Introduction

Learn how to get beyond marring words: Sound scepticism and doubt could be good for many. It could be wise. It could as well be sound to distil a life lesson from:

The more one knows, the less one believes (Turkisk proverb).

If you fall victim to a hypnotist and get trapped in words, not unlike a bird with its feet in the meshes of a bird-trap, the thing to do is to get out of the meshes as best you can. It could be wise to recognise what a person does, and don't just fall for words he rattles off. Yogananda says "his sole desire" is

to give you the truth - Paramahansa Yogananda [1982:398; 1998, ch. 26]

How to do it? Two ways: (1) Tell things well. (2) Do better. The first way works up to some level or point. Better ways go further, and there may be no need to talk of them, at least here.

Fit for progress

Rotten Apples and Id: Domino Effects

A rotten apple quickly infects its neighbour. (From the Latin)

If just a few pillars in a tall building are at fault, the whole building can fall. Just a few marring decrees of a trusted guru or trusted friend may ruin a life due to spreading effects in the worst cases, where, "If anything can go wrong, it will. (Murphy's Law)." Be prepared for that. How?

Being prepared for worst things that could happen and bulwark well against them, could help us: It helps to take sound measures so that harmful things won't happen, or won't happen so fast, with such devastating effects, so easily, or at all.

Furnish the home for unfoldments first of all

Congenital id-development. Sound, natural-id unfoldment based life is seldom or never had by conform stagnation; progressive disorientation or deterioration. By very faulty mind-development; or rotting (corruption), you go wrong.

If your natural family did not furnish what was needed for your basic id drives, you may have longings that carry on, get fixed, and some can spill over into adult life. In other words, the love and care and other good things you did not get from Mom and Dad and friends, may easily be played on by a demagogue or Führer, to create havoc and use you.

Strengthen libido outlets as fits

Grandiose-looking play on unfulfilled or feeble id (libido) seems to be at work in cults the world over. Better seek to be straight than seeking grossly vicarious outlets. Besides, conform or standard uprightness may help even more.

The id that is caught, fixated and next made use of in some way that blocks natural development, may engender hate, which may be suppressed. Effects may now and then be suspected or halfway perceived in blatant lack of care.

Beware of a wealth of misleading ideas: be smarter than those who get caught in a net of swelling, seemingly grandiose but low-levelled descriptions of the Undescribable, and you could be freed to benefit too.

Who Killed?

In Gorakhpur, on a visit to India, Paramahansa Yogananda bit into a sugar cane and cracked a tooth. The finest dentist in town pulled out the broken tooth and replaced it with a gold tooth. Shortly afterwards his biographer asked him about the tooth, and Yogananda said, "God told me, 'Just like this, I'll snatch your life from you.'" While saying it, Yogananda clenched his fist and looked intense. (Dasgupta 2006, 8).

In 1952 Yogananda suddently fell to the floor at a banquet at the Biltmore hotel in Los Angeles and was gone.

❦❦❦❦

Ramakrishna tells a story about Indra, the Vedic King of Gods:

Who killed the cow?

A Brahmana [Brahmin] was laying out a garden. He looked after it day and night. One day a cow strayed into the garden and browsed on a mango sapling of which the brahmana used to take special care. When he saw thie cow destroying his favourite plant, the brahmana became wild with rage, and gave such a severe beating to the animal that it died of the injuries received. The news soon spread like wild-fire that the brahmana had killed the sacred animal. When any one attributed the sin of that act to him, the brahmana, who professed himself to be a Vedantin, denied the charge, saying:

"No, I have not killed the cow; it is my hand that had done it; and as god Indra is the presiding deity of the hand, it is he who has incurred the sin of killing the cow, not I."

Indra, in his heaven, heard of this. He assumed the shape of an old brahmana, and coming to the owner of the garden, said, "Sir, whose garden is this?"

Brahmana: "Mine."

Indra: "It is a beautiful garden. You have got a skilful gardener; for see how neatly and artistically he has planted the trees."

Brahmana: "Well, sir, that's all my work. The trees were planted under my personal supervision and direction."

Indra: "Very nicely done, indeed! "Who has laid out this path? It is very well-planned and neatly executed."

Brahmana: "All that has been done by me."

Then Indra said with folded hands, "When all these things are yours, and when you take credit for all the work done in this garden, it is not proper that poor Indra should be made responsible for killing the cow."

(Ramakrishna. Tales and Parables, no. 46)

One may pinpoint to a questioning guy, "You state that you don't have realization, and go on to say how the realized perceive and so on - is that it?"

Ramakrishna was told from inside to keep a little trace of ego to function along, being alive. It came to pass that he became an Advaitin. It can be done without strain.

Maharishi spread TM, formerly called swift and deep meditation, so as to bring one's awareness inward through very simple ◦ Transcendental Meditation.

You need your ego - your sense of "I" - to function. And the sense of I may rise, says such as Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Anthroposophy and the world-wide Waldorf School movement.

Many wrong against the "I" may eventually mar and harm a lot of innocents. Keep it or lose much.

Existential Probing

Many disappointments derive from overblown expectations.

Let uprightness come first, or living is slowly dying. Then, by following your interests with glee and laughter, you could lose valuable id without knowing it. Interest in living on can wane too. If so, living may turn into a sacrifice for the lack of some uprigh id (zest, joy, libido). This is theory. Ask for evidence -

The one who lacks uprightness, may get socially accepted and not be counted as inferior by living out certain vices morally well. For example, those who are bent on killing goats might become officers and defend their countries and may be honoured too.

According to the Vishnu Purana, there is a long period where greedy, corrupt and spineless ones take charge and almost all property belongs to them. Leaders will be

"addicted to corruption and will seize the property of their subjects. Then property and wealth alone will confer rank; falsehood will be the only means of success. Corruption will be the universal means of subsistence." [WP, "Vishnu Purana"]

Try to find out "which puppet masters are pulling your strings? Who will you spend your working hours to support?" - such things count too. Personal uprightness may be worth more than many think nowadays.

Long-run effects of meditation could be good for you. It depends, though. But do what you can and can afford. It works well to clarify the bits that give help, what help is got, and extract the most promising or salient features so that they could help even better, and then get them tested, for example by measuring brain wave synchronism and further, long-range effects on several dozens of people.

Thunder is supposed to contain the awesome presence of Thor [cognate with Zeus and Indra].

The New Testament says everybody lives and moves in God - the maker. Nobody says that lightning has a soul. There is talk of "principalities and powers" in the Bible.

The Wisdom of Edgar Cayce and Rudolf Steiner

Death is not the grave as many people think. [Edgar Cayce]

Rudolf Steiner tells of life after death [A Rudolf Steiner page]

Among the thought beings to be found in spiritland is also the thought of our own physical corporeality. [Rudolf Steiner]

Meditation at a Glance - 1