]

In the end Self-Realization was knocked into Yogananda by Yukteswar, who struck on his chest. What happened then? "My body became immovably rooted . . . Soul and mind instantly . . . streamed out . . . Through the back of my head I saw men . . . The floor, the trees and sunshine, occasionally became violently agitated."

The guru of Yukteswar was "knocked into it" too, the Autobiography says, but that guru was knocked on the forehead. Yet followers of Yogananda are supposed to work their way towards it. Now you see that God-consciousness was grafted onto Yogananda and he was sent to Americans. So who became a world-renowned yogi? A clinger. [Ha 307-08].

Regrettably, he also talked for the same approach in relating to God: to cry like a baby-clinger for the Divine Mother till she comes. Do not make a habit out of it. Happy children are different; they do not cry and cling a lot and make a seeming virtue of it either. Perhaps they are told things like a church father, Augustine, once said, "By being happy my child, thou dost please me." Yogananda was told a similar thing one day on an Indian beach, he tells in Whispers from Eternity, [▾No. 189]. "The greatest of all sins against Spirit is not to be happy . . . By being happy, thou dost please Me.""

Was Yogananda a happy clinger in these defining moments of his life? "Clinger in cosmic happiness" is a contradiction of terms, really.

Was Yogananda a great sinner in these defining moments and in teachings followers to cry like "clinging fools" for God Mom, against instructions he himself got? You decide, and take into account his begging of the resurrected Yukteswar in 1936: "Rebuke me a million times - do scold me now!" To what degree was guilt behind such an outburst, we may wonder - guilt for misleading Christians into annoying Mother-begging "day and night", for example? The sane ones who behave well, should not feel such urges.

"It is the naughty baby who cries the loudest that gets his mother's attention first. So be like the naughty baby and cry for God. Be satisfied with nothing less," says he. The sane ones should not feel such urges either. I think that teaching others to cry and cling is victimising shit. Unfulfilled crying "day and night" could turn some persons into neurotics, one may suspect. [Ha 416; Dr 362]

Clinging experts and begging under-dogs may suit a totalitarian and authoritarian structure - and the other way round - but not feel at ease in a democratic structure and one of self-help. Yogananda soon praised dictatorship, forming a church that turned into a cult. He and SRF bind kriya yoga members hand and foot by an oath of loyalty. There must be far better things to do than that.

There are many sides to what is good, and Confucius points to many of them. "The man of knowledge is happy. He avoids overstepping the limit." "Who confers benefit far and wide is a man of divine virtue." [Soc 59-60, passim.]

TM, a Helping Hand

Orderly TM (Transcendental Meditation) is far better than Yogananda's "crying and clinging", and actually helps mental sanity, according to solid research. For example:

In a Vietnam veterans center, 18 men suffering from severe and apparently intractable post-traumatic stress syndrome were randomly assigned to either the Transcendental Meditation technique or psychotherapy (multiple modalities). After 3 months of treatment, the counseling had no significant impact, but Transcendental Meditation reduced emotional numbness, alcohol abuse, insomnia, depression, anxiety, and severity of delayed stress syndrome. Veterans practicing Transcendental Meditation also showed significant improvement, compared to controls, in employment status. (Journal of Counseling and Development 64: 212-214, 1985.)

Robert Roth brings an overview of TM findings in a book that even was on-line until recently. Research has found Transcendental Meditation to be very effective in both the treatment and prevention of substance abuse too - cigarette smoking, alcohol abuse, and use of illicit drugs. Hence, some may have justified hope: [▾Link]

Literature  

Ay: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Autobiography of a Yogi. 1st ed. New York: Philosophical Library, 1946. Online. [oaks.nvg.org/pv6bk12.html]

Ha: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Autobiography of a Yogi. 12th ed. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF), 1981.

Mmm: Roth, Robert. Transcendental Meditation Revised And Updated. New York: Dutton/Penguin, 1996.

Soc: Giles, Lionel, ed. The Sayings of Confucius: A Translation of the Confucian Analects. Twickenham: Tiger Books, 1998.



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