Yoga Work 17
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On Belief
Q: When you use the word DAO, is that the same as TAO? 'Cause if it is, I get where you are coming from now.
Tao is Dao. The two different spellings tie in with (a) the Wade-Giles transcription system; and (b) the now current Pinyin transcription system of the Republic of China. I use both. In literature, the 'Tao' spelling is preponderant.
Basic Tao teachings form part of the Gold Scales' informal lessons
on gaining GOLD EGGS . . . [LINK].
Q: I have known a couple of psychics in the past that have read my mind though.
One of them was a very attractive woman.
Such things may become easier to deal with in time.
Q: Do you believe in life after death?
"To be poor without being free is the worst state into which a man can fall," they say in Michigan. It is a proverb. . . Have you read Rudolf Steiner about such things?
You see, death is not the grave as many people think. [Edgar Cayce]
Q: Do you have any ideas about life after death?
Yes. Not all of them are private, either. I should say it pays to be warned of the effects
of certain doings and so on here on earth. There is a vast body of literature to that
effect, for example.
Yogananda has something on that subject too.
I find myself in difficulties at times, because some of the things he says are in the
confidential lessons, and not everything in them is published in books and Internet articles
in the public domain - not yet, at any rate.
Among the thought beings to be found in spiritland is also the thought of our own physical corporeality. [Rudolf Steiner]
In a moment the body may be taken away from the soul by death, and the separation is not painful at all. When that "operation" is over, you have no need of time, dress, food, or shelter, for you no longer have to carry this bodily bundle of flesh. You are free of it. And you are still you. - Yogananda, Ak 217-18]
The rishis of ancient India analyzed death as the withdrawal of the electricity of life from the bulb of human flesh with its wires of sensory and motor nerves that lead to the different channels of outward expression. - Yogananda, Ak 213]
Q: Tell me what you believe in.
I have great trust in GOLD EGGS in many ways, and in homeopathic remedies and similar stuff.
For one thing, simple Gold Eggs Essays (especially their summaries) help me to see how to
draw benefit, if possible even from a cult membership. It is worse to benefit from narcissists.
Ambivalence
Q: Still enjoying your site . . . I was at the stage where I would go cross eyed and try to swallow my tongue. Hehe . . . right spastic.
Well -
Q: You know, I go from a believer to a non-believer several times a day, but today is
the last for me.
It's not always easy to be consistent, especially if a part of our natures wants this,
another part wants that, and other parts want still other things (ambivalence is the
technical term for it). A good balance is not always easy to come by, but not a few
alternatives may be worse.
Q: I think I'm going to come up with my own take on the nature of life. I think I have
laid the important ground work already. Not that I am even competent to do such a thing and
make it useful, but that I can satisfy myself in the process.
God-God Quest
Q: I would be happy in this life if I had some experience of God or even the chakras.Shyama Lahiri talks often about the uselessness of harbouring desires of that in meditation. However, APART FROM (outside of) meditations the longing may imply one or more of these:
- Guru(s) act on you to help you dive inside;
- You have to go deeper too;
- The company you have is not too good for you;
- Your spirit moves and tries to make you better;
- Etc.
Q: I imagine that I would someday be able to commune with God just like talking to a person. Am I naive or misguided here?
Yogananda says it is feasible, others too. In one talk/sermon he says his SOUL tells him things to say, as a matter of fact. (It is in the book Man's Eternal Quest. It alsy says:
Incidentally, if the quest is eternal, it is without end. It refers to the "quest for God" here. So the choice of words in the title is very bad. How bad? Ponder the next article, an Amazon review.
Slightly Unreal, or Wholly Unreal?
Amazon.com tells that "1 of 22 people found the following review helpful" [here it is slightly added to, though]:
Is this an Unreal Book because the author says so?, July 28, 2004
"Man's Eternal Quest is a cocktail compendium of Yogananda talks given at his church. The book consists of talks where Yogananda spoke without preparations, often deviated during his speeches on the spot. Followers took down notes that later were edited into the talks and lectures in the book. This is explained by the publishers in a long footnote early in the book.Some find them interesting and inspiring at first. But only at a price of discarding one of his basic teachings, also found in the book: He teaches that the world is unreal. It makes no sense to get inspired by pretense-stuff.
Page references below are to the first edition.
Now, there are certainly many snags involved. The guru author speaks to the mind sets of people in sunny California mostly, and from 1920 to 1952. The accomodated lifestyle the well-known guru advocates may leave little time for coping, and is not ideal in a harsh environment.
So some Yogananda sayings don't fit the world. He blatantly calls it an ILLUSION, a DREAM. "There is no material universe; its warp and woof is . . . illusion." [Autobiography of a Yogi, ch. 30] And in the present collection of discourses: "The world is nothing more than a cosmic dream." [p. 237]. "This life is a dream." [p. 240] WHERE DOES THAT LEAVE HIM, his teachings, his followers, his books?
In the book the author also interferes with Holy Church doctrine about God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and the soul - in part by improper definitions. Two chapters in the book reveal it very nicely.
Yogananda's teaching is: "Hinduism teaches the soul (atman) is immortal." [p. 297] The gospels teach that both soul and body can be destroyed. [Matthew 10:28, Luke 12:4-6; Matthew 5:29].
His very deviant understanding of the Trinity is covered in particular in two articles around p. 300.
The guru calls Christians by presenting "original Christianity as taught by Jesus Christ". But on close inspection it does NOT hold water. A professor of the Catholic Church, Father Mateo, says it too, online. It should be fine to be made aware that the guru's teachings about Christianity are deviant teachings.
As for personal fulfillments, Yogananda calls for having sex very seldom as part of the lifestyle. Much can be forsaken. But is there really a need to be purified by his kriya yoga and a need for his doctrine if the universe is the trick he writes of (in that trick)? I hardly think so.
I find his basic teachings - about the world and all in it - very, very inconsistent - and dangerous accordingly. Does he not imply fully that he himself is unreal, his teachings, and you yourself? If so, no devil with a tail once attacked the guru in a hotel room and made his heart stop (Self-Realization Magazine, Summer 1976, p. 8-9). [LINK] Further, if the world is unreal, which he sometimes says, there is no real road to God - and it cannot be directed by an unreal person in it either.
He should change his teaching, is the suggestion. It is clear to me that Yogananda has undermined his own best efforts by false teachings of this and that. One cannot debunk the universe with debunking himself and all else in it. It is far from heroic."
It suggests that the one who found this book review helpful, belongs to the fortunate few, or what?
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| Literature | SECTION | First Page |
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. [oaks.nvg.org/pv6bk12.html]
Ebu: Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica 2006 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD. London: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2006.
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.
Say: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Sayings of Yogananda. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1958.
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