Gullibility Exploited by Yogananda

Some have rigmarole stupidity thrown on them, as in the case of gullible, well-intending victims of blind belief. "No more blind believing," said Paramahansa Yogananda [ Ak 456]. He did not say, "If you can't ride two horses at once, you shouldn't be in the circus [British proverb, Op 229]."

Christians who are told by Yogananda's cult SRF may come to realize that they have been trying to ride two horses - the guru's hinduism under false colours and some older-rooted variant Christianity. The conflicts of view behind the mask of one hundre percent harmony between the hollow ways may tear you a lot as time goes by.

One may also come to suspect that inexperienced narcissism and vanity is exploited cultwise too, when ceremonially outré members revel in superiority beliefs. Yogananda's guru cult SRF is marked by superiority belief. They believe they are superior by gifts or grafts - extraordinarily favoured and blessed, and so on. It is a typical feature.

And his disciples tell one another such as:

"We must - remain loving toward each other . . . You've got the Yogananda followers who are happy with SRF as it is now.

"Those who are in the elite positions of leadership can be (as I believe they are) truly spiritual. Many of us are guilty of lots of the same things.

"Like many others, I believed the SRF "dispensation" heralded a new ways of doing things in the world. I now see all too painfully how wrong this assumption was. SRF is a . . . hindrance to greater understanding.

"In Yogananda's Lessons of Self-Realization and the books of Yogananda lectures he supports the idea of questioning, taking a scientific approach, acknowledging the role of doubt, and so on . . . the idea of not questioning has arisen since Yogananda's passing.

"And SRF seeks money and influence in the world."

To this

If your horse stumbles and falls as you ride it, be very careful about riding him haltingly away from there that day, for in so doing you could make matters worse. Also, if you lose contact and guidance from within on important matters, try not to let another ride you to the long-range end of using you as some faith-ridden, halting animal. Try to invest for success and let early successes and great people help you to bear fruits. Get into roles and strengths that give you advantages, instead of being exploited as some sacrificial lamb.

However, try to warn man about something unexpected, and see how little goofs care. Various preconceptions they are fed with, hinder further investigations. Some band together in confusion as a cult's meditation group among other such groups, strive to have their existential positions confirmed by contact within the cult's accepted network, and by such cult-promoting strides many absorb fuel for further confusion, and their confidence in whatever cult-based is being told to exploit them along the way, becomes the means of worries and mistakes as to how to live really well, and also inner aggravations of the stumbled-horse kind. It very often happens.

If you see this around you, it could be time to withdraw well and as tidily as you are up to. Where can you go? Within - that is a regular way of Hindus. Or to a kind guru's ashram, to meditate. Or both. There are other ways too. Anchorites may learn to have a good time in suburban environments where good adn contacts may be few and far between. To live like an anchorite may come by degrees. It is good to adjust to one that suits you, and not necessarily conform to what others decree about how to be an anchorite, how to live in retiredment, and so on.

❖ It may help to be candid also.