Farm Animals, Cult Members

All sect members are not like those.

Speak truth with kindness and understanding, and respect truth wherever you perceive it. - Paramahansa Yogananda [Ak 401]

The guru also decreed, two years before he registered his own church in California, "Spend less, and have more, by doing away with luxurious habits. From your earnings put aside as much as possible, so that you can live partially on the interest from your savings, without having to dip into the capital. [Ak 401]."

Now after he had formally registered his Self-Realization Fellowship church society in 1935, he went on to set up a monastic order too, which has some ideas about members "spending for God's work", often meaning SRF. However, when Yogananda talked of spending for "God's work", it was often not his own work he referred to, but rather the work of elevating souls.

That does not mean there are no "churchy" statements by Yogananda. In the hybrid religion book, The Yoga of Jesus, Yogananda reads things into the gospels that are not really made explicit there. Example:

"Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."

To be "born of water" is usually interpreted as a mandate for the outer ritual of baptism by water - a symbolic rebirth - in order to be eligible for God's kingdom after death. But Jesus did not mention a rebirth involving water. "Water" here means protoplasm. [Yj 47]

Does it? How can you be sure that "born of protoplasm" is just what Jesus referred to? - Or better: "How sure may we be to be proficient in the art of living and hold justified views and notions?" [Link]

Sects show that it may get dangerous "around the corner" for those who do not tackle bossy statements. Although it can be advantageous to get influenced by a guru who is firm and deals correctly with issues and others, there is a great need to cultivate and examine oneself along with that too. For example, if you struggle with tough problems - such as a mighty sex drive - and the guru talks for strict celibacy for unmarried ones, his devotionalist views (very typical of bhakti yoga cults of Hinduism) hardly help you to get any advantages of cultivating yourself through sex drives. This goes even beyond getting proficient in having sex.

Other folks think differently than the guru in such a matter, and other yogis too. Buddhist tantra speaks for having sex, but it may not be necessary. It leaves you a choice, then.

Hence, advancing is a deep subject, and success and cultivation may depend on how good we are at seeing through tricks and narrow views with a religious facade, and at handling the bottom issues without getting dogmatic complications added to them instead of careful cultivation. Yes, there is much to handle or deal with, and some serious issues appear only in time. Those who do not offer better advice to struggling ones than hearsay views, may not qualify as real friends.

Thus, a firm and correct leader - guru or teacher or teaching - may be advantageous to come across, but if there is firmness without good enough correctness - without fit propriety - uh-oh!. Therefore it is fine to help in educating yoga interested people, and guru interested folks too.

The guru says above that Jesus did not mean just what he said - in other words, Yogananda interprets something so that it suits him to advocate The question is how fair he is in so doing. On another page he is shown to run over many pivotal Christian concepts - the Father, Holy Ghost, Christ the soul - and accommodate it all to his own form of Hinduism, going far too far. [Link] All the same his society claims to be in one hundred percent harmony with the teachings of Jesus, which they are not.

A waylay masquerade may have grieveous turns. So it is not bad to see through it out of respect for truth. If fair truths do not suit the leaders and ardent followers, they are parts of a cult and tango there. It takes two to tango; it takes more than leaders to form a cult. Complying members are involved too. Some may go against their higher views to conform and belong; it depends.

About two thousand five hundred years ago, Buddha councelled about saving earnings according to plan and more proficiently than just "for a rainy day". [Buddha counsel]

One of the things that several former monastics in Yogananda's rather cultish order have realised, is that they failed when they gave up their own assets for the sake of his church, ot "God's work," as the remaining monastics would call it. There have been some interesting articles about such lessons on the SRF Walrus ◦discussion board, which was on-line for about ten years till it folded away. What remains of it today is very little.

Some Peculiar Troubles and Maladies

Some teachings surrounding yoga methods can easily dwarf or stultify the help that methods give. Better be forewarned. The purpose of this page is to present standards that could help you for a long time ahead.

Conformity pressures hinder nudity at times. See all.

Most persons associate with other persons and pets for good or bad and so on. Walking the dog and serving the animal by picking up its droppings in a plastic bag too is part of it for city dwellers - a sign of the times it is.

Reasonable yoga and Transcendental Meditation takes you inwards somehow by steps and stages. The poorer methods you are given, the greater the need for spare time to practice in, and for the "seller" a greater need for propaganda, unsocial pep talks, hype, and trickery, one may suspect. It is a good thing that exceptional methods, on the other hand, "talk for themselves" quite well, for example by research findings. Fair and fit research findings is a token to measure rather much by.

But even dear, fine methods may call for some regularity of practice, such discipline. That said, much that is called fit in some cultish circles, is unneeded verbiage. Demands of sexual abstinence is one such thing. In a long-range perspective those who adhere to such a teaching instead of being frivolous in their own right, may some day come to realise things like, "Were my blood line and genes not good enough to go on in this world? Or was I too valuable to get married? Or both?" One may come to wonder. The monk may not suit commoner living, and may not like pinpointing of this kind either. The guru Yogananda was a monk. He severely limits the sex life - or sex burden? - of disciples by decreeing something like "Have sex once a month." Such counsel does not suit those who really enjoy having sex four times a day. And luckily for such virile or lusty ones, there are yoga forms for them too. It is called Tantra, and you don't have to be a pariah to go for it.

By living out your interests you may get educated, may get skilled, may gain a living and develop your character too. It is held in psychoanalytics that the personality is a result of being true to your deep self and its natural interests and inklings. Transcendental Meditation can help many to develop in some ways. Yet there are many factors or influences in a life, and some are detrimental to higher growth. Group mechanisms may either favour or stunt the growth of individuality or uniqueness or maybe they are rather "neutral", if that can be. If so, you may be ignored, and thus freer to do your own things. But the bet is and fulfill higher proclivities and what may be called Self-actualisation urges. Maslow has studied such unique persons and developed theories atop of that. One should guard against that conformity pressures hinder self-growth above conformism. However, we may be helped onwards by comrades and even a congenial, decent group somewhere, somehow. A congenial partner and helpmates along the road to evolve, are true blessings.

There comes a need to be alert to difficult circumstances and shielding a proper balance. Many try to bulwark themselves in various ways. Houses have walls and gardens for it. Fences and some ridges could be OK, and so on. There are social fences, physical fences, and other kinds of fences too. From antiquity and earlier, people have been in dire need of stone walls, ramparts, fences and strong hedges for the sake of safer living. And pleasant garden work, Paradisiac work, is still healthy and much appreciated. [Gen 2:15]

In India some yogis live in remote and secluded places and shielded places called ashrams to benefit from the protective measures offered. When a teacher says "Take care," to you, maybe you should consider shielding yourself better in one or several ways and not go venture out on a limb, and so on. Carelessness and inexperience can cost dearly.

Let us say you have ignored some of the basics of the yoga terrain and floundered: Maybe your own development and gliding inside on your own, free terms is set aside for the sake of belonging to someone or something, such as a church of yoga. To the degree your life gets directed by others and also ruled over by prominent others, you are probably bound for troubles, and did not take care well enough.

• Some troubles stem from repressing yourself and your insights.
• Others stem from not being able to or not being given any good opportunity to get deeply felt findings out of your chest.
• Still other troubles stem from those around you, and the troubles and maladies they have and often infect others with, and impose on their victims in large numbers. Royalty has been for that through Europe's history.

Troublesome relations and encounters and environment may scar us mentally, and false teachings also. The guru of SRF, for example, repeatedly teaches "get rid of the ego," as if it were possible. However, it is the Self that illumines the ego, tells Ramana [Sib, ch. 2]. The unwelcome effects of marring Yogananda teachings may not be easy to get rid of, and the effects of being bullied may linger on afterwards. Meditation may activate repressed memories of unresolved problems, as part of the self-cleansing process it tends to be, if effective.

Feigning can be a big problem, and so is hypocrisy and corruption. Let the problems of those that are not close to you be their own problems as you help the world by being charitable to yourself and your nearest ones first. As the Tibetan yogi Milarepa is into, don't be too eager to help others; get Enlightened first. "One should not be over-anxious and hasty in setting out to serve others, but have the one resolve to attain Buddhahood. [Tm 271]"

It works better not to impoverish yourself or reduce your well-being unreasonably, unwisely for others, but improve yourself in a fine way, just as Buddha says in a great many counsels. It is not any "either-or" though; Buddha advocates a sensible "middle path", building up wealth and funds for living all right, to get time and means for developing your mind and wake up too. Such is the Eightfold Path toward Enlightenment (Nirvana) in a nutshell.

"Charity begins in the home, but it does not have to stop there [American proverb]." A point to maintain is that unless or until you have helped yourself well enough, you are not able or resourceful enough to maintain a family or help others as you go on.

❖ You are not asked to lessen or ignore yourself and your long-term needs throughout life, but adhere to the Essential. It is not always easy for gentle souls.

Learn to prepare well

Loose, very general warnings may not help you or young ones. But all-round training on top of such warnings could help.

Murphy's Law comes in handy: "If anything can go wrong, someone will sooner or later see to it that it does." But if you learn to bulwark well, take fit precautions and be on and up in time for great things to come your way, maybe - maybe you then have learnt to expect the worst and bulwark against it so that alarming things don't happen to yourself or your next of kin, no matter how the storms may rage.

In some cases it is possible to do. In others not. So it is not always enough to live out "prevention is better than cure". Rather, stick to "expect the worst and bulwark against it in good times". That may slowly work if put to work by steps and stages.

To be well rehearsed is fine too. It often makes a difference, even in president candidate debates on TV.

In preparing and safeguarding, don't get depleted or emptied. A little eaglet doesn't have to practice flying till its wings have grown to size and the skeleton and rest of the organism are matured. Thus, it stands to reason not to rush things. Training or prevention has to rest on both readiness (including physical maturity) and interests, perhaps.

Learn to prepare yourself well for what may come and lie ahead. It is no as easy as it sounds. To prepare well is not just to prepare for a rainy day or three, but a full-fledged hurricane and a snowstorm that last for long, for example. Most often these things don't happen, but when and if they do, your building (character) has to be calibrated to withstand and resist the harmful influences.

If soundness is not jeopardised, preparing for life and its encounters, dangers and things to resist may assist personal strength. If not, one may be tamed, which is not cultivated.

To create something of worth, you can let high skills assist general soundness and well-being. And observe the rules of conduct which a yoga aspirant (sadhaka) should follow. They are sound moderation in food, sound, welcome moderation in sleep and sound moderation in speech. [cf. Ramana, Sib, ch. 2].

❖ To be richly prepared, learn to bulwark in ample time against the worst things that could happen, so that they probably won't happen anyhow. Lots of practices ought to be derived from that basic norm.

Going deeper, getting better, and preferably both

Big troubles, were they sloppiness, tardiness, or some other things earlier?

It is a good thing to have sense enough not to heed misleading teachings of others, or mediocre teachings over and above your Self who may communicate with you from deep within.

Consider, too, that the one who considers a teaching ideally is more worth than the teaching. and that the Deep Self is more than one life here.

Good neighbours and friends can be a peculiar mixture, and serve to show how much variation there is around, and how many different sorts of life that may work together in the largely tangled web of life.

Big trouble may be due to this: Earlier we turned outside to the extent of not caring well enough for our deeper nature and its needs. But the moment we are dead, our insides (mind and soul) are there, and karma. What else might be found as being of worth enough depends on "how winds are blowing". That is a part of the teaching of Buddha.

The best is not to ignore all your chances to bore into your deeper self and consolidate valuable gains and assets, if you are well.

Colour sensitivity can be developed and refined, and a mental grasp and proficiency may likewise be allowed to be developed, perhaps trained well, and nuanced for the sake of fitting in to the world and make a living, for one thing. A good grasp on the basic forms of meditation may likewise help proficiency (skills) in meditation on and upwards. It depends on the training.

❖ You can accommodate as best you can.

Sect brothers arm in arm?

Hoping or begging for friendship and contact and belonging may seem to find glowing fulfilment in other than the real relationship figures - not really natural or one's own father figures, mother figures, brother figures, friends and so on. Some monastics typically feed on forged relationships - of strained relationships, one may gather. For the sect brother is not a real brother, the sect mother is not a mother, the sect sister not a real sister, and so on. There is a slogan play on words and at times on inadequate feelings of belonging and estrangement through being unguarded.

If a minister gets a bit too close and indulging, maybe a few words as those from "The Miller's Tale" by Chaucer could suit you, or even better, the essence of them: "I will call for help and cry 'alas!' / Do take your hands away, for courtesy!" - Or some judo. [More Chaucer]

❖ Where they talk and write of divine love and friendship your way without ever having met you, suspect a "wolf of relationship" is loose. And refrain from adjusting to your own deep loss.

Fit Teachers Welcome Budding Uniqueness in Artists and Others

Effective yoga contains methods and customs that make you deviate from the average or common unless you surround yourself with like-minded people in some decent rural community or gets shelter in other nice ways. You may see this happening if you first take up hatha yoga of body postures, and then gets gradually interested in and involved in higher yoga forms, such as meditation. Along with the calming practice, which may restore health to some and fasten it in still others, in a crisis, the interests may grow wider and deeper, and the "thing" called "my way" or "my ways" may take on momentum. In other words, significant individuality may come into the open and want a piece of the action.

To be individual is to be unique, not like anyone else. Therefore be warned. Not everybody is welcoming and friendly towards those who get unique - much like artists - unique, and thereby different - yes, deviant. Sound protective measures may be called for. But be as discreet as you can, and make full use of the side of life that is called the right to privacy. It pertains to both thoughts and practices.

❖ Deviants may grow too - some for good, others for bad. Besides: "You learnt all that is to be learnt, but have you learnt (to know) yourself?" [Ramana, Sib, ch 1]

Unfulfilled Lives Little by Little Go Punished That Way

Sects and cults often give their members problems. Some problems are severe. There is a danger of reducing your self-esteem and self-worth. Remain alert to: While good yoga methods may help and foster inner growth as suggested, conformity measures - in yoga circles and other flocks - may hinder that. There are many low mechanisms sects may put to use.

It may help to get into significant ideas of the psychologist Abraham Maslow, as they carry weight and relevance. He fronts the view that average-looking and conform people may not be much worth as norm-givers of what is sane or of great worth. Those who deviate in positive ways from the average could be rewarding to get influenced by. Such plus-deviants are generally saner than the average, and with sane outlook on things. According to Maslow such people show standards in many ways and walks of life. However, useful as his lists of properties may be in some cases, they do not seem complete. [see Pusb, Rvl, Zun].

Living unfulfilled lives instead of going on works like a punishment - and going on - progressing in a good way - is the thing to do. The Gentle Middle Way is designed for it, for example, and you don't have to be a Buddhist or call yourself a Buddhist to derive benefit from it either.

❖ Method of practice: The Self of a person who tries to attain Self-realization is not different from him. There is nothing other than or superior to him to be attained by him. Self-realization is the realization of one's own nature. [Spiritual Instruction [Sib] by Ramana Maharsi, ch. 2]

Learn to Assuage Well

A typical thing about good advice is that those who need it the most, may welcome it the least. In consequence, adequate forewarnings are typically quite masked and figurative. Such "assuaging" may help. Some parables forewarn in that they tell in metaphors about important things that could happen so that these things may not happen. That is, those who have ears to listen or take heed may be warned, and thereby escape much pain and suffering in the long run. Much depends on that, including happiness of life.

Skilled storytelling combines some sorts of distance making with entertaining, structured layout of the tale, so that young and old ones derive benefit and understand basic ideas that make sense after some time.

❖ Avoid and minimise pains in life through good stories - old narrative ways have regained even academic prestige in our time, and are "hot" discourse takes. Speaking of cross-planted guru lore Speaking of cross-planted yoga lore and hybrid plants: Do we deal with grapevines without thorns; or brambles with a lot of them? Before you bleed to death or do better than that, take a look and find out the difference between the plants and learn to deal skilfully with whatever you have to deal with to make the juice you were after.

Good wine (that tricky, figurative term) can be made of both brambleberries and grapes, and "in wine lies a lot of verity swimming around". Compare the Latin "In vino veritas." It may not be as easy as that, though, so the counsel is, "Hold on to your own Fertility Garden: Make your own life prosper and not flounder."

❖ Good old ways with words can work like music on the soul, and in the family.

Teachings of Tao (the Way)

Greater teachings - or fun teachings - are not for everyone; great teachings often look bizarre to many commoners.

Lend ear to Lao-tzu in the Tao Te Ching:

When the highest of men hear of Tao [the Way] and truth they put it into practice quite diligently.

When the common types hear of Tao, they seem to be in two minds about it, half believing, aware and unaware of some.

When the lowest types hear of Tao, they ridicule or laugh loudly - but if they did not laugh, it would be no Tao. [Tao Te Ching, Ch. 41 More]

Figurative stories abound the world over

There are also parables of Buddha around. [Link]. Parables are teaching stories that can have many pregnant and relevant messages, depending on how uplifted you get, among other things. To some, the possible wisdom of a parable depends on what we put into it, possibly by projecting ourselves that way.

Buddha found it fit to tell figurative stories to help the masses, wheras Jesus told parables only to deaf ears. A difference is to be noted right there: Jesus in Matthew 13:13-14 speaks of his futile telling and time and effort wasted. [More]

❖ Peals of loud laughter suggest "No Way!" in some way or other.

Farm Animals May not Have a Bad Time at First

There is an entertaining story about a revered but false, fiendish guru - [Narada].

Millions of young individuals have become cult members and sect members, and some to their loss, as Steven A. Hassan shows. [Wikipedia, s.v. "Steven Hassan"]

What about farm animals, such as cattle? Victims of hoaxes - What substantial that has been denied to old farm animals may make them little fit for freedom later. And yet, both pets and farm animals may evoke a sense of uncomplicated contentment.

A stupendous old teaching is: One had better refrain from men and circumstances that take freedom degrees away. Becoming one of the goddess Circe's magically converted pigs instead of remaining as a man, was unbecoming to Ulysses at least.

❖ If figurative mentions carry lots of meaning, they may serve higher mental functions.