• Great Suspicions Can Foster Yoga
• Readings and Readers Should Match

Suspicions Can Foster Yoga

A European "moo" is attempted.

Werewolves are mythological or folkloric humans with the ability to shapeshift into wolves or wolf-like creatures at full moon in particular. The werewolf is generally held to be a European character. Film makers have americanised this creature too, like so many other interesting "European things" to benefit from. Beware of the film industry; it snatches even the moos of cows if there may be money to make in it.

The 'wer' in werewolf translates as "man" (male human), Old Norse verr. The last part of the world means wolf or beast. There are some alternative explanations of the word too. The symptoms of the werewolf, as given by the Roman poet Ovid, have remarkable similarities to those shown by rabies victims. According to some European traditions, being bitten by a werewolf could result in the victim turning into one. Being bitten by a rabid wolf or person would have spread the condition in the same way. To the medieval mind, a rabid wolf or person might have been seen as a werewolf.

If you suspect someone to be a werewolf just because the film industry has found that such creatures bring money to them, think twice. And learn to handle theory-making on your own and be up to snuff - normal, up to standard, adequate. That is usually a good idea.

When you test hypotheses, you put suspicions and the like to use, so as to be able to arrive at firmer or better guesswork - a theory can be born in this way. From the basic, quite general scientific method, further methods and technology can be arrived at in time. On top of what you may find out, you can very carefully form further ideas.

Questioning and suspictions that cannot be resolved at any time, may be kept in suspense, and profitable ways tend to assist healthy thriving.

Among Hindu swamis who advocate a rational approach to yoga and meditation, is swami Vivekananda. [Link A] [Link B].

❖ You don't have to believe a thing to practice good and decent meditation methods and see for yourself whether or how far they help you.

Beware of Mishmash

The signs of a GURU are as follows: his eyes are still and unwinking whenever he wants them to be so; by the practice of Yoga his breath is quiet without his forcibly holding it in his lungs; his mind is calm without effort." - Paramahansa Yogananda, East West, 1932.

Many foolishly believe in this. They seem unaware that in his last four years, from 1948 and onwards, Yogananda told differently. Then he maintained that he had reached the highest yoga state and that no one would notice it. By that he gainsaid dramatically his former sayings of signs.

Compare: "All cannot recognise an Incarnation of God. Some take him for an ordinary man, some for a holy person, and only a few recognise him as an Incarnation." - Ramakrishna [Tas 179]

He says, in effect, "It takes one to know one."

You could think the Yogananda quotation from 1932 is all-round valid, and thereby limit the range of your investigations and hamper your understanding. For example, you could miss the higher teaching.

Keeping an open mind is much of value. You need to tune in to your heart too.

Accurate teachings may assist self-help, but bad teachings may breed nightmarish conditions for followers that slowly find out of discrepancies, and give other followers cramped attitudes and pharmacy needs.

High-class study can be annoying for privileged ones under study. What is good for a fisher of men is hardly good for the fish - it is often like that.

❖ Fools compare statements of drivel-masters and ignore higher teachings up to wholly because it suits them.

Confession: "I have talked with and looked at women and really enjoyed it"

A mature stand: Confess only to your own benefit. Get away from "confess and be hanged" at any rate, as long as fool-Christians eat blood sausage and black pudding for Christmas food and otherwise and still think they are better off than adulterers . . .

No to blood food - which includes blood sausage, black pudding and many other dishes - is as stern as no to adultery in the deal for non-Jewish followers according to the Apostolic Decree, that is, for almost all Christians, believe it or not. [Cf. Acts 15 and 21:25].

So what will you do about it? That could be interesting to know.

❖ The Christian who foolishly eats blood food may not think all right.

Two woman leaders

Yogananda told this: "Our best friends are those that criticise us the most - who never condone our faults." Accordlingly, a nagging wife could be the greatest friend, contrary to expectations of Lahiri Mahasaya who did not quite agree: When his wife upbraided him for somehing, he disappeared from sight and never ever slept with her after that. [Pa 287]

SRF got a woman leader as early as 1955. Some years ago a Los Angeles newspaper dug up that she had lived in a villa for thirty years away from the monastics she was the head of, and very, very few monastics knew about it. What kind of group culture is that?

The present SRF president is another woman. She heads an organisation which professes faith in original Christiany as taught by Jesus, one of the Christs, against the apostle Paul: "Women should remain silent in the churches . . . it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church [1 Cor 14:34-35]." However, Jesus does not teach that in the gospels. He demands other things instead.

❖ Wise, just and golden women should be allowed to earn leader positions if they want to, while genuine Buddhas (Enlightened Ones) may refrain from such things.

Buddha said, "I have set forth the Dharma without making any distinction of esoteric and exoteric doctrine; nothing is held back. The Truth-arriver (Tathagatha, Awakened One) holds no idea that he should lead the community of bhikkhus [monks], or that the community depends upon him." [Maha-parinibbana-suttanta 2:32]

Blunderbuss "Only Saviour" Phrases

Our only savior is our will power. [Is that really so?] [Dr 136]

It is a metaphysical error to speak of the historical person of Jesus as the only savior. It is the Christ Intelligence that is the universal redeemer. [What happened to "our only saviour, the will"?] [Yj 63]

Right meditation balanced with activity must be the cry of Christians, Hindus and all religionists, all churches, as the only savior. [And now it is something else. What about saving consistency?] [Yogananda. East-West. Vol. 4 -1. January-February, 1929: "Recipe Messages"].

He tells you that "your only saviour" is a will, Christ Intelligence, and right meditation. It means that "one equals three" - will, intelligence, meditation.

If the universe is false play, an illusion, which he also tells, repeatedly, what do you need to be saved from?

A cult member is in part a victim of plots, at least some mental prisoner, nd also a participant in a Gamy Play.

According to Yogananda's Autobiography, he was told he was to present kriya yoga to men and women of science. He was not told to drive them away or making them cramped willy-nillies and thrive on a sect. [Link]

❖ The sect grins of sect victims may not be all right.

Readings and Readers Should Match

In an ideal world, readers and what they read should match tolerably. In a less than ideal world, bigwig followers tend to erect stiffened barricades against information that does not suit them. There are many bizarre believers in the world. To combat cult indoctrination and its consequences and live on may not be easy. These pages may have three wide groups of readers:

• Those who are not members of Self-Realization Fellowship or other cults of yoga and failure-promoting guidance. Philip Zimbardo, formerly professor at Stanford, has pointed out that what could be needed, is to make the large society more "cult-like" in some ways, that is, more caring, friendly, less exploitative.
• Cult members, who have joined some alternative "family", a cult.
• Guru followers who have got disillusioned, try to go on, but perhaps carrying a double burden. Many SRF monks, nuns, and ashram monastics have left during the last couple of years. Ex cultist may in some ways be compared to messed up farm animals: Can they manage the transitions and become tolerably free? Willy the whale did not quite succeed. Some are found on the Internet.

In the good book Scientists Must Write [Scw], Robert Barrass points out it is a rather stout accomplishment for a scientist to reach a fresh metaphor in his presentation. Furthermore, it could pay to be candid, terse, to the point and strive for the benefit of metaphors. Where will the thunderbolt of figurative expression strike next?

❖ Watch out where they call themselves a family without actually being one; they may form part of a cult.

It Takes What It Takes

Having entered a bramble thicket to hug and kiss them carefully, cautiously . . .

Solid thriving is to be accorded those who need to know a whole lot from within.

Folkwise ways of wording; quite fixed expressions; structural elements can serve better presentation to some. All good things help, not just one thing.

Feel free to question much of this material. Candid inspection in the long run culminates in wisdom. Candid inspection can hardly dispense with good reasoning prowess and fairness. Some words of wisdom serve bigwigs, others serve common man, and there are lots of other "wisdoms" too.

To hug and kiss brambles (eg, cult lore) calls for much care, or the risk is you get scratched. Cattle may not wilfully enter a bramble thicket.

❖ Kiss brambles in bramble tickets only if you dare.

Guesswork Is Not Always Good Enough

Dr. Daniel Goleman of Harvard University has brought an all right comparative view and rooted it in a Buddhist tradition. It has much in common with old Hindu lore, as both stem from a common, Vedic culture. I recommend the book. [Yy]

Do not always ask what someone believes, but go for scientific clarity, accuracy and plausibility together if you dare.

Try to get your facts straight before you believe anything.

1. ASSERT WHAT IS SURELY LIBERATING. Idolising movements, the question is whether or how far they lift us up or not.
2. IF IN LOVE, DO NOT PRESS SUBJUGATION MALADIES onto the dear one. Deep roots help to preserve liberty and hinder that youngsters get duped by big words or canonical hissing.
3. IT COULD PAY TO GO CONTRARY TO PLOTTING OR SCHEMERS, the sooner the better.
4. IT COULD PAY TO STAY AWAY FROM THE BESTSELLER SNARE AND SPECIALISE AS NEEDS TELL US. Quality books too reflect the tastes of many.

❖ Get your facts straight - as tidily as can be.

Dissonance

The coming guru Yogananda survived his childhood clearly against nature, and Nature is the Divine Mother that he fervently worshipped and some time united with, one time telling someone, "I am your Divine Mother!" Interesting. He also speaks of her as more than visible universes [Wf].

Yogananda was also helped a lot by many friends. Without interventions in the face of cholera death and Himalayan runaway drives, he would not have grown up. He used an astrological lead bangle in order to make the universe co-operate and not make him ill or dead. These things are described by himself in his autobiography. [Link].

He disregarded his own father's long-standing desire to have him married once or twice, even though he called his father one of many Christs raised by Lahiri Mahasaya.

In 1920 he founded Self-Realization Fellowship in Boston, to disseminate kriya yoga teachings world-wide. He also decreed the universe is illusory. What substantial accomplishments may be expected in such a case?

Indian heritage contains much, much more philosophy than Yogananda talked of. Soap Christianity with a dozen Christs was not heard of where I came from.

❖ The guru forgot to talk of Ultra-Christs!

Good to Know

THE US PHILOSOPHER and educator Irwin Edman (1896-1954) was a professor at Columbia University that had absentmindedness as his trademark. It was the source of much humour at the place. One day he stopped a student on Riverside Drive and asked,

"Pardon me, am I walking north or south?"

The student said, "North."

"Ah," replied Edman, "then I have had my lunch."

"As is the garden, such is the gardener [Ap 246]."

There seems to be some truth in it, depending on how you twist it, make it figurative somehow, or what you focus on or mean to say. It is hardly ever "If the garden soil is three metres deep, so is the gardener." Probably the proverb refers to tidiness, getting things to grow, being adjusted to the seasons, and maybe being lucky too.

Great Indian belief is that we are in part like a multitude of swirling energy shields. The hard physical body is outermost and smallest in a way. Inside it - and extending beyond it by degrees - come the feeling layer, the idea field, and so on inside. It is box within box within box in a sort of way. Dr. Daniel Goleman of Harvard University has brought an all right comparative view of it from the Buddhist tradition. It has much in common with old Hindu lore. [Yy]

Indian lore talk of bodies inside bodies for this, or sheats, vestiges, koshas. Your feeling body is the same as "you feeling sheath" - your emotions.

A Hindu view is that the heavens come from a "golden egg". [Wo 46]

The physical body branches out into limbs and head and in many other sets of ways. The intrinsic life agency of feelings and ideas also "branches out" (differentiates) in time through a combination of maturation and experiences.

The proverb of not to trust "Greeks" (meaning aliens) carrying gifts is rooted in how Troy was seized - by a great "gift" horse.

Where they talk of such as divine friendship ritually and then have never met you, it helps to suspect illusions.

The real winner is himself or herself first of all.

There is something to learn about edited, ancient Bible stories with their soap promises from this: Some are made up. Compare Genesis 15:12-21.

❖ There are things that go against being outsmarted. Tidying up on many levels, for example.

Conclusion

It may assist you to consult with someone who is wiser than those who are in the arms of conflict, talk maturely about having your own household ending in fair accomplishments and similar things. Besides, it may take many people to gain the stability and constancy needed to bear fruit instead of reaping confusions sowed by high-ranked ones.

This concludes this tiny series.