• Great Expectations - Drop Them
• The Bhagavad Gita
  

Great Expectations - Drop Them

Many great expectations are followed by great disappointments. It helps to be realistic from the start.

Searching may depend on expectations that are quite limiting and a hindrance for transcending - Good meditation results come from good instructions and good methods, and not really from no expectations or expectations. Adjust accordingly. Do the best methods to be found, and then see what they lead into if you dare. Some are thankful for life improvements. [Bhumija Sutta on it]

There are different ways of presenting meditation. Some do it to get money and supporters it seems, and may exaggerate and bind eager guys by oaths that suit themselves. Others are fairer and have hearts for others.

So, if you meditate well you can transcend expectations and most other thoughts in deep meditation, gain benefits and prosper. That relates to Transcendental Meditation. We do not have to expect anything when meditating or otherwise; just be aware of changes. Statistics may reveal patterns in some of these areas.

A benign mind-set and fair optimism could offer some help too. TM changes may go deep and be difficult to measure or make out of. Otherwise there are two main avenues of approach: inward, by way of experiences, and outward, by way of notable changes. If you take notes for some time, some changes could be easier to see. Otherwise, statistics makes many good, general effects stand out, such as better health, much longer life. [◦Better health etc. through TM] the Bhumija Sutta in the Majjhima Nikaya - Bancroft 2010:58-59, emphasis added. – Isaline Blew Horner (1996:183-89) has translated the complete Bhumija Sutta: (Bhumija Sutta)]

Gist

The Bhagavad Gita

What to think of the Bhagavad Gita? It seems wise to consider that it was added to over centuries. (Sinha 1987)

To promote one's form of kriya yoga by calling it scientific, saying it works like maths, and then in other places say that kriya yoga alone is not enough anyway, and call for devotion, that may easily make one think "Lo, not a bug, but humbug." If Yogananda and secretaries had written the truth in Autobiography of a Yogi, their last point would not have to be made by any of them.

Talking with two mouths frequently confuses - Yogananda talks with two mouths in marketing his shortened form of kriya yoga, and thus seems to be panegyric or something when he tells:

You don't have to believe; you can know. If I had a thousand mouths, I would speak through them all to convince you. - Yogananda (1982, 111)

In so saying, Yogananda ignores "Beware of what you wish for; you might get it." A face with a thousand mouths might be quite a spectacle, by the way. Beware of what disfigures -

Getting wiser than getting duped matters:

1. Wanting to convince others could smack of demagoguery. Much that is called PR, demagoguery and propaganda, seeks to influence and convince to some end (See where the money goes, is fair counsel).
2. Decent dentists and scientists try to present facts fair and square: that is different.
3. Through Transcendental Meditation and other likable meditation ways we may rise above "the words from a thousand mouths" and instead meditate well over and over. There is such a hope -

It could be good to know that a convince-persuade-expert or PR guy may influence others and make use of them. A decent fellow who claims to stand for science and scientific, had better inform others. It is not decent to press a conviction onto others in the name of science. At least Albert Einstein likes that idea -

Physicists involved in the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics could not agree on whether there is an outer world independent of observers or not. "Do you really think the moon isn't there if you aren't looking at it?" commented Albert Einstein.

Slender research shows that kriya yoga works too. It may not be Yogananda's shortened kriya yoga, though.

Results of meditation or even preliminaries are thought to depend on at least four factors.

• Correct practice.
• A fit method.
• Not overdoing it.
• Good monitoring, etc.

A good and fit method that also is well monitored is much worth. Further, basic and simple methods may be the most profitable ones to lots of people, as long as they may be done with ease, gently and timely - smoothly, graciously, blandly, with poise. Then:

During deep meditation, when the breath becomes calm, a very enjoyable state of peace is produced ... You should not be discouraged at this ... - Paramahansa Yogananda, in Inner Culture, September 1939.