Much better to get steadily on on a good and decent track than on a sidetrack.
Hinduism contains much significant lore. Its variegated teachings cover much ground for swamis, householders and many more.
One basic reason to put correctives (that sort of information) on the net, is to warn beginners.
Quite often in life one might be given a second chance, but Shyama Lahiri did not get it when he eagerly called on Babaji and thereby displeased that secretive yogi. Babaj was so displeased with being called according to a promise he had made, that he just changed his word so that Shyama Lahiri was barred from adjusting to his guru by the first promise. Shyama Lahiri did not break his word; someone else did. (Yogananda 1998, 277-278). -- [More].
A Letter
I had left SRF in February 2001, so I didn't know about the mass exodus that followed soon after.
When I was in the ashram I didn't have any problems to put up with the routine and
"training" (I had been brought up in a communist country) . . .
Then I discovered what the Bible truly says ... this had nothing whatever to do with
what I was taught by SRF the Bible says, which made the whole teachings untrustworthy to
me.
How the "Holy Science" proves that "original" Hinduism and "original" Christianity teach the same (as was also maintained). How does the "Holy Science" prove anything if you take away the blind faith because of the gurus' saying, "It is so, and that's why it is a proof!"? Hope someone is out there who is able to explain that to me without using too much intellectual terminology ... Thanks!
So what is the term "original" Christianity supposed to mean? [Ex nun, 19 July 03. These are quite seamless and a little shuffled excerpts.]
"Early" Yogananda teaches that his yoga method, kriya, is for gaining conscious death, and still it does not necessarily teach suicide: "We ought not to fear to practice conscious death, i.e., give rest to the internal organs. Death will then be under our control," he tells (1926:80).
"Really? Where is the good evidence that it will be so for all of us, or as little as one percent of us?"
As he slowly adapted to Americans, Yogananda changed his marketing to a markedly more religious-like harping on themes like "Kriya gives happiness, brings Cosmic Consciousness, God-consciousness" and "Jesus is for it." He himself, however, was "knocked into it," the Autobiography of a Yogi tells. He was struck on his chest above the heart. And what happened next?
My body became immovably rooted; breath was drawn out of my lungs as if by some huge magnet. Soul and mind instantly . . . streamed out . . . from my every pore. . . . Through the back of my head I saw . . . a white cow who was leisurely approaching. . . . I cognized the center of the empyrean as a point of intuitive perception in my heart. . . . .
Suddenly the breath returned to my lungs. (Yogananda 1998, 161-62)
All people do not tell such tales; all people do not tell true tales: watch out, for hype may not always be totally reliable. Very much depends on maintaining one's heart, though. One in three women die of heart disease. Transcendental Meditation can reduce heart attack and stroke by 48%. [◦More]
Calm evaluation of one's conditions comes about on top of being basically sound and well informed, and going on from there on the ladder of cognitive development. Dr Benjamin Bloom and colleagues have shown such steps, where neat enough evaluations may be expressed in several ways: all of them need not be cogent. Symbols and idea-pictures are the examples of that.
