Yoga Work 18
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A Trifle Jewish?
Q: Sankara Saranam . . . set out to show how Yogananda's take on the Bhagvad Gita and references to Christianity were wrong.How?
Sankara Saranam has devised . . . a means to utilize our current educational system to one's greatest advantage. [Sankara Saranam]How can we tell and be sure? That's a recurrent problem.Teology, referred to by historians and philosophers as liberty's greatest foe, has often been used as the justification for torture and murder. [Sankara Saranam]
Being allied with good science is no small thing, methinks.
Q: Sankara Saranam . . . gets a lot of critics these days . . . To put it boldly, does kriya yoga work?
Yes, it does. Many have said so. It is scientifically documented too.
In the 1950s the researchers Das and Gastaut performed electroencephalographic [EEG] examination of seven kriya yogis and observed that as the meditation progressed the alpha waves gave way to fast-wave activity at the rate of 40-45 Hz [i.e., Beta-waves], etc. [Das, N., and H. Gastaut. "Variations de l'activité electrique du cervaux, du coeur et des muscles squelettiques au course de la méditation et de l'extase yogique [Variations in the electrical activity of the brain, heart, and skeletal muscles during yogic meditation and trance]." Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, supplement 6. [1955: 211-219]. (French). [MORE]
Q: Are you aware [I think Sankara Saranam] is a brainwasher [?]
[Inserted:] Sankara Saranam is an ascetic philosopher with a wife and a son, living in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Northern Georgia. A poet, composer, and classical guitarist, he graduated from Columbia University. His Pranayama Institute encourages anyone interested in doing pranayama to consult with a doctor before beginning a regimen of yoga. You are not required to send a check for the amount of your order from that institute, but your check can be of any amount.
This world is the ocean of hell. [Shyama Lahiri, in Gv 12]
Q: I think Yogananda was right when he said, "People are so stubborn in their ignorance."
It is often like that. The question, "Is Sankara Saranam living in a hell?" Asceticism with
a wife and a child can be tough!
No SRF Dispensation
Q: . . . QUAG with their . . . [omitted for the sake of decency] I find them all . . . [omitted for the sake of decency].
Many senior monks in SRF and others were OK and even tried to help . . .
But the leadership today seems to have screwed up things a bit - according to writers on
some discussion fora - and myself.
Q: I seem to have a new theme in life: to clear the world of new age Hindu worshippers.
Are you Atheist?
One may see in Taoism that the Way leads back to a circle of no special content, "All is
forgotten", but the Way (Tao) does not stop at that point.
Deep Penetration is what to aim at.
And words drop off at a point too.
Q: You have hit the nail on head perfectly! Keep on doing what you are doing. I know
many SRF'ers feel the way you do sometimes but . . . they
have nervous disorders.
I found out that SRF membership pulled me towards that.
Q: I am anti-mentor full stop. I think these Hindu mentors are the worst type of human
being that exist. Of course I am angry, but who said anger was bad?
Hm, I see. You have come a long way, then.
Q: I have many things to vent about QUAG, Alf, kriya yoga mentors, Hinduism, miracles, Ananda, and so on. But the thing that bothers me the most is
that people fall for all that! I feel GUILTY because I fell for it and I know that others
can side-step all that if they know what people like us know from the beginning.
One heavy and solid reason why I took courage to put up some correctives (that sort of
information) on the net, is that maybe beginners should be warned.
Q: I can relate with you . . . Your English is very good . . . (no offense).
No offence taken so far.
Q: . . . Bring down QUAG because it makes one feel sort
of sick inside . . . it HAS TO BE DONE.
Maybe so.
Letter from a Former SRF Nun
The following is excerpted and then made almost seamless. - TKI had left SRF in February 2001, so I didn't know about the mass exodus that followed soon after. I am German, [from] a formerly communist country.
When I was in the ashram I didn't have any problems to put up with the routine and "training" (again, I had been brought up in a communist country). There was only one nun who seemed really genuine and who was a true inspiration for me and who happened to be my direct superior for a while. The closest I've ever come to committing suicide was there during my postulant time. Ironically, I didn't go through with my plan to end "this incarnation" right then and there not because of fear of the karmic punishment that we had been told about (I was so down that I didn't care about that anymore), but because I thought it would be really ungrateful to SRF to bring them such bad publicity and that it all wasn't their fault but my own. (Hah!)
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). In the beginning of my "SRF career" I just accepted this claim, trusting blindly and hoping that I would "understand" later, not knowing much about the Bible at that point anyway.
But now that I have read the Bible cover to cover (having studied the historical and cultural backgrounds at the same time). So what is the term "original" Christianity supposed to mean? How can you separate that from the Christian Bible?
And 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! [Ex nun, 19 July 03]
COMMENT: How can you consider suicide in SRF if you "have no problems" adapting to it?
When Yogananda teaches that his yoga method, kriya, is for gaining conscious death, it does not 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 says. [Scp 78]
There is a lot on Sri Yukteswar's teachings on this site: [LINK]
There is also something on how original original guru Christianity may become: [LINK]
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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.
Gv: Satyeswarananda, swami, tr. Complete Works of Lahiri Mahasay Vol. I: The Gitas: The Vedic Bibles. Guru Gita. Omkar Gita. Abadhuta Gita. Kabir Gita. 2nd rev. ed. San Diego: The Sanskrit Classics, 1992.
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.
Scp: Yogananda, Paramahansa. The Science of Religion. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1953.
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