Maya in SRF
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- Introduction
- Yogananda Moaning for Maya
- Maya Exhibition
- Yogi's Autobiography of a Yogi: Away-Revised?
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Introduction
SHANKARA (AD 700? - 750?) says Maya is a matrix of names-and-forms (the universe).The term 'maya' comes from the root ma or "measuring". When one adds the suffix ya to the root ma it can be defined as "relating to measuring". Maya provides actualisations.
Maya is "akin to 'to measure', 'show forth'. Through ideation - imaginative activities - Maya may foster will and coping. Maya shows what food that fits us, including food for thought. Go for constructive activity, and Maya tends to help, just as sound measurements and judgements help man in general.
What is more, Maya is none other than the Divine Mother, says Ramakrishna. Maya becomes beautiful with your own real self, holds Vivekananda. [Rap 30; cf Via 243] A yogi's status gets undermined by false teachings that get exposed. SRF-published teachings on maya are debated on this page. On the previous page the Vedic succinct information about maya from the ranks of notable persons is gathered.
Yogananda Moaning for Maya
"All nature that we behold is the Mother aspect of God, because in nature we find beauty, gentleness, and kindness," said Yogananda [Note 1]. You find other other things in nature too, not just pottery, but stalking, murder, and beer, to name a few things. And, interestingly, Kali worship (that sort of Mother worship) in India included human sacrifice in some places till into the 1600-1700s or so, writes the translator Frederick Eden Pargiter in Markandeya Purana [Ma xii]. The reason why mother Kali (Divine Mother) is depicted with a garland of human skulls, has not been solely figurative everywhere and at all times.In America the guru may have worshipped the Divine Mother (Kali also) without displays of naked skulls, but as selectively as if by whim: According to Ramakrishna (above), Mother is Maya. Maya sayings by Yogananda are nasty, though. To oversimplify: "Maya is bad, Mother is good! (Let us forget that Maya is the Mother)". That looks like troll communication. If exposed to sunlight some trolls burst, the saying goes . . .
To Ramakrishna, maya itself was God, the Mother of the Universe, identical with the Brahman of Vedanta, Nikhilananda writes. [Goa 51]. "When I think of the Supreme Being . . . as active . . . I call Him . . . Maya . . . Personal God." - Ramakrishna, [Goa 54].
The future Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952) came under the "spell of Divine Mother and Maya" too, as Ramakrishna's biographer Master Mahasaya (Mahendanath Gupta) spent time on him. See what happened when the biographer had greeted him:
The divine Mother (Maya) is not talked down on here. Far from it. The chapter is called "The blissful devotee and his cosmic romance". Read it on-line here: [LINK] But maya is vehemently talked against in SRF publications, with much ado and inconsistency and bungling of concepts. That is not as it should be.I fell moaning to the floor.
"Little sir, quiet yourself!" The saint was sympathetically distressed.
Abandoned in some oceanic desolation, I clutched his feet as the sole raft of my rescue.
"Holy sir, your intercession! Ask divine Mother if I find any favour in her sight!"
This promise is one not easily bestowed (...)
Master Mahasaya possessed control over the flood-gates of my soul ...
More on Maya
Yogananda holds that the world is maya, i.e. an illusion. He is thus a mayavadin, one who professes that the world is maya. He might as well bite his tail, since such teachings would be wholly included in world-maya - and hence be illusory.Ramakrishna says that maya operates in the relative world in two ways and he termed these "avidyamaya" and "vidyamaya.' Avidyamaya sustains lower planes, but vidyamaya is enlightening, including qualities like kindness. Vidyamaya elevates a man to a better consciousness. With the help of vidyamaya he then gets free of maya, if only for a while. The two aspects of maya are two forces of creation [Goa 51, 52].
Erroneous lore under the garb of Yogananda
Maya is a fundamental concept in Hindu philosophy. To some it has come to mean that what creates the grand illusion that the phenomenal world is real and the same as Brahman (God). [Ebu "maya"]When it comes to such as maya as a fabric and maya as a weaving agent deep inside, later editions of Paramahansa Yogananda's autobiography contains a sinister footnote (Pa 284n) that is missing in the first edition of his autobiography, and some other footnotes against maya too, including
"I am the door: . . . The thief (maya or delusion) cometh not but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy [Ha 252n]."Maya is bluntly spoken of as delusion or illusion in the guru's public writings, as the relative world and the world of Nature, etc. [Ha 266 etc.]. What we go into below, is twisted, garbled, tendentious uses of bible passages and bungling of concepts.
The Old Testament prophets called maya by the name of Satan . . . "the adversary" [Ha 275n etc.].No, they did not. They called Satan by the name of Satan, and kept maya out of it.
In God's plan and play (lila), the sole function of Satan or Maya is to attempt to divert man from Spirit to matter, from Reality to unreality. [Ibid]Yogananda does not hold such a limited view in all places of his teachings, but these are SRF teachings meant for the general public. Besides, the Bible's view is not exactly that God sports with the universe either, for that matter. Yogananda introduces bible-alien concepts into central bible places and apparently hopes to get away with it.
Christ describes maya picturesquely as a devil, a murderer, and a liar. [Ibid]We think he has got it wrong there. Jesus refers to Satan, that is different. The autobiography's later editions bungles main concepts from very different frames of references repeatedly.
SRF's former vice-president divulges in chapter 30 of his on-line book A Place Called Ananda, that the "Autobiography of a Yogi has been subjected to so many changes that Ananda . . . has felt it a duty to make the first edition once more available to people." [Apa, ch 30. Cf. ch 28 too].
The autobiography is on-line here: [LINK]
The autobiography footnote we are into, appears in later editions of the Autobiography, for example those of 1971 and 1981. The footnote contains an "I" which suggests that Yogananda is the master of the footnote. But that should not be taken at face value, due to editorial liberties of the SRF publishers. In many places they have added to the book and changed statements too, as their former vice president tells, and others too. [Notes 2 and 3]
Parts of these diggings may seem petty, but see if they contribute to reveal a pattern of growing sectarianism, as grotesque satan-making often does.
In the next chapter we go into details.
Maya Exhibition
"So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence." - Sir Bertrand Russell, in Science and Religion."Canonical" SRF material about Maya (Divine Mother, etc) is now discussed:
NO, THEY did not. For one thing, the word 'maya' does not appear in the Old Testament. The term 'maya' is from a cultural setting that is alien to the Old Testament people. They didn't use it, and hardly used any equivalent to it either.It should not be imagined that the truth about maya was understood only by the rishis [Vedic seers]. The Old Testament prophets called maya by the name of Satan (lit., in Hebrew, "the adversary"). - Autobiograhy of a Yogi [Pa 284n, Ha 275n]
It's different with the Greek term figure. To figure well helps to preserve good measures, including sound measure in all things - an old norm for living. The Greek "figure" could be just the same as 'maya', essentially.
Maya comes from ancient Sanskrit roots where it ties in with "mete out", i.e. proportion out etc. In Sanskrit literature, basic meaning(s) took on added, extra meanings, and such a process is rather common in English and scientific vocabulary as well. Words have central cores and people may elaborate or add to them one way or another, often in many directions too. So, "Maya is thus that cosmic force that presents the infinite Brahman (the supreme being) as the finite phenomenal world [Britannica Online: s.v. "maya"]." That is one outlook.
In religious Hinduism 'maya' is either looked on as Divine Mother or something not so good in that context. The phenomenon Ramakrishna saw and experienced Maya as the Divine Mother, the acme of goodness in many Hindu (Tantra) circles.
Judged from the rather long note in Yogananda's autobiography, the editor (or author) is far from the mark in two respects: She/he jumbles concepts from two cultures; and adds negative value to the Sanskrit 'maya' by saying it is 'satan'. What tendentious ostentation!
Judged by Bible standards, the writer of the infamous lines could be looked on as a "deceiver and thief (of faith and word values)", remember. It is also worth noting that Yogananda hails his Hindu gurus as Christs, against the words of Jesus against other Christs, that is, false Christs (Messiahs).
WE HAVE been into murky stuff above. There is no particular reason to fall under the sway of blatant negativity that falsifies the evidence. Writing like that is an offence.
His right warning was against false Christs
Jesus warns against false teachers and false Christs. Yogananda hails the gurus he knew in India, as Christs, many Christs of India.HOWEVER, Jesus has not described maya anywhere. However, in the Gospel of Thomas, logion 13, he appears to tell that it is possible to become like himself. "I am not your teacher. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring that I have tended." Getting drunk is not said to be sinning here - but how may we find out its proper meaning unless we learn to interpret fairly. Norms are needed for that sort of work - good norms.
"The devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil" (1 John 3:8). That is, the manifestation of Christ Consciousness, within man's own being, effortlessly destroys the illusions or "works of the devil." - Autobiograhy of a Yogi [Pa 284n, Ha 275n]
What is from the beginning needs someone of the beginning to bear accurate witness through or by Maya somehow.
Narrow and wrong dogmatism is the cause of some bad. It is so easy to cause sinning by false teachings. Rather, think what befits a human.
Yahweh and apostles on the value of maya
In the Book of Numbers we read that the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud and said, "Listen I reveal myself to a prophet of the Lord in visions, and speak to him in dreams. But with Moses I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles. [Numbers 12:5-8, paraphrased]Clear guidance from inside is the boon! Visions and dreams may need to be interpreted, and to interpret you could need to be educated, for example in the subject of dream interpretations. There are many works on it. These books may be called manifestations of maya, and the Bible's wisdom of guidance and visions and dreams too - fair and square. [Dre; Retr; Idln; Medm]
Prophesies and visions and dreams are not barred from reborn Christians either. [Acts 2:17-18]
Extensive wisdom is much praised in the whole Bible as valuable to man, and
coming from God, and maya is wisdom.
Art is made use of by God in designing his tent and utensils - and maya
is art -
Extraordinary power(s) can be said to accompany the chosen ones of God in
both the Old and New Testament - such prowess may be of maya. [All three highlighted
terms are part-definitions of maya from very old times in Monier-Williams' Sanskrit-English
Dictionary]
Autobiography of a Yogi: Away-Revised?
The guru Paramahansa Yogananda or his editor(s) could perhaps have made many people happier if the autobiography had not been extensively and editorially worked on throughout the past sixty years or so. Yogananda himself revised the first edition (from 1946) into the second edition (1951). The book's footnoted and hostile teachings against maya could be the work of later SRF editions. Gross faults can make inexperienced ones stumble and fall.THE AUTHOR of a rather foolish book entitled Thoughts asked the British actor and playwright Samuel Foote (1720-77) if he had read it.
"No, let us wait for the second volume," Foote replied.
Somewhat baffled, the author asked why.
"I have heard that second thoughts are best," said Foote.
Let us take a look at minor and major charges together:
Briefing
THEY TAMPERED WITH HIS NAME: There are errors in it, and we are not talking about typos, or the fact that the publisher later have tampered with his "name", the Paramahansa title. He wrote Paramhansa himself. It was not respected, the publisher, SRF, took the liberty. But we do not think details should overshadow the big errors or bluffs. [Link]PERVERTED NONSENSE ON MAYA: We have not been able to ascertain who is responsible for the degrading Maya rubbish in later editions of the Autobiography, but we suspect it is NOT the author. The editor's slogan thinking is grossly misleading. It jumbles together maya and Satan; She (?) appears to speculate like a gross fool. Her (?) outputs in the matter look sick. Junk is far from fit, and vehement garbage from a guru's mouth or put in it, isn't either. Dandy-bastard thinking should be shooed and not surly welcomed. [You are referred to Pa 284n - and we have quite an article on that further down]
FALSE CLAIMS IN 'GURU BITCHING': In Yogananda's writings we often find what seems to
be a heart-sick balancing in promoting Hinduism in the garb of unification - something like
that. It looks like it.
If unification of two opposite "camps" is to be taken seriously, the involved
foundations have to fit into one another, and fair treatment looks like a must. Yogananda's
Hinduism-typical movement has been visited by a "Hindu pope", a Shankaracharya, but not the
Vatican pope. And the guru does not play fair with Christianity. He uses it:
grossly distorts key concepts [view a sample if you like], and
the movement is very far from evangelical Christianity, tongue-talking, sacraments and the
regular ministry of servants of the God who says no to false gods, other gods, idols and
more. Note that the Hindu monk's movement is now classified by some agencies in the United
States as a cult. It has milder sect traits too, we are sorry to say.
BIG TITLES RUN WILD AND THE SEEMLINGLY FANTASTIC: As for the value of possibly exaggerated tales in the book - not just fantastically enlarged titles around his gurus and some of their disciples in India. Avatars that are presented as Christs, run into the words against false Christs by Jesus himself. Let us suggest that avid "title fever" is not too good for followers too.
ATTITUDES FIT FOR FAILURES AND THE NEW EDITION: A newly shaped 1st edition of Yogananda's Autobiography is being borne out here on this address. The purpose is to pour some "cold water in the blood" against possibly dwarfing "churchism dressing up and perhaps reaching stubborn clergy fantasticism" - it is better than being fooled, taken in, or led to less realistic handling of life in general. [Autobiography Online]
SOBERING OFFHAND TALK: Besides, there are sobering instructions here and there in
books by other eminent kriya folks (list below).
Another Revision Should Be Tackled
Could he revise his book another time, not just a second time, after passing away?Interestingly, lots of fellows in the USA claim they have seen Yogananda alive and kicking after his departure in 1952, writes Kriyananda (J. Donald Walters) in his love-and-honour book The Path, chapter 39. He spends print on tales of meeting a body that a doctor declared dead and that was taken care of in a mortuary for twenty days, before put in a sarcofagus, most of it attested by a publicus notarius. Let us maintain the essential or substantial.
We could wait for his third revision, and why not let him write New Autobiography of a long gone Yogi also? There are at least two ways according to him:
- "Freshing up" and manifesting for it one way or another.
- Making God turn time backwards and then ... [Cf Say]
Has anyone ever seen it happen?
Why the second autobiography should pay
- We prefer truth first, not fancied things over and over.
- Many of the "aesopian" lessons that it is easy to derive from stories in Yogananda's autobiography, are not fit for common-looking, everyday living.
Today other kriya yogis (babas) have written biographies of Lahiri Baba, Yukteswar, and lately of Babaji too. Jogesh Bhattacharya ascertains there may be several versions of tales about Lahiri Baba, and not only the very tall stories retold or told in Autobiography of a Yogi. Pick your choice; reliable ones might be beneficent. [Ycm, Ys; Ysl]
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Notes
1. Paramhansa Yogananda. "Is God a Father or a Mother?" Inner Culture magazine, October 1939.2. Independent: The Daya Dynasty yogananda-dif.org/dayadyna.htm
3. Yogananda Rediscovered: www.yoganandarediscovered.com/jaitruth/index2.html
Apa: Walters, James Donald. A Place called Ananda. Rev. 2nd ed. Nevada City: Hansa Trust: 2001. www.ananda.org/aplacecalledananda/]
Ay: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Autobiography of a Yogi. 1st ed. New York: Philosophical Library, 1946. On-line version. [oaks.nvg.org/pv6bk12.html]
Bik: Gambhirananda, sw. tr: Brahma-Sutra-Bhasya of Sri Sankaracarya. 4th ed. Calcutta: Advaita, 1983.
Daff: Zimmer, Heinrich: Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization. Princeton, NJ: Bollingen Series / Princeton University Press, 1972.
Dre: Jung, Carl Gustav. Dreams. Translated by by R. F. C. Hull. Princeton, NJ: Bollingen / Princeton University Press, 1974.
Ebu: Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica 2006 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD. London: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2006.
Goa: Nikhilananda, sw. tr: The Gospel of Ramakrishna. Abr. ed. New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda, 1974.
Ha: Yogananda, Pa.: Autobiography of a Yogi. 12th ed. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF), 1981.
Idln: Boss, Medard. "I dreamt last night ." New York: Gardner, 1977.
Ma: Pargiter, Frederick Eden, tr. Markandeya Purana. Calcutta: The Asiatic Society, 1904.
Medm: Hall, Calvin. The Meaning of Dreams. New ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966.
Mii: O'Neil, Louis: Maya in Sankara: Measuring the Immeasurable. Delhi: Banarsidass, 1980.
Pa: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Autobiography of a Yogi. 11th ed. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF), 1971.
Puh: Deussen, Paul: The Philosophy of the Upanishads. New York: Dover (Reprint of Clark's 1906-ed), 1966.
Rap: Gupta, M.: The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda, 1942.
Retr: Hark, Helmut. Religiöse Traumsymbolik. Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1980.
Say: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Sayings of Yogananda. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1958.
Tp: Walters, James Donald. The Path: Autobiography of a Western Yogi. Nevada City: Crystal Clarity, 1977.
Via: Nikhilananda, sw.: Vivekananda. The Yogas and Other Works. Rev. ed. New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda, 1953.
Ycm: Satyananda, Swami. Yogiraj Shyama Charan Lahiri Mahasay. A Biography. Portland, Mn: Yoganiketan, 2004. On-line at www.yoganiketan.net
Ys: Satyanananda, Swami. Yogiraj Shyama Charan Lahiri Mahasaya. A Biography. Tr Amitava Chaterjee. Portland, Mn: Sevayatan and Yoganiketan, 2001. Earlier on-line: [http://yoganiketan.net/satyogiraj/index.htm], now: www.yoganiketan.net
Ysl: Bhattacharya, Jogesh Chandra. Yogiraj Shri Shri Lahiri Mahashaya. Kadamtala, Howrah: Shrigurudham (Ghosh), 1964. On-line read-only text at Yoganiketan, Portland, Mn: [www.yoganiketan.net]. Earlier there: [http://kalama.com/~stebro/Kriya_Library/Yogiraj/title.htm]
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