Yoga Gurus and Followers 8
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"Move On" from SRF Idyllisations
"Move on if you move the here-now . . ."IN psychoanalytical theory there are many mental processes that make the mind able to reach compromise solutions to problems that it is unable to resolve. Such largely unconscious compromises tend to involve hiding from oneself internal drives or feelings that threaten to lower self-esteem or provoke anxiety. The psychoanalyst views defense mechanisms as part of every neurotic structure. But defensive activity is in itself considered no sign of pathology. [Ebu "defence mechanism"]
Idyllisation suggests one is sustaining a wrong notion that a situation is pleasing or good (idyllic), while it is far from it. Opposed to it, "moving on" serves some, but there are good ways to do it and other ways. Moving on has been an issue for some SRF devotees of the guru Yogananda. Attachment - for example to SRF - can be hard to deal with, and that is one more basic problem to many.
Most of these gleanings are from SRF related discussion boards. In the clippings that are brought into system below, the "move on"-emphasis has been added for easy identification. Comments may be added.
You are to drop the
emotional attachments to Yogananda the sooner the better
A. Stop drawling "move on" indiscriminatingly
I have never been a monk . . . I feel a responsibility . . . Dwapara Yuga keeps moving forward inexorably. [Should Free (1/20/02 11:41 pm)]
Every individual must choose for themselves . . . it was time for me to move on. [gardendiva (10/2/02 6:47 am)]
Let SRF be like the current leaders want it to be, take advantage of whatever it has to offer (its different for everyone) . . . move on to something better fitted for you. [kloset (1/3/03 8:06 am)]COMMENT: The first post has a rather fatalistic ring to it. It presents the concept of time periods, eras, or yugas. Dwapara yuga is presented here: [LINK].
Moving on means many different things. Some try to make the best of it in SRF, others drop SRf but stick to Yogananda, and some leave both SRF and its guru, Paramahansa Yogananda (1893 - 1952).
Guilt or no guilt: leaving one's identity-fostering group, likeSRF is a guilt issue. In a conflict, it is wise to make a good selection. Compare: "When in doubt, win the trick." [Edmund Hoyle]
B. Maybe moving on does not work
Could you please post the contact info for the Pasadena therapist . . . ? He/she is obviously familiar with SRF and the many issues that have arisen for those who struggle to move on. [InSearch (1/12/02 7:34 pm)]
Make sure you're in good health. . . . you could also access some counseling. . . . These two things can be tremdously helpful i[n] giving you a stable base from which to move on to your spiritual journey - [gardendiva (10/22/02 1:07 pm)]
It just may be that the SRF environment just did not work for many people, monastics and lay members, alike . . . As the former Sister Dhriti allegedly said to her fellow nuns, "I am leaving because I can no longer grow spiritually in this place." [chuckle chela (10/29/02 7:48 pm)]
I have moved on to another guru, but I am still working all this out in my head, trying to understand it all. [nagchampa2 (2/11/04 5:28 pm)]COMMENT: A cult may cause or aggravate many problems for members who (a) did not adapt full well in the large society, and (c) did not adapt full well in the cult setting either.
There are many sides to health. It involves being able to cope, also with physical, emotional, mental, and social aspects of life. Good health may be taken to mean "seldom serious diseases" too. Health manifests from inside out. Stressful and harmful environments can endanger it. Note well your inner sides (thoughts and feelings and how the organism works). Attend to a discreet enough fare in your social fields and the surroundings, and so further.
Some say that a person is mentally healthy if he is able to function reasonably well. Others, like Adler, say good adaptation is marked by the ability to enjoy and work. Others say that a person is healthy mentally if he behaves like most of his fellows. That view is unsound. According to Abraham Maslow, most people are no good yardstick of man's capacity. Others think like him.
What is good health or not so good health rests in interpretations. A being has to be studied with respect and discernment to find out of his or her subtler sides. In Freudian analysis and many similar approaches, this is a must. For example, if someone reacts to unjust vilifications in a volatile way the first few times it occurs, it is a sign of health - astute defence mechanisms are mobilised to help one's fare. But in the face of stubborn, repeated lies, being volatile does not help. Something else is needed. Smartness is often needed to combat stress too, and knowledge of how to go ahead in general outline. Now compare the saying, "Cheat me once, shame on you. Cheat me twice, shame on me."
Health concerns mind, body, and adaptations in the environment. When the planet is not well run - it is the case - it suggests that mankind is footlose and needs a sound, inner foundation first of all.
Just to move on without enough regard for the holistic health and the foundation, might actually do more good than harm - or more harm than good - depending on one's luck and other factors, unforeseen ones included.
Those who defend moving on by lack of (registered) spiritual growth, have to deal with the official attitude of SRF in the matter: that spiritual growth is not always easy to note, not always easy to become aware of, that it may take time to some, and so on. This line of thinking serves to comfort some. However, the same holds good for spiritual retrogression and degradation too. The impoverishments deep inside can be so subtle and devious that the victims of a groaning fare do not become aware of them. It is a possibility. Do not overlook it for the sake of rosy hues.
Who is a good and fit witness? By such as dream interpretations you could help yourself a bit, and by feeling deeply into subjects as they come your way. By solid individual advancement and moral development you may improve. Maslow finds, again, that the common man and woman are not the best witnesses around. The best witnesses distort less and register more true to fact than most people. They are more clear-headed. They look like Winners in Transactional Analysis (TA). Maslow thinks that
"serious" people are coming so close together as to suggest that they are becoming a single party of mankind, the earnest ones, the seeking, questioning, probing ones, the ones who are not sure, the ones with a "tragic sense of life," the explorers of the depths and of the heights, the "saving remnant." . . . Almost, we could say, we wind up with adults . . . [Rvl, ch 8]Maslow sees it fit to "produce the good human being, to foster the good life and the good society. Renouncing this is like renouncing the reality and the desirability of morals and ethics [Ibid]."
Who will be right in a conflict? The bosses, their representatives, or yourself at the bottom of the hierarchy others set up and that you willingly have contributed to so that they thrive in their roles? Well, it could be both parties, more or less. But you have to matter to be heard. Therefore, do not give away all your hard-won assets. At least you may rise to have the command inside yourself, if you go for it.
And Yogananda, presented by SRF, has made it next to impossible to move on to another guru without guilt or fear of alarming repercussions, for he says that several incarnations, at least, must pass before one is given another such glorious chance as by formal entry into the SRF Church.
Find out what suits yourself best.
Soaring is not unfit for a bird of prey, and swimming and diving for a dolphin, and so
further
C. Maybe you ought to move on if you are deeply changed thereby
IT IS possible to take advantage of guru points and advance them, and leave aside whatever else seems ugly and detrimental to one's progress. "Be like the wise ant . . ." Or . . . move on . . . [cf. kloset (12/17/02 7:35 am)]
Hate to give up just because no one who KNOWS ever took the time to explain it to me. [Jaded (11/18/01 2:38 pm)]
Maybe its time to move on for your peace. [cf. premdas (2/14/02 9:19 pm)]
Some have suffered greatly at the hands of SRF . . . I wonder how . . . a community with that kind of baggage can . . . Words are cheap. [member108 (10/4/02 9:55 pm)]
If an ugly teaching or belief brings you down, let it go for that which inspires you to inner heights. [cf. premdas (2/5/04 10:29 am)]COMMENT: The selective outlook of being like a wise ant to seize sugar and leave sand alone, is from Babaji in Yogananda's Autobiography. And if the sugar is seen down in the toilet, maybe you should not take it anyway. Many attitudes of grumbling disciples appear to be encompassed by: "Take and grab, take and grab, not so much give and share any more." It could be that aking is a necessity and not bad - if you have become impoverished or were so at the start. Buddha's counsels, if well followed, tends to one's worth and the building of resources both within and without so that you can live well, married or not.
Yogananda decreed many things, sometimes moved on from them, as in his first aims and ideals for SRF, sometimes decreeing opposing things, as when he first talked for expanded selfishness, and later talked against selfishness. A selection of his sayings seem to be "sanctioned" and endorsed by the church of kriya. To illustrate this point: You hardly hear from SRF nowadays that Yogananda advocated dictatorship and hailed Mussolini in 1933, do you? But he did. And SRF hardly feels itself served by such guru wisdom today. The point is that sayings a church endorses, may never undermine that church.
Some have suffered greatly because of the SRF cult. But maybe most of those who never get out of the cult, suffer much more - inside.
Premdas thinks that soaring things are good. Still, down-to-earth things help one to build the better life that could be needed. One has to reflect on which approach works best for oneself - or maybe it is the soaring heights down to earth, a combination of the two, just as Yogananda endorsed by his slogan "plain living and high thinking". As for Yogananda's marred concepts of brotherhood communites - meaning self-serving communities - they have been abandoned by the current management, to the disappointment of many who read how glowingly Yogananda advocated them in the latter part of his Autobiography. Cognitive dissonance and dully throbbing repression can set in due to such things alone.
D. Older folks may get uncovered and disturbed by moving
The teachings in SRF [are] making subtle remarks about all the negative things that will happen if you leave the path, kriya, Yogananda etc. . . . this is a very scary thing for a lot of people . . . [gardendiva (6/29/02 7:19 am)]
I was young and lacked a certain amount of discretion and self-knowledge when I first began to get the lessons. I'm older now . . . and am more honest with myself. It's given me the opportunity to "move on," . . . I would not recommend it to anyone that did not feel it was the right for them. [gardendiva (10/29/02 12:06 pm)]COMMENT: Asking for donations was a typical SRF thing.
Without honesty to oneself, how can self-knowledge be possible? To be true to yourself, there has to be honesty. We have to let good honesty and savoury truthfulness walk hand in hand -
While trying to understand
scams and set-ups of others, favour yourself while you have such chances
E. Both hanging out and moving on may cost a lot
After having been involved with Yogananda and SRF for around twenty years, then becoming informed, disillusioned and now finally feeling like I've moved on, I now feel [something] . . . [milkherenow (11/14/03 10:41 am)]
I often see sites and then move on losing track of where I saw them. [peer345 (1/14/02 1:17 am)]
I'm new to SRF but I've been meditating off and on for twenty years . . . [SerenityNow7 (12/7/03 8:27 am)]
Even though many other groups came forward with declarations against SRF having the copyright on self-realization . . . SRF was not able to accept it. [Pig Ma (3/9/02 7:01 am)]
SRF also needs to move on. [etzchaim (12/19/03 5:37 am)]
If you do not think things are going to change [for better or worse?] . . . move on. "What else is one to do?" If you cannot [support SRF], then move on. [chuckle chela (1/3/03 6:15 pm)]COMMENT: Three approaches appear: (1) To move on and try to sort out things from then on. (2) To try to understand things before taking further action. (3) To move while you try to sort out things - as you are in a hurry - though we seldom recommend it.
I could hardly imagine the SRF gurus knew nothing of what was at stake or about when I left SRF. To listen better inwards could pay in many situations where SRF and Yogananda are involved too.
Summary: Much as in Zen training,
- If you can drop unsavoury id-based emotional leader attachments, go for it the sooner the better.
- Find out what suits you best. Soaring is not unfit for a bird of prey, or swimming and diving for a dolphin, and so on.
- While trying to understand scams and set-ups of others, favour yourself while you have those chances.
Drop leader attachments to find a deep friend by soaring or diving and swimming and understanding the chances of this and that too.
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| Literature | SECTION | First Page |
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.
Rvl: Maslow, Abraham. Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences. Columbus: Ohio State University, 1964.
Say: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Sayings of Yogananda. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1958.
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