The Well 5

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Chapter 1 - Cult thinking may be superceded
Maddened Former SRF Member

Cult thinking may be superceded

Well -

MUCH HAS been stated about cults and some of their general means to grow and prosper on behalf of group members. SRF appears to be a cult with one or more of these marks, among others:

They exclude others.
They take to dispensing methods.
They take to reductionist thinking and such language to accomplish one or more general aims.
They function in step with separating members from those outside.
They bring ideological totalism to members and use reinforcements that shame some of those who don't conform enough.
There is simplistic thinking, and that may be used for furthering mind-control as needed.

However, when it comes to gauging the Fellowship, I can't say solid "Ay and Yes" to all of the points. I think a divisioning of the responses must be nuanced to do better service: That is, instead of responding "Yes" and "No", there may be room for:

"emphatic yes",
"cool yes / to some degree, yes",
"don't know" in the middle,
"cool no",
emphatic no".

This sort of nuanced responses form the basis of the Likert scale, where you enlarge your responses to make them better, more nuanced. The Likert scale (q.v.") is often used in the social science to get a firmer hold somehow.

"Bleeding dignity"

Maybe there are bleeding hearts in the SRF management.
What are the STEPS to take to gain proper self-assertiveness and adjustments, even though feeling shaky inside for long?
Marriage is no indignity.

Why into the cult or sect in the first place?

It seems that many who enter cults are insecure to begin with, as professor Philip Zimbardo notes. Maybe good tales can help to enliven some of them. Good tales, like other forms of artistry, can and should have enlivening effecs, and perhaps emboldening effects too. This could be tried out if there are no dangers to it, along with other measures.

Getting Better Tales

It is first steps first: FIRST GETTING OUT OF TROUBLE if you know what it is and how to remedy it and so on, and THEN get expert councelling. Buddha has an allegory with something in it.
A man approached Buddha and wanted to have all his philosophical questions answered before he would practice. In response, Buddha said, "It is as if a man had been wounded by a poisoned arrow and when attended to by a physician were to say, 'I will not allow you to remove this arrow until I have learned the caste, the age, the occupation, the birthplace, and the motivation of the person who wounded me.' That man would die before having learned all this.'" (Abbreviated)

It Is Possible to Strengthen One's Resistance

Watch out for unreasonable expectations around: Expecting half-miracles from one hour's session with a monastic puts a lot of pressures on monastics. I had talks with the SRF brothers Bhaktananda and Anandamoy myself. They were all right, although taking Bhaktananda's advice on one occasion almost got me killed. It hurts me a bit to say it.
Now, the environment has much to say too. It is generally decent to take that into consideration as well, and not only oneself, the expert or councellor (whoever that may be), and one's sense of belonging, and firm expectations. These were the factors to take into account.

Funeral Criticism and a Richard James Quotation

You can be disgrunted and through with a cult or sect in appropriate ways and other ways. It is much up to you.
The fate of living in great isolation is not so good as being yourself genuinely and be rich also.
To mislead others by ridiculing facts and those who tell them, is a sign of an inferior fellow. Faith in some advanced bluffing expert leads to tense drivel at times.
The urge to show off by mean means in the unenlightened tract, ought to be put aside.
You can become occupied with occultism in sane ways, and then there are all the other ways that may outnumber the few sane ones.
You should not suck up to gurus and the like to the extent that you make yourself an enemy of yourself and them too as time goes by.

Richard James says "if it quacks like a duck . . . " The member who "never experienced anything from [his SRF kriya] other than the discomfort of carrying the practice out", was he a lame duck? A "funeral speech" of his often biased and unfit criticism of SRF methods follows:
1. Simple ways for toddlers. — He felt "simple approaches are the most effective". Yes, for the toddler that is how it is. He felt nothing for advanced ways either. The reason is he was not mature for that. But as a toddler develops or matures, he may gradually be able to benefit from advanced methods, he too. It is as simple as that in kriya yoga as well, and the toddler alone outlooks are too shortsighted. If they obsure the vision and common sense of others, the get blameworthily immature also.
2. Many US citizens are drug abusers and whimsical. — The fellow went online to speak of drug abuse, psychedelics, and said "it's difficult to remain in a higher state of consciousness".
3. To dig into fears on one's own tends to become too tough. — He further adviced others on-line to "dig deep inside and do some self therapy to work through these fears and concerns". That can be quite dangerous.
4. In good fellowship people do take advantage of one another, and so long as it is carefully resiprocal (well balanced), it hardly matters.. — He further hoped "you should never take advantage of anyone or anything" to fulfil any desires, for "Everyone and everything is Yourself". It sounds good, but we doubt it is so. For one thing, neither the Old nor New Testament teach it. To be recognized by and brought into fellowship with God (i.e., saved) is a gift there.
5. To show off and "win" discussions by foul means is neither the sign of a genuine person or a good man. — The antagonist often aimed for winning board discussions by hook and crook over and above finding truths. Fairness is related to genuineness too.
6. Are those that trick, wrong if the tricked ones wold do untold harm otherwise? — Above all, the maddened one was not anchored in "a Lovely Place", it seems. And he wrote: "[To love more] is really ridiculous. It's just a little trick." Is it? Those who tank up ideas like "God is Love", could they be wrong?
7. To lift your tongue in a certain way while keeping it in your mouth; that is kechari mudra. — He talked down on some of the common meditation techniques, such as kechari mudra (tongue lifting): "I've heard of Kechari Mudra, where I come from it's called 'swallowing your tongue', it's great if you like the idea of choking to death." There are other alternatives than poking tactless fun. Being factual is not being tactless. Kechari is used by yogis for stilling the mind. Some yogis use it, others do not.
8. To be straight is fine. Being is better than appearing. — There is a difference between saying what you do and setting yourself up as a guru and teach it. "I meditate a lot while lying . . . So lying . . . is the way to go." His paramount need could have been to relax. If so, lying sessions (in bed) could have been things to thank for. But if you seek progress and try to do the kriya technique, insiders say that truthfulness is basic. And a straight, non-tense back is vital as well, and so they say in Zen too. We should not miss that perspective either - To be a seeker of rest is one thing, and taking honest strides to progress in yoga is quite another, but not completely different. "A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow [Ap 411]" and "A clean conscience is a good pillow [Ap 464]."
9. A grumbler could be on the path of becoming neurotic. — A grumbler is hardly qualified to act as a guru of yoga, and should try not to set himself up as someone qualified for teaching it out of a desire to impose on others, if given the shred of a chance to it.

And, finally, Yogananda, SRF, and we teach that "Drinks and drugs are sins against the soul". [Ak 423]. But there is a need for qualifications: How little alcohol you drink and how often and regularly, determine outcomes. And there is a difference between prescribed drugs and others; besides, all drugs are not equally harmful. These things also considered, it is fair to sustain a clean mind and body-system. Buddha says about the same thing, that one should avoid alcohol (intoxicants include non-prescribed drugs).
Says the Encyclopaedia Britannica: "Buddhism, Islam, and numerous Christian denominations and sects [have had success] in confirming their followers as total abstainers." [Ebu "alcohol consumption"]

Literature

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First Page

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Ak: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Man's Eternal Quest. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1975.
Ap: Mieder, Wolfgang (main editor), Stewart A. Kingsbury, and Kelsie E. Harder: A Dictionary of American Proverbs. (Paperback) New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Ay: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Autobiography of a Yogi. 1st ed. New York: Theosophical, 1946. Online. [oaks.nvg.org/pv6bk12.html]
Ebu: Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica 2006 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD. London: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2006.
Op: Simpson, John, and Jennifer Speake. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Pa: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Autobiography of a Yogi. 11th ed. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1971.
Say: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Sayings of Yogananda. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1958.

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