Introduction to Yogananda's "Past Lives"
The guru Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952) taught much the same. [Gurus speak for reason and discernment] Now, some devotees of Param(a)hansa Yogananda (1893-1952) have taken to romanticise Yogananda's said, past lives they hear and read about - the Yogananda who said he had been the wife-sharing Arjuna, the brutal tyrant William the Conqueror and a vicious, murderous desert marauder that made Yogananda shiver when he told it (!) [Psy 112].
Some things they believe about Yogananda as a reborn Arjuna in SRF circlesDurga Ma (born Florina Alberta Dufour, 1903-93) was a happy woman disciple of Yogananda. One day in 1951 Yogananda said to her: "I remember you had asked me years ago if I was Arjuna." She exclaimed, "You were Arjuna." He smiled his, "Yes." She then asked him if Rajasi [Yogananda's successor as head of SRF] was with him at that time. He answered, "Yes, he was one of the twins, . . . Nakula. He was my favorite brother . . . Krishna was my guru and Babaji, being Krishna, is still my guru." She then asked him if she was also with him at that time. He looked at her and said, "Sure, you were. . . ." [Durga Mata. A Paramhansa Yogananda Trilogy of Divine Love, "My Life and Service to My Guru," Beverley Hills, CA: Joan Wight Publications, 1992/93 and 1997, p. 54.] Ask before group duping sets in: "Where is the evidence?" Lots of people believe too easily to their own future harm. We do well to consider the evidence without much prejudice to fall by. The fact is that SRF managers have cut many a caper about Yogananda's teachings after his death, and have even forged Yogananda's signature. [The SRF letter] [Autobiography changes made by SRF] Then, is it too bad to become a narcissistic, romanticising guru follower? If that is the level you are able to reach to as a human, it is the lot. But there is an alternative to blind believing: keeping claims "at arm's length", in suspense, at bey, making space for the growth of sound reason. You may gain a lot from that. You may also gain a lot from considering the vicious dog Brutus.
Fierce and vicious - then reborn as an animal?The bad karma or a mutilating tyrant and vicious, murderous desert marauder could propel rebirth as a dog, for example - provided several karma-and-rebirth thoughts in scriptures are true, and why not Yogananda himself on such a serious issue? Could sworn-in members of Self-Realization Fellowship benefit from a Mean and Bad Dog, and get liberated? Scriptural warnings that there are bad rebirths and hells in store for those who behave badly are many. The Laws of Manu: Those who committed mortal sins (mahapataka), having passed during large numbers of years through dreadful hells, obtain, after the expiration of (that term of punishment), the following births. (ch 12, v 54) The fright of being turned into a bad dog!
ReflectionsNow let us think a little, for example: "Is stealing grain always worse than killing many of the priestly caste"? Or, "Is stealing grain always worse than stealing condiments?" Some rats swim in milk and are treasured where dogs are treated as unclean animals - but common attitudes to rats and dogs in the West tend to be different. Check how fair the killed brahman is. Further, if an executioner does the work, how much of the blame and bad karma goes to the one or those who ordered him to do it? And evaluate how much grain has been stolen. There is a difference between stealing a few and a whole village's yearly supply. The possible harm may increase with the amount, and so on. Now we have started to qualify and evaluate the amount of thefts - and the possible or presumed goodness and of killed brahmans. When it comes to effects, there is a marked difference between stealing little or much, and between killing unworthy guys and others, and killing under special conditions: Killing a stealing, raiding brahmin in self-defence when he goes at war against your kin, should it really, really, be so bad when you do not take delight in killing? Your lawyer might plead along such a line; rhetorically, perhaps. But alas, who knows what goes on where murky goings are guided by a devil? Another thing is that Manu teaches you may make amends to escape the bad rebirths. A prescibed atonement may not be top effective, though. Prepare for that. There is also a chance that doing good to worthy ones also goes into the future lives and counterbalances the theft of one gram of condiment, for example . . . In other words, there is good hope that atonements and balancing (doing many good works) are influences on a future fare too. Buddha advocates doing much good, and teaches that a life well lived matters in a wider perspective as well. [Buddha's karma teachings] Smart enough to gain a middle ground
Buddha goes against follies of blind belief in the Kalama Sutta. To become a victim of past lives you merely hear of, could later prove foolish. So is blind belief in essential karma-rebirth-teachings, for that matter, especially if they are not perfectly right in their marrow or essence. It could also get very problematic if details look questionable to you, and cause and effect and the relative weight of the crimes tend to be out of step, somehow. "Doing time" is through embodiments, the Manu Samhita tells. A wise advice is to make good use of being born as a human. That boils in part down to try not to waste your time, learn to meditate, and to use fair opportunities well too. The Buddhist Middle Path serves such wide ends. Yes, meditating well may help a lot, and so could skill, aplomb and doing good too, for some reasons or others. Do lots of good if you have believed stupidly and acted badly (that is, if you have broken moral basics): it is in some of the expiation teachings of Manu, and is a general teaching of Buddha on building good karma too.
He left no valid proofAs for beliefs in Yogananda's asserted, former lives as a vicious, murderous desert marauder and the mutilating, greedy William the Conqueror (Psy 111-12), you don't have to believe that - on Yogananda's word against blind believing - for he has left no valid proof. And that is the point, and great gullibility is a recurrent problem. That he shivered when he told he had been a vicious, murderous desert robber in a previous life, is not as important to handle as the lack of valid proof of that previous life. [Psy 112] In cases where someone claims to have been this and that person formerly, there is an alterative to goof belief. It is keeping the claims at bay, in suspense, not settling for any faith in the matter at all. For "Twin fools: one doubts nothing, the other everything." We have neither solid proof or disproof. There is one more principle: For grown-ups, the burden of proof rests on the claimant, in this case Yogananda. But he left no valid proofs of anything there. When an authority figure says something is so-and-so, many take his word for it, they believe in authority utterances, then. It is risky business, and history shows it again and again. A middle ground between blind belief and just as blind disbelief may be called good sense if it favours scientific explorations. The good side to such research is that the results may favour us. Tought cults are not good at that. [Top] Visiting EnglandThere is evidence around that Yogananda claimed he had been William the Conqueror, for "he could tell of rooms in Westminster before entering those rooms" - something like that: In 1935, when he and his party were visiting England during the journey back to India, Yoganandaji and Richard Wright were at the palace at Westminster. Yoganandaji said to Wright, "You walk behind me. Immediately after I enter the palace, I will tell you which room is where before we ever get there; you'll see, everything will match up!" Wright said later that Swamiji was right every time about the location of the different rooms. Swamiji himself was there at the telling of this event, and Wright was bearing witness to Swamiji's description of the incident. There was no sense of any kind of "but" in Swamiji's behavior at all! [Psy 111-12] Try to look behind the surfaces of events to get more informed; it often pays. What about this time? Yogananda's room descriptions as rather loose evidence of presumed past life memories must be coupled to the fact that the palace has been rebuilt twice since the 11th century, and what stood there when Yogananda visited is a replacement, the New Palace. The only medieval structures of significance to survive were Westminster Hall, the Cloisters of St Stephen's, the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft, and the Jewel Tower. [Source: WP, "Palace of Westminster"] Satyeswarananda adds another caveat: "A yogi who has a bit of yogic power can easily predict these kinds of things; although a real Yogi would not . . . be involved in such insignificant event". [N1]
Ian Stevenson's Strivings to Document ReincarnationTo get informed is a good thing in the face of claims that call for blind belief (stupidity). How well may it be documented that life goes on after that, and that at least some reincarnate? Various methods exist. One is to recall former lives, either in hypnosis (not recommended) or through deep meditation (best). Others tell from earlier lives without such props or means. Some researchers have in fact been able to verify things told by such "innocents". One of them is Ian Pretyman Stevenson (1918-2007), M.D. He researched reincarnation claims, near-death experiences, and survival of the human personality after death, among other things. His research presentation was addressed to the academic and scientific community, and covers over 3,000 study cases, and provides evidence suggestive of reincarnation. But he could not detect any evidence of a physical process by which a personality could survive death and travel to another body. [◦Link 1] [◦Link 2] [◦Link 3]. "Professor Stevenson's methodology involves listening to stories, comparing and contrasting variants of stories, and constructing long, detailed narratives that attempt to "capture" the complex experience of his informants, who claim to remember incidents from past lives. In this sense Stevenson's work is similar to that of ethnographers and cultural anthropologists. Stevenson's informants are children spontaneously remembering recent quite ordinary lives, as opposed to adults remembering under hypnosis romantic or heroic lives in the distant past. In addition, birthmarks that occur at the sites of injury in the previous life constitute an important part of Stevenson's evidence." [Wikipedia, sv. "Old Souls"] "In interviewing witnesses and reviewing documents, Dr. Stevenson searched for alternate ways to account for the testimony: that the child came upon the information in some normal way, that the witnesses were engaged in fraud or self-delusion, that the correlations were the result of coincidence or misunderstanding. But in scores of cases, Dr. Stevenson concluded that no normal explanation sufficed. [Washington Post article by Tom Shroder, of February 11, 2007 [◦Link] A book by Stevenson, Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation (2nd ed. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1980), on spontaneous recall of information about previous lives by young children, contains twenty cases of children who begin to talk about specific memories of them having a previous life. "The book also describes the interview process, which includes taking possessions from the dead person and requiring the children pick the objects out amongst a field of random objects. Dr. Stevenson required the children to do much better than chance. The book also discusses various alternative hypotheses including fraud, information gained from others, extra-sensory perception, motivation and capacity of parents to deceive, and even spirit possession. In Dr. Stevenson's final conclusion, reincarnation stands as the best scientific hypothesis for explaining results presented." [Wikipedia, sv. "Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation"] You can read the book online at Google Books [◦Link] Even though Stevenson has been at this line of research for decades, his findings may not be convincing to all - or very many - (and so on). "Proponents of Dr. Stevenson's work sometimes cite him in a non-scientific manner and extend his theories beyond the bounds of scientific discourse. As an example, Carol Bowman makes extensive use of Dr. Stevenson's theories to promote a form of child therapy that emphasizes the past lives of the child." [Wikipedia, sv. "Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation"] [◦Link] At any rate, it would be good for many with an interest in the field of "remembered past lives" to learn how to tackle the sources of error involved. They are many. It is an interesting field. Says Dr. Carl Sagan, scientist, teacher and skeptic, and a founding member of a group that set out to debunk unscientific claims: "At the time of writing there are three claims in the ESP field which, in my opinion, deserve serious study: . . . that young children sometimes report the details of a previous life, which upon checking turn out to be accurate and which they could not have known about in any way other than reincarnation. I pick these claims . . . as examples of contentions that might be true." [Wikipedia, sv. "Reincarnation research"] Dealing with ComplicationsThere is research, and then there are old claimants and gratification-seekers or flatterers.
Many Yogananda admirers believe him stupidly, blindly Yogananda believers openly disregard his "No more blind believing." Ak 456]. That is their problem, or one cult problem. Furthermore, a widely shared problem is a problem still."Yogananda was Arjuna of the Gita, was William the Conqueror, was William Shakespeare," writes an anonymous author in the book Dwapara Yuga and Yogananda [Dyp 61]. Another writer, James Donald Walters, also known as Kriyananda, a former vice-president of Self-Realization Fellowship, states: Once I asked Master [Yogananda] a question with regard to William the Conqueror. [AD 1027-87] [Master said he was William the Conqueror in a previous lifetime.] I asked, "... Can an avatar not realize he has attained that stature?" Master said, "You never lose your sense of inner freedom" - a very wise answer. William killed lots of good people, abused his wife-to-be, and confessed on his death-bed,
Does that show how to react to happenings in life? Geoffrey Falk talks of the same subject: Yogananda claimed to be the reincarnation of William the Conqueror [. . .] and of William Shakespeare. Falk also states: Before being officially accepted to live at Hidden Valley (HV) as a resident volunteer, one is required to sign a pledge affirming that he will regard his supervisors at the ashram as vehicles of God and Guru, and obey their instructions accordingly . . . Yogananda claimed to be the reincarnation of William the Conqueror . . . - and of William Shakespeare. [(12/8/01 7:37 pm)] William the Conqueror in historical sources, works by historians, and encyclopedias, was a murderous tyrant in his days: [Link]
Trust Your Way into Eddies of LivingThe issue on this page is the guru Yogananda's claim that he had past lives, remembered some of them, and told about them to disciples. Some of these disciples, in turn, seem to pat their own backs by the guru's "memoirs". The results of that again do not seem particularly ennobling. The quotations and rendered quotations that follow, is evidence. It is admittedly only second-hand evidence of guru memoirs at best, although Yogananda tells of past lives in his famous Autobiography of a Yogi too [Link]. "Hearsay evidence" is not as classy as first-hand evidence or scientific studies if our aim is to gather evidence of past lives - but it is not. We use it as evidence of rumours and attempts to use William to support a long dead guru's claims of this and that, and what comes out of it. I once suggestively called at least one Yogananda discussion board a "backwater" - an indication of little overall foreward-motion in them. To investigate the possibility of former lives demands a particular methodology, such as the designs (over-all patterns) employed by Dr. Ian Stevenson. If we are to play fair in such a field of outlets, we have to learn how to study the main problems of "remembered past lives" first and foremost. That should come first of all, methinks. Let this essay serve as a reminder that cult membership may capture one's thinking. Members and others swallow tales of past lives naively, even against Yogananda's "guideline" of "No more blind believing [Ak 456]." Scared ones may develop blind belief instead of being told a better way, that of rational handling, without leaving out suspicion. The next lesson may be "No more cheating." For cheating has its price. Conformity has Its Price at TimesA main point is that the handed over Yogananda often talks with several mouths. One result is confused disciples, another may be neurotic wrecks. Still, the guru sometimes wanted to expose how ridiculous it was just to believe in tales of past lives without a shred of evidence to support it. Aspiring Queens of ScotsIn New York a woman told Yogananda of a wonderful man who had told her wonderful things about herself, including that she had been Mary, Queen of Scots, in a former life. Yogananda did not believe her. A few days later a student came to see him and said excitedly that she had been told by a psychic that in a past life she was Mary, Queen of Scots. Yogananda now called the first woman into the room and placed the two women face to face, asking, "Which one of you is the real Mary, Queen of Scots?" [Ak 222-23] He did not believe the women blindly. But then again it comes to the fore that Yogananda himself tells of past lives of himself, disciples, and others. Good evidence of them seems missing. Yogananda did not go for proving his ideas of his past lives, even though he had ample time and resources to do so. You might consider it inconsistent and hold it against him. For disciples today have a loyalty obligation to him. Their minds are formed in a cult way - its dogmatism is not good for one's personal development. Below is some evidence - not of past lives of anyone, but of what tales of past lives can lead into if many people believe as told.
Opposed to that, show some good sense.
See How They Romantisise YoganandaWhy Is Cattle a Confused Lot?It takes two to tango (Proverb). But sometimes all it takes is being captured in the first place, and then made dumber afterwards. Try to understand what may happen in the dwarfed minds of certain guru followers, or perhaps "farm cattle", figuratively: After a while my brain becomes a lump of mashed potatoes trying to figure it out . . . [needthestar] The quotation is from a follower of the Hindu monk who claimed the world is illusory, yet he came in the name of Jesus and Krishna and so on, but never complying a lot to Christianity, for one thing. I chose this and the following clippings from the SRF Walrus discussion board to study cultish beliefs among SRF-related people. Not a few in those circles believe as told - in part stemming from SRF dogmas. On the other board they may treat particular beliefs as facts, without questioning them at all: karma, reincarnation, and such things. Gullibible belief has its downsides, though. For example, when guru followers discover his sayings of having been a murderous marauder in one past life, and a brutal tyrant in another previous existence, and how far he failed when he foretold of a third and fourth World War before 2000 CE. All the same, it seems some of the followers cling to a fixed idea or hope, namely the decency of Yogananda, and take to unverified assertions along such lines. As a result the "Great William-Yogananda myth or farce" is put into play with a marked degree of aloofness from the rigors of science - We should all try not to dwarf the minds of gullible guys. For children have gullibility in common - an id thing, suggestedly. It may be time to go into some quotes in the matter. It is a bit fun:
|
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. [A version] Dyp: Richard, Poor. Dwarpara Yoga and Yogananda: Blueprint for a New Age. The Noble New/Lulu.com, 2007. EB: Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica 2008 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD. London: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2008. 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. Psy: Dasgupta, Sailendra. Paramhansa Swami Yogananda: Life-portrait and Reminiscences. Lincoln, NE: iUniverse, 2006. - Google Books, partial view. Say: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Sayings of Yogananda. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1958.
Top: Brown, J. A. C. Techniques of Persuasion: From Propaganda to Brainwashing. Harmondworth: Penguin, 1963. Notes
N1. www.sanskritclassics.com/yogananda.htm - accessed 1 Nov. 08. Address later changed, and its content changed somewhat. |
![]() |
Section | Set | ![]() |
![]() |
USER'S GUIDE: [Link] © 2002–2017, Tormod Kinnes, MPhil. [Email] ᴥ Disclaimer: [Link] |