• Befriend Yourself
• Cults Are Seldom Fond of Study of Them
• Metaphors and Values

Befriend Yourself

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person will not be found: You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection. [Buddha, attr.]

Maladaptations will not help you. There is a need of protecting oneself throughout life too. Yoga and meditation can be done at home, on your own terms, so that you can benefit and avoid the "strings" or ties that many organisations make people fall down under.

There are yoga teachers (gurus) that use yoga methods to capture followers that spend money and other resources unwisely and devotedly. These givers may become members of something great, working for a great cause, they are led to believe, while they are headed for losing precious liberties or precious time, some of them. The power and prestige of cults and their leaders develop by givers. And some of those givers and members come to regret later. The regrets of some come too late to count a lot in their lives. Better be forewarned.

Just as on a farm one may see farm animals and a garden or three, in a cult one may find members and some inner circle. Devoted ones may serve a cause or gurus or fakers almost for free, quite like farm animals; they do not have much self-confidence against being used, for they have been manipulated, tamed. Sectarian conformity takes its toll, though.

Now some common farms do not look all bad, for much depends on how humanely animals are made use of, how fit their regulated set-up living patterns are, and how cruel and greedy the farmers may be. But let us not talk about that now.

Clinging in Beneficial Ways

For a baboon child clinging is vital to existence. For a human child it is likewise, and human id (libido) helps survival trhough proper bonding and, well, clinging, through various stages described in psychodynamic thinking of Erik Erikson and many others. There are many angles to these things.

As we grow older, our clinging subsides to the end that others think it fit to cling to us for some reason or other. That is how it is to be a parent, in a nutshell. You care for them and foster them, and in the end you set them free, for you have made it possible for them to get and live a good life too - hopefully.

All this goes to say that clinging is not bad in itself; that there is a natural place for it, and that proper development may be marked by less and less clinging to others. It also tells you that some views are plainly beneficial, others are not, and that still other views again come in between the two, the beneficial and destructive clinging. Watch out for the last one, warns Buddha repeatedly, for it easily leads into an aborted or worsened existence, depending in part on others, and not only yourself.

There are views that are told to be beneficial without being so, even to the extent of being very harmful. Watch out for those and focus on the good ideas.

Buddha cautions about the dangers in clinging - to possessions, pleasures, people, and views. He says that we should not cling even to his teachings. However, Buddha's counsel to transcend all sorts of clinging and transcend your viewpoints, does not mean that nothing in Buddhism is important.

Words and phrases ascribed to Buddha and other eminent teachers call us to get beyond words and phrases to arrive at direct and beneficial experience. Love to stick to those teachings . . . Then, as we approach Guru Dev's core teachings, Buddha's teachings, and teachings of others, we should be aware that wrong views promote and lead into wrong intentions and wrong, unwholesome conduct, leading to deceptive sights as well.

When some faulty notion or wrong view matures into intentions and conduct that is thought to be worthy, but is hardly so, there is the danger of a meandering and at least partly wasted life instead of a swift course to the sea, so to speak. So watch your thoughts; someone else may do it for you, often to your harm.

You do not have to end up in a pit. To reach a fit view is of vital importance. Stop clinging to ideas that seldom offer genuine and great help. Those who make frantic efforts to befriend you, are probably clingers, if not creepers. Hence, watch yourself and do not place yourself in dangerous situations, and you may be freed to progress. That is the main idea.

Cults Are Seldom Fond of Study of Them

Gist of a Previous Yoga Page

"We took a long look and concluded: "To repeat RAM, RAM and end up divine is an Indian teaching."

Keep to sensible instructions that do not take your freedom of thought and actions away. Section 4 on the site shows facets of guru-founded yoga teachings of Self-Realization Fellowship, compared with the freedom-preserving teachings of the Sivananda/Satyananda tradition. SRF seeks to entice persons into learning kriya yoga in a setting that is very binding. Sivananda Yoga on the other hand informs, and teaches their kriya yoga without binding your life-style, and dear freedom. [Link]. Kriya yoga is a breathing method and much added to it in a system. On this site you may learn the core method of kriya for free. [Link]

You are likely to do well not to trade your freedom away.

On a previous page we took a look at themes like "Yoga in the West", "Benefits of Yoga", and techniques of yoga. There are many "ways" or modes of yoga to be combined and to select from to suit you; that there are yoga teachings in public works, and also private instructions, and that the handed-over Yoga philosophy of Patanjali is one of many systems of thought that is aligned to yoga practices. We say that yoga, as a sensible and integral part of the way of living is a boon while trying to keep up with the Joneses.

Learn to weigh the pros and cons. Many other things than these could be essential to your future well-being. Seek to get duly well-informed in important matters and learn to consider; there can be much help in setting up even provisional pros and cons weigh the arguments. Avoid the big traps around, and you could be helped right there. However, there may be traps you never thought of as you seek to live by the saying "Nothing ventured, nothing had."

A truly important theme centres on adaptations. It is necessary to strike a proper balance between many and at times conflicting interests. On a previous page mentioned we presented a "goldsmith avenue" and a "gardener way" and suggested what each of them could accomplish for you at best. We showed that there are Hindu yogas and Buddhist Yoga and other yogas too.

Maximise gains for your own good. We also mentioned that one should aspire to live so well that it will not be needed to do yoga for the sake of health alone, even if doing it for one's health should work well and be good in itself. "Not needed, but desirable," then. You can do yoga and meditate to other ends too, such as enriching your life fare and slowly develop thoughts and feelings and gratitude, for example. And there are even better adaptations to go for.

So by all means, sit down in a yoga posture and meditate if you desire. Yoga and meditation is cool and mainstream, some methods are well researched, and the results of doing it for as little as a quarter to 30 minutes daily may be uplifting. Both physical yoga and meditation can be done all right in the home and in another cosy place.

❖ Widening interests is a boon for many beginners of meditation. It may be much needed to combine it with due protection of one's personal assets too. If not, vital parts of sound development may be arrested.

Meditation Research and Dogmatic Insistence

The chances are good that where there is dogmatic insistence, there are cult-attitudes. Research into effects of meditation is in part hard-won. Some societies welcome it, like the Transcendental Meditation movement and Satyananda Yoga. Other organisations are not keen on it, but prefer to evangelise through clich&aeacute;s instead, like Self-Realization Fellowship. Parts of their teachings are sham, however. It is thoroughly documented on this site in another section [Link].

In the case of SRF, the early Yogananda talked for meditation research, but when he had established his own church in 1935 and monastic branch of it, the tone became increasingly dogmatic or embarrassing. About 25 years after his death in 1952 I offered to conduct some research into the effects of the beginner techniques of SRF. I had ample education and training for doing such research at the time. I wrote this on 12 September 1978:

In order to give the SRF students a realistic picture of what they may get from the SRF teachings . . . How many have found God, for instance? How long did it take? What do people . . . find bad in the SRF teachings? . . .

In this way you may get get some more two-way communciation than you seem to do now . . . And if you publish this [the findings] . . . you may help [your members] get a more realistic perception of what SRF has to offer them, and what it has not . . . This realism is lacking in the SRF presentation at present . . . too many big promises . . . lead to disillusionment, disappointment and suffering in the long run . . . I could take care of the statistical work.

This offer was made about a generation ago. Self-Realization Fellowship declined. Compare their guru's words: "Alas, there has seldom been, except sometimes in India, any real research on pragmatic, life-moulding universal religion, in a true scientific way." [1]

It's not quite good enough to say "Alas" when you could instigage valid and helpful research to be crowned with relevant findings, and don't try to do it, or when you are offered such investigations done for free - I supposed it reflected a tragedy.

By comparison, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi talked for being scientific, and encouraged research on his meditation method too. In SRF it is not like that. Yogananda and later followers may be found to use the catch-words 'science' and 'research' only as props for predetermined stands of Yogananda, but without doing solid research on the effects of their own methods. We have to turn elsewhere for it.

I think I found indications of cultish behaviour in the SRF administration. It has been confirmed by many others, in parts online, and also by former SRF monastics. One third of them left SRF more or less abruptly around 2002, and went on to speak about the many reasons they had for not taking it any more as SRF monastics.

I have preserved my own exchanges for documentation, and also many thousand of posts from the recently folded-in discussion board, in case I need it.

Some talk with two tongues and seek to impress, even by fraud

Contrary to dogmatic drivel and sectarian plots there are the results of Maharishi's research-minded attitude - findings of well conducted research, that is. So far over 600 studies exist on Transcendental Meditation, and according to research it appears to be the very best meditation method publicly available. [◦Link]

The research that was blocked by SRF, on the other hand, would have been good for beginners and interested ones, and maybe not so good for those who profited from not letting such statistical evidence manifest. Mind that SRF is recognised as a cult today, and functions in major ways against what its founder found good to propound when he was quite an upstart in the United States. He says in a talk from the time:

"Mine is the only one, the best," is the declaration of most cults. But there should be a standard for judging what is best, just as the standard of quality of goods determines which store is the best in town. [Swami Yogananda. "Reforming Religion by Science." 1927, in East West Magazine of 2-6 October]

In another upstart article he says:

The efficacy of . . . the technique of concentration and meditation, and breathing exercises as discovered . . . should be experimented upon paying students who attend regularly, and in secluded, sound-proof rooms. [Swami Yogananda: "How to Keep the Church Steadfast". East West, Vol 5-11, September, 1933]

You can see for yourself that what I proposed was in tune with what that "quite early Yogananda" said he wanted - until he got his own monks and nuns and church. His fellowship has not tried to test its yoga meditation methods since, and also declined an written offer to do such investigations for free. I had the education and conditions for doing it, and learnt a valuable lesson: "Don't trust SRF and their unwelcome Yogananda mishmash either. Inconsistency mars."

Dangers lurk where gurus or bosses find a lucrative market by overly dogmatic talk, take to inaccurate verbiage and like it; use great-looking words up to shamelessly; promise on the largest scales possible over and over; and blame followers if the big, big guru words don't come true in their lives.

"Big words don't fatten the cabbage (Proverb)." Therefore, learn to ask for evidence, good evidence, before you are turned into a swine by enchantment, like the Circe-enchanted crew of Ulysses.

Who can tell whether SRF members a happy or unhappy lot? If they say they are happy, are they "happy pigs" only? In other words, reduced for the stature of man, and down from normal Human Rights by violations of such rights? Check it out or consider these matters too, before entering any greatly misleading and ill-serving cult. There are many cults around.

Great and swollen claims that mount to demagogy, may serve to catch members. Great threats or sanctions may keep them.

Qualitative study is not much to go for where people are insincere

A source of error in what is called qualitative research is possible lack of sincerity among respondents. Qualitative researchers typically rely on four methods for gathering information: (1) participation in the setting; (2) direct observation; (3) in depth interviews; and (4) analysis of documents and materials. Qualitative research is rather exploratory. Qualitative researchers may use different approaches, including storytelling.

Some may respond to the rather loose questioning in it by saying how they would like things to be, not by saying how things really are. This reminds of a man in the Upper Midwest. He was asked, "How are you doing?" "Great," he said, and some hours later he hanged himself.

One may try questioning (qualitative studies) in an attempt to detect deeper issues anyway, and that is what Jane Dillon at the University of California, San Diego did. She published a doctoral dissertation about disciples of Yogananda. Copies may be had through the university's library service, hopefully. Dr. Dillon's work was rooted in years of field research, that is, talks with monastics. The thriving of SRF monastics in San Diego county was a main concern in the study. However, a year or so after Dillon's dissertation was made public, about one third of the SRF monastics left SRF premises - left SRF - in dismay and anguish, and it appears Dillon's reasearch did not catch any signs of it coming - the repressed anguish of monastics, their dark, blunt despair kept largely hidden out of fear for gruff superiors and "stool pidgeons" in that arena. To the degree her dissertation did not catch such main currents, hers is not a deep-probing work, and not much significant either. As with questionaires, qualitative research depends on both the sincerity and accuracy of respondents, and how well they know themselves too.

Recoil from Dogmatists

To counteract cults and "sectarian slave-taking" much has to be pointed out to the beginner in yoga and contemplation, especially what general effects various methods tend to have, and what membership may incur. Sectarians may not be sincere, and some may be biased and untrue too, adding slaves to their "churchist" dogmatism. Yogananda also wrote:

Dogmatic church members succumb to the influence of parental religious habits, or to a sense of religious fear, or festive religious entertainments, or to a repetition of the same grand theoretical sermons over and over again . . .

Huge sums of money are tied up in church edifices just to impress people . . . scarcely anything more is accomplished. [Swami Yogananda: "How to Keep the Church Steadfast". East West, Vol 5-11, September, 1933.]

Study what others say, what they do, and what they have set in effect, and consider the structural build-up (effect) as most significant of the three. Next, what they do. They say many things, in part self-contradictory things, to seem good. In SRF they honour Yogananda with their lips for sure, but they do not stick to all ideals he spoke of, and that is one more source of mishap to some. The beginner in yoga and meditation may be too undemanding, and as a result put in an "unending inferiority position". It is better not to enter a sweet-speaking cult than succumb to it. Role inferiority is in part what mars SRF.

❖ Great norms and ideals remain to be discovered within some individuals, and not pressed onto them by crooked means and demands of servility.

❖ An outsider may learn by looking into the ideals that an association guards and protects by rules and subtle means, where members may have been outsmarted.

Some Problems of Yoga

A yoga beginner may have to deal with (1) teachers, (2) the basic structures of organizations and (3) teachings. To steer well, with fit assertiveness in these waters as a newcomer is no easy task.

How?

1. Get at least a quick review of the teacher or guru in question. Much information - possibly misrepresenting information too, may be gathered from the Internet, to mention one source.
2. In addition to finding out how an organisation presents itself to get acclaim and so on, maybe there are good "underground sources" to look into, and alternative sources online.
3. Teachings can be compared with other teachings and your own basis, to see how fit they appear to be. Regrettably, the impact of some teachings may be like pinching shoes in that you don't see whatt hey mount up to against your wellbeing before you have worn them. Appearances may deceive; one should be alerted to that. Also, if there are many and serious inconsistencies in a teaching, you may do best in shunning it. Guru self-contradictions and verbose blur may cause confusion, followed by cramped dogmatism and more.

That is what I think - what do you think?

Metaphors and Values

Offhand Farms and Guru Clowns

In the Odyssey the hero and his crew meets Circe, and the crew is turned into swine to be herded and nest fed upon. Note that Jesus compares his followers to sickly, herded sheep, and states he is a good shepherd. The good shepherd does not eat all his herded animals, and before he kills one, it is probably sheared too, many times. Let us hope that. [Matthew 9:12; John 10:27 etc.]

Figurative teachings may serve as forewarnings. It is a typical fable devise. So there are farms and figurative farms, Circe farms. If farm animals talk, think and get along much like humans, we may conclude the farm is figurative, and perhaps some sect.

At any rate, in many ancient fables and other stories there are figurative portrayals. Fables and other stories from antiquity reveal interests at odds. What is more, figurative teachings and mentions could bring more courage into people provided their general conditions are not too detrimental. Carefully masked terms and figurative stories could work well then. But to persevere into tricky things - misled by some mystifying and even frantic demagogue - may not work well. It is to be hoped and not feared that Yogananda, who in 1933 and 1934 talked for dictatorship and spoke well of Mussolini and Hitler, learnt something from his blatant faux pas. For some reason SRF has not been eager to republish Yogananda's article where he praises dictatorship. Hitler, in turn, learnt a demagogous trick or two from the Church. Quote: "The great masses of the people . . . will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one [Tq 325]." So watch out; some forms of glorious talk may serve as big baits and mislead.

When it comes to farm animals, give them better conditions, perhaps one step at a time. Both sudden and slow improvements can help. Yet, setting old, tamed dogs loose to feed themselves in the big wide open, wherever it is found, may not amount as real help.

Goof farms: Organizations, churches, cults and sects that foster obedience and submission over and above personal growth in some.

Old cattle: Old members who are never or very rarely marked by "Yippy!"

Farm animals: Tamed, broken in "animals", i.e., massively subjected to regulations - and members are made use of in several ways.

It is possible to extend such figurative mentions much more and learn still more from them. In fables by Aesop and others many themes are found and a bit unpleasant understanding might be won.

The Wolf and the Shepherds

A WOLF, passing by, saw some shepherds in a hut eating a haunch of mutton for their dinner. Approaching them, he said,

"What a clamour you would raise if I were to do as you are doing!" [A fable of Aesop's]

It is worth while to try to rise above the all too sick and herded. Individual development is for that. Carl R. Rogers talks in a correponding vein for the fully functioning person. He proposes the organism has one basic tendency and striving, namely to actualise, maintain and enhance the experiencing organism - of the self-accepting person. It is possible to adjust to it [Fuf 216-19].

As for wolves in sheep's clothing, Aesop has a fable on that topic too:

Once on a time a wolf resolved to disguise how he looked in order to secure food more easily. Encased in the skin of a sheep, he pastured with the flock and deceived the shepherd by his costume. In the evening he was shut up by the shepherd in the fold; the gate was closed, and the entrance made thoroughly secure.

But the shepherd, returning to the fold during the night to get meat for the next day, mistakenly caught up the wolf instead of a sheep, and killed him on the spot.

The question is what we learn from a wolf tale or three, by sifting the figurative elements and applying them in current affairs, for example. In antiquity orators added solvent counsels at the end of many fables to drive home certain points. We may not like them all today, but some are still cherished and may improve the lives of listeners if given time [Cs x-xviii, passim].

The U.S. humorist Will Rogers (1879-1935) mentioned:

"Good judgement comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgement."

"In order to succeed, you must know what you are doing, like what you are doing, and believe in what you are doing."