Catholicism versus SRF Teachings
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Open Disagreements between Paramahansa Yogananda's Teachings and Catholic "Father Mateo"
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| From a Rembrandt. The painter was excellent with postures. |
THESE are the issues on this page:
Battering religious beliefs • Cult narcissists • Is the teaching of identity enough for that identity to be? • Are all religions equally worthy and profitable? The view that Self-Realization Fellowship teaches differs from that of the Catholic Church • Is human nature essentially good and is the human will free? Different viewpoints • Catholic views on who is the Son of God and on the human nature of Jesus.
In the end this question should rise: Who is your teaching authority? The old
church, a guru?
Two meeting cars may wreck one another. Coming to meet and seized by roles as divines,
some get reproached for doing what is right. Who are they?
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Self-Realization Fellowship stakes in their "Aims and Ideals" that their purpose is:
To teach that the purpose of life is the evolution, through self-effort of man's limited mortal consciousness into God Consciousness."FATHER MATEO", a professor of Scripture and classical languages, wrote a bit about the doctrines of Paramahansa Yogananda. Self-Realization Fellowship, headquartered in Los Angeles, now upholds the doctrines. The Father brings three charges that are alarming to some:To reveal the complete harmony and basic oneness of original Christianity as taught by Jesus Christ and original Yoga as taught by Bhagavan Krishna; and to show that these principles of truth are the common scientific foundation of all true religions.
To point out the one divine highway to which all paths of true religious beliefs eventually lead ... [Check A - [Check B (nearer)]
- [Yogananda's] theology cannot be squared with Roman Catholic doctrine. He teaches indifferentism (see below).
- He also seems to teach the Pelagian heresy of salvation by human effort alone.
- He misunderstands and even implicitly denies the Christian doctrine of Incarnation.
The letter
I have a Catholic friend who recently has been spending a lot of time investigating Eastern philosophies and religions.Father Mateo:
One group she is interested in now is the Self-Realization Fellowship founded by Paramahansa Yogananda in California. She says this group proposes a science of yoga and mediation that is not in conflict with Catholic/Christian teachings. I'm not so sure.
What can you tell me about SRF and what does the church teach concerning it. Is it a science or a religion (and why)? ...
To answer you letter, I borrowed and partly read Yogananda's autobiography and his book of spiritual thoughts: "Whispers from Eternity". Also, I read his obituary in Time magazine, August 4, 1952.
His theology cannot be squared with Roman Catholic doctrine. He teaches indifferentism (all religions are equally true). In the dedication of "Whispers from Eternity", he writes: " ... all churches, mosques, viharas, tabernacles, pagodas, and temples of the world, wherein the One Father dwells impartially ..."
He also seems to teach the Pelagian heresy of salvation by human effort alone. He writes in the Introduction to "Whispers from Eternity": "Our inner assertion of spiritual identity is sufficient to operate the law for fulfillment of prayers." This is a denial of our need of God's free grace. In the same Introduction, he misunderstands and even implicitly denies the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation: "Down the ages He (God) has materialized Himself before the gaze of His devotees in whatever forms they hold most dear. A Christian sees Jesus, a Moslem sees Mohammed, a Hindu sees Krishna or Rama, and so on." Implicit here is a denial of the unique mediatorship of Jesus Christ, "the only Name under heaven whereby we must be saved."
If your friend is hungry for a deeper spirituality, perhaps you can interest her in going with you to make a retreat on a weekend in a nearby retreat house. Your parish priest can give you information about retreat centers near you.
God bless both of you,
Father Mateo [a pen name] [Check]
What Is a Cult?
The following gist is derived from a work by Rabbi Dr. Jacob Immanuel Schochet: The Mystical Tradition.
Watch out for the Theological Debris
"CULTS" stick to forms of faith or belief that are based on unfounded commitments. The narrow believer may be sincere. The doctrines the leaders espoused may appear noble. The goals may be many and have an idealistic veneer at times. Some strive to make them look commendable.Nonetheless, if the commitment is devoid of rational foundations and with ample lack of valid "reasons for the belief", then those who like to live on their own terms may feel justified to condemn such things - the tragic commitment and false reasoning that many cult leaders live on top of. So what you choose to believe and how you choose to believe and stick to it further, may get charged with consequences; for some easily submit to some "members way" of life and practices - a foolish way also.
If the basic stance of handling beliefs seems logical, it points to how justifications of bottom beliefs are founded. Such "bottom beliefs" are of paradigms, "basic stances". However, if the premises and conclusions considered are blatantly untrue and the teachings are inconsistent, there is something false going on too.
Instead of Naivete and Gullibility: Rational Thinking and Handling against Humbug
Beware if some Great Leader teaches on and on: "Believe! Accept my Cloud-Coloured Hiccup!" Seemingly whimsical elements of the faith may be seen to have self-serving ends, perhaps with plays on devotionalism, which is of human id, largely. The oddly gross and ill-behaved teacher:- Is not reasoning neatly, but rationalizing.
- Is not really pursuing truth as much as odd self-justification.
- He relies on vileness rather than Sachlichkeit (being factual), when it comes to bottom issues too.
Hope to be able to investigate what is needed on an even keel in a practical, pragmatic way; do what it takes to get the training. Think carefully of the stakes before you spend and surrender much of your resources, time, money, and other valuable assets on anything. Substantial sums of money and freedom degrees may be at stake in the long run for those who are engulfed and become members that go out of their way to protect their common group of reference and belonging - the cult, eventually. Many members give up their property for the cult, and thereby allow it to grow and spread. Alas.
Rational people, on the other hand, make efforts to understand, to investigate, to evaluate, to consider with care who is a reliable and conscientious authority. The guru should be no life-threatening, whim-led narcissist behind the curtains.
Above cult dictates and guidelines an individual has to guard his main assets - they include social standing, well-being and all-round comfort. They include making good use of the time and opportunities too.
It should indeed pay to be trained to be rational, careful, critical and investigative, even in matters of salvation, the beyond, or Eternal Being (God). Good yoga allows for it. Science and scholarship too: endure scholarship!
Sanity is needed to combat blunt self-contradictions in the cult or sect, but hardly blind commitments in gullibility or credulity. Seduction that wants to save all - stay away from it altogether. Never let your so-called rebirth start a path to a suicide. Do not rely on the utter charm and whimsical promises and presentations of the salesman (emissary). You must not be called to make vain promises and ignore faulty premises just because of sluggard fervour mentality, emotional Führer magnetism, and the promised dreams of something.
All who feel drawn to the cult side of life should have read horror-stories of youngsters (and elderly) involved with the cults around, and note how cult people approach issues by dramatic overdoing, blatantly allying themselves or Great Leaders with the Highest around, or get seduced and brainwashed by stealth or otherwise to benefit leaders.
Seek to mould and shape both your Sachlichkeit (rationality) and moral stands instead of being pampered out of it. In a Californian murder case one of the defendants addressed the jury before sentencing: "What I did came from the heart, from love. Whatever comes from the heart and flows out of love cannot be evil. You cannot stand in judgment over me . . .!" Odd drivel or self-serving blunderbuss talk and obsession with ideas that are not first-class but run contrary to it, is a sign of a cultist, one of the crudest fellows of all. Your Country fists for enough matter-of-factness (Sachlichkeit) from you too.
- Your Country is the kingdom that is found in your insides: Don't be too narrow in your concepts, as "the kingdom of God is within you." [Luke 17:21]
Difficult Words of Catholicism
HERE ARE easy summaries of what Father Matheo might have meant above by his unexplained theological concepts; especially "indifferentism", "Pelagianism" and "the incarnation". They are all defined in Catholic theology. We have got no negative feedback on the summaries that follow.Religious indifferentism - a summary
Indifferentism is not religious indifference. This is how Catholics classify these things:- Absolute indifferentism consists of philosophic systems that reject man's acknowledgment of his dependence on a personal creator, whom he is bound to reverence, obey, and love.
- Restricted indifferentism: In distinction from this absolute Indifferentism, a restricted form admits religion to have some salutary influence on human life. But it holds that all religions are equally worthy and profitable to man. Such hopers, like Rousseau, hold that God looks only to the sincerity of intention, and that everybody can serve Him by remaining in the religion in which he has been brought up, or by changing it at will for any other that pleases him more (Emile, III). That "all religions are equally good" comes to mean, at bottom, that religion is good for nothing.
- Liberal indifferentism: The third indifferentism acknowledges the unique divine origin and character of Christianity, and its consequent immeasurable superiority over all rival religions. But it further holds that what particular Christian Church or sect one belongs to is an indifferent matter; all forms of Christianity are on the same footing, all are equally pleasing to God and serviceable to man. Rationalistic speculation has culminated in the prevalent materialistic, monistic, and agnostic philosophies of today, where liberals may try to regulate their lives as true followers of Christ, holding that Christ taught no dogmatic doctrine, His teaching was purely ethical, and its only permanent and valuable content is summed up in the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. When this point is reached the Indifferentism that arose in belief joins hands with the Indifferentism of infidelity (the two first forms above). The latter substitutes for religion, the former advocates as the only essential of religion, the broad fundamental principles of natural morality, such as justice, veracity, and benevolence that takes concrete form. The Vatican Council teaches that reason can, by its own native powers, reach with certitude the truths that suffice to form the basis of a natural religion.
Pelagianism
AS TAUGHT by the monk and theologian Pelagius who was born ca. 354 in Britain, the 5th-century Christian movement Pelagianism stressed the primacy of human (ascetic) effort in spiritual salvation. The movement stressed the essential goodness of human nature and the freedom of the human will. Pelagius held that God made human beings free to choose between good and evil and that sin is a voluntary act against God's law. Pelagius and his followers denied original sin and believed in perfect human free will.Pelagianism was attacked by Augustine. He asserted that human beings could not become righteous by their own efforts and depended wholly on the grace of God. Pelagianism was eventually (in Carthage, 418) condemned as heresy in eight canons that afterwards became articles of faith. Two of them: "(7:) The saints refer the petition of the Our Father, "Forgive us our trespasses", not only to others, but also to themselves. (8:) The saints pronounce the same supplication not from mere humility, but from truthfulness."
Then there was semi-Pelagianism. It flourished from about 429 to about 529 in southern France, and stressed the need of ascetic practices. The highly respected semi-Pelagians believed that original sin was a universal, corruptive force in man. They also believed that without God's grace this corruptive force could not be overcome. They therefore thought grace is necessary for Christian life and action. They also insisted that Baptism was needed, even for infants.
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The yoga way may dissolve your selfhood if that way is negative and yet proclaims ardently that being wrecked is a sort of worship. |
As time went by, semi-Pelagianism came to contradict both Paul and Augustine, the approved Catholic doctor in the question of grace. In AD 529 semi-Pelagianism too was declared heresy.
Main sources: Britannica Online and The Catholic Encyclopedia.
The Incarnation
THE BOOK of Wisdom speaks of wisdom as "the worker of all things . . . a certain pure emanation of the glory of the almighty God . . . the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God's majesty, and the image of his goodness." (Wis, 7:21-26.)Paul paraphrases this passage and refers it to Jesus Christ (Hebrews 1:3). Father Mateo thinks it is clear ... from the interpretation of the wisdom books by Paul, and especially from the admitted interpretation of the Church Fathers and the liturgical uses of the Church that the personified wisdom of the wisdom books is the uncreated wisdom, the incarnate logos of John, the Word hypostatically united with human nature, Jesus Christ, the son of the eternal Father. The wisdom books prove that Jesus was really and truly God. That is a Catholic viewpoint.
Jesus the Son of God
ACCORDING to the testimony of the evangelists, Jesus himself bore witness to his divine sonship, "Who do men say that the son of man is?" (Matthew 16:13). This name son of man was commonly used by Jesus in regard to himself; it bore testimony to his human nature and oneness with us.Peter replied: "You are Christ, the son of the living God" (ibid, 16). Jesus was satisfied with this answer; it made him the natural Son of God. "Flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but my Father who is in heaven" (ibid, 17). Jesus admits that he is the Son of God in the real sense of the word.
He allowed others to give him this title. The unclean spirits cried out: "You're the Son of God" (Mark 3:12). After the stilling of the storm at sea, his disciples adored him and said: "Indeed you are the Son of God "(Matthew 15:33). Jesus was called the Son of God. Jesus himself clearly assumed the title. He constantly spoke of God as "my Father" (Matthew 7:21; 10:32; 11:27; 15:13; 16:17, etc.).
Thirdly, the witness of Jesus to his divine sonship should be clear enough; but is perhaps even more evident in John. Jesus indirectly but clearly assumes the title when he says: "Do you say of him whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world: You blaspheme, because I said, I am the Son of God? . . . the Father is in me and I in the Father." (John 10:36, 38.)
Here as elsewhere we render the typified Catholic views and peel off nuances.
Divine Sonship of Jesus
TO HIS enemies, Jesus made undoubted profession of his divine sonship in the real and not the figurative sense of the word; and the Jews understood him to say that he was really God. Jesus tells: "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30). They take up stones to kill him.According to Mark, Jesus maintains simply and clearly: "I am" (Mark 14:62). The context of Matthew clears up the difficulty as to the meaning of the reply of Jesus. The Jews understood him to make himself the equal of God. They clearly understood him to make claim to be the real Son of God; and he allowed them so to understand him, and to put him to death for this understanding and rejection of his claim. The second appearance of Jesus before the Sanhedrim was like to the first; a second time he was asked to say clearly: " Are you then the Son of God? " he made reply: "You say that I am." They understood him to lay claim to Divinity. (Luke 22:70-71).
"We have a law; and according to that law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God (John 19:7). The charge was most serious. What law? The law of Leviticus: "He that blasphemes the name of the Lord, dying let him die: all the multitude shall stone him, whether he be a native or a stranger. He that blasphemes the name of the Lord dying let him die " (Lev 24:17).
The other uses of thee title Son of God in regard to Jesus. The angel Gabriel proclaims to Mary that her son will "be called the son of the most high" (Luke 1:32); "the Son of God" (Luke 1:35); John speaks of him as "the only begotten of the Father" (John 1:14); at the Baptism of Jesus and at his Transfiguration, a voice from heaven cries: "This is my beloved son" (Matthew 3:17; Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22; Matthew 17:3); John gives it as his very set purpose, in his gospel, "that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God" (John 20:31).
In the testimony of John, Jesus identifies himself absolutely with the divine Father. According to John, Jesus says: "he that sees me sees the Father" (John 14:9). The other witness of John: "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30). Jesus thereby establishes the consubstantiality of the Father and the son (ie they are of the same substance).
Jesus Christ, Son of God is the "true son" of "the true God"; in fact, this true son of the true God, Such is the exegesis of this text given by all the Church Fathers that have interpreted it (see Corluy, "Spicilegium Dogmatico-Biblicum", ed. Gandavi, 1884, II, 48). All the Church Fathers that have either interpreted or cited this text, refer outos to Jesus, and interpret "Jesus is the true God and life eternal."
Nowhere in the Old Testament is the term Son of God given as a name peculiar to the Messiah. Every use of the name "Son of God" in the Gospels means true and natural sonship of God. Jesus is by this title said to have the same nature and substance as the heavenly Father (see "Spicilegium", II, p. 42). It says Jesus is God.
John affirms in plain words that Jesus is God. John: "All things were made by him." The Word, then, is the creator of all things and is true God. And certainly it was Jesus, according to John the Evangelist. Other passages of John's gospel testify similarly.
Paul speaks of Christ as "who is over all things, God blessed for ever" (Rom 9:5). This interpretation and punctuation are sanctioned by all the Church Fathers that have used the text; all refer to Christ the words "he who is God over all". The Peshitta has the same translation. And most Protestants are at one in the same interpretation.
This identification of the Christ with Yahweh is clearer here: "He is the cause and the end of all things, even of the angels whom the Colossians are so misguided as to prefer to him (1 Corinthians 1:16).
Apart from Paul's witness to the Divinity of Jesus Christ there is also the witness of tradition: The Fathers of the Church and the general councils. By joining such testimonies to those of the Evangelists and Paul, we can see and interpret.
The human nature of Jesus Christ
"Christ is the truth; hence his body was not a fancy" (QQ. lxiii, q. 14; P. L., XL, 14). In regard to the human soul of Christ, the scripture is equally clear. Only a human soul could have been sad and troubled. Christ says: "My soul is sorrowful even unto death" (Matt. 24;38). "Now is my soul troubled" (John 12;27). His obedience to the heavenly Father and to Mary and Joseph supposes a human soul (John 4;34; 5;30; 6;38; Luke 22;42). Finally Jesus was really born of Mary (Matthew 1;16).The Hypostatic Union of the Divine Nature and the Human Nature of Jesus in the Divine Person of Jesus Christ
- Witness of Holy Writ: He could not have been killed were he not man.
- Witness of tradition: The one who became man, soul and body and mind and all else is human save only sin. "The one holy totality", Franzelin considers, means personality, a person being an individual and complete subject of rational acts. The individual person of Jesus is a divine person.
There tends to become heresy in mystery explanations.
Faith
THE NEW TESTAMENT idea of faith is not simple, and it permits a breadth of meaning. At the risk of oversimplification, it is possible to say that we find exaggerations - Here is the Catholic stand:Union stand
THE UNION of the two natures (the divine nature and the human nature) in one person has been for centuries called a hypostatic union, that is, a union in the divine hypostasis.What is a hypostasis? The definition by Boethius: a complete whole whose nature is rational (P.L., LXIV, 1343). A hypostasis is a complete rational individual. Thomas Aquinas defines hypostasis as a substance in its entirety (III:2:3, ad 2um).
Human nature is the principle of human activities; but only a hypostasis, a person, can exercise these activities.
Effects of the incarnation
ON THE BODY of Christ: "For in that, wherein he himself has suffered and been tempted, he is able to succour them also that are tempted" (Hebrews 2:18). Yet no one definite sickness was assumed by Christ. As Christ did not take sickness on himself, so other imperfections, such as deformities, which are not common to mankind, were not his.The human soul of Christ
OF SINLESS will, Christ is God. It was absolutely impossible on the part of Christ to act sinfully. Freedom.Likes and dislikes
THE HYPOSTATIC union did not deprive the human soul of Christ of its human likes and dislikes. He could not have been tempted by such likes and dislikes to sin.On the god-man (theanthropos)
THE CONCRETE human-faced God may not be rightly explained, but may easily be misunderstood.Teaching Authority
IN THE CHURCHES today, teaching authority allows minor modifications that don't exceed the limits of legitimate doctrinal development.In the day-to-day exercise of his primatial jurisdiction the pope relies on the assistance of papal assistants, a practice from the 1000s. From this emerged the right of cardinals to govern the church in urgent matters during a vacancy in the papal office. Cardinals are selected, in a secret meeting, as the pope chooses. Certain cardinals nominated by the pope handle doctrinal matters in the Faith. This curie, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is a direct descendant of the Roman Inquisition.
The ecumenical council is recognized by the Roman Catholic Church as the supreme authority. Those councils are ecumenical that the Roman Catholic Church regards as ecumenical. Both the first and second Vatican councils illustrated the values of the ecumenical council. It appears that a fund of worldwide wisdom and experience raises the members -
In the Eastern Orthodox churches the very attempt by the bishops of a single local church to claim a monopoly on the Petrine succession was regarded as something of a deviation, in that all bishops, insofar as they professed the faith of Peter, were to be understood as equals and his successors. The Eastern Orthodox churches have been unanimously adamant in their rejection of the papal claims to primacy and infallibility.
Philipp Melanchthon, the Lutheran author of the Augsburg Confession of 1530, may have been willing to admit that a truly evangelical pope had a certain superiority over other bishops. The Reformers did not base their attack upon the historical argument that Peter had never visited Rome.
Theological neglects have left some ambiguities.
Saying
The self is not revealed either by the scriptures or by the instructions of a preceptor . . . It is only when the scriptural knowledge, instructions of a preceptor and true discipleship come together that self-knowledge is attained. [Yoga Vasistha, Yv 302]
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.
Pa: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Autobiography of a Yogi. 11th ed. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF), 1971.
Say: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Sayings of Yogananda. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1958.
Yv: Venkatesananda, swami, tr. The Concise Yoga Vasistha. Albany: State University of New York, 1984.
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