• Yogananda's Kriya Yoga Teachings
• Yogananda's Huge Cries

Yogananda's Kriya Yoga Teachings

You don't have to cry like a baby to reach God.

Overview

"One needs only to look within oneself to find Truth [Primordial Essence of Eternity]" - Guru Rinpoche (Padma-Sambhava) [Lik 197]. [More]

In dealing with SRF - short for Self-Realization Fellowship - and Yogananda publications, it may be fine to know a bit from behind the scenes and decor beforehand, before committing oneself. SRF was founded by Yogananda (1893-1952) in Boston in 1920. In 1935 it became a registered church in California. Today nuns and monks head it. The headquarters is in Los Angeles, and there are centres and meditation groups in some other states, and in over fifty countries. They teach a particular system of pranayama methods, called kriya yoga. The essential part of kriya yoga is ujjayi, which is easy and pleasant to perform. There are no restrictions on teaching the delicate ujjayi.

The following issues are not always easy to find in SRF publications today.

1. The guru founder of SRF changed main Kriya yoga techniques. He simplified parts, and removed vital parts of the original kriya too. In his marketing of kriya, its said efficacy was boosted 144 times too. But how? That is an open question.
2. The emphasis of Yogananda's teachings took another turn over the years as he adapted to Westerners. In the beginning he wanted to activate men and women to do kriya yoga through what he said was purely scientific as a kingly way to realize the Self (atmajnana, knowledge of Atman), and he talked much of the Self in such veins. Later, through adaptations to his public, his talks drifted "Godward" - from Self to God, from active and scientific self-efforts with one's kriya yoga to the additional need for grace of God and devotion as necessary ingredients. It is symptomatic of his drifting teachings that first he talked for divine selfishness, that is, expanded self-concern, and a few years later stood up for unselfishness. He voiced two different views of egohood: one was to develop it, and most often he talked for killing it, which is bad. He also taught the basic yoga moral of ahimsa, non-injury, but sent followers to the World War 2.

   Talking against one's former, fronted dictums implies an undeveloped moral, and may be maddening or confusing. Many of his various sayings from different periods are mixed in the SRF Lessons, a lesson course required for learning kriya yoga in SRF.

   Another recurrent problem with the guru's and fellowship's teachings is a stable, recurrent misuse of scriptural passages to "bolster up" kriya yoga. [More]

3. He transgressed much that goes with kriya teachings elsewhere, and established fervour for Divine Mother, that She should appear. The half-ritualised crying for Divine Mother may be Gamy (a TA term). For basic kriya yoga aims at taking the mind inward, and drop extraneous concepts of Divine Mother and gurus - in higher states of consciousness. Good meditation steers in that direction during a fit sitting too.
4. SRF publishes much guru talk from between 1920 and 1952, and parts are fooling, and therefore dangerous or alarming. For example, the guru tells repeatedly the world we live in is illusory, ignoring that he too would be so, if that were the case, and his teachings, and so on. When such inconsistencies abound, one's mental health could suffer setbacks.
5. A fronted SRF notion is that Yogananda's words and injunctions cannot be changed, yet the SRF publisher has edited some of his words so heavily that it surprises outsiders. So there is evidence that the SRF that says it cannot change his words does so anyway, and very clumsily at times too. A former vice-president of SRF offers glimpses into these goings somewhere else. [More].
6. SRF teaches with inconsistency, in part because some of the things Yogananda went for, were dropped by the SRF management. This apparently happened to the guru's cherished ideals of self-supporting communities. He writes of in his autobiography, and there are recorded talks for such communities too. The current SRF management has not forefronted them so far. To the contrary. Idealists may suffer set-backs from Yogananda till this is made plain.
7. Learning the modified, simplified kriya of SRF can bind you head and foot in quite unwelcome and maybe surprising ways. Some aspects of them appear to fit some dictatorship that he explicitly wrote for in his magazine when he was forty - and wrote well of an unspecified brand of socialism too. By the way, the early church had ideals in common with Communists.
8. Yogananda and SRF downplay a traditional, Christian heritage with baptism, sacraments, tongue-talking, rituals, one Shepherd, and ancient rules for the services that were laid down early in letters of Paul. God the Father, Christ, and the Holy Spirit are defined differently, by using some Hindu concepts for it. Besides, his teachings have alarmed Catholics.
9. The state of affairs deep in SRF led about one third of the monks and nuns there to leave in 2000-2001. Those who left the premises told saddening, grief-struck stories of how things were among close disciples.

We easily fall for lack of fair and good evidence.

Many wander in Delusion

Yogananda followers may find pages like these to be hard reading. However, "Prevention is better than cure", and the same goes for solid and preventive information. It should be a good thing to know of severe errors and transgressions so that one can avoid them. And such "what is what" may be so hard to estimate in such waters. As for guru followers who have got gravely disappointed and more or less disillusioned with SRF recently and try get on with their lives, some may feel worse from reading on, and should be warned. Consider it done.

These persons are likened to farm animals, even heart-broken animals. Do they have what it takes to get free from the gurus and get happy without them? That is the question. We leave it to you to decide.

SRF members seem to grope for comfort in each others' arms rather than seeking professional help. Besides, some who break out of SRF may not dare to go all the way and speak up against what is wrong with the fellowship and many guru's guidelines as found in SRF. They could fear repercussions the guru talks of, for example:

If you turn away from the emissary of God, He [decides] "Now you shall have to wait long ... Several incarnations [of dire fears and colossal sufferings] at least must pass before he will have another such opportunity. [Source: SRF Magazine, spring 1974, p 6.]

Why is "dire fears and colossal sufferings" added to the quotation? Because in SRF the teaching is also as in Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi,'s chapter 34, where the Grand Master Babaji is reported to say:

Repeat to each of your disciples this majestic promise from the Bhagavad Gita [2:40]: ... "Even a little bit of the practice of this religion will save you from dire fears and colossal sufferings."

Yogananda says these fears and sufferings are inherent in the cycles of life and death and rebirth and redeath and so on. The whole Gita verse runs like this in his translation:

In this path (of yoga action) there is no loss of the unfinished effort for realization, nor is there creation of contrary effects. Even a tiny bit of this real religion protects one from great fear (the colossal sufferings inherent in the repeated cycles of birth and death). [Bhagavad Gita 2:40, Yogananda's translation, Yi 69-70]

That is how the Sanskrit Swalpam apyasya dharmasya traayate mahato bhayaat is translated by Yogananda and understood in his society. It may be sound to check his translation and compare it with other good translations.

Sivananda's translation is "Even a little of this knowledge (even a little practice of this Yoga) protects one from great fear," which is different. The translation that is used in the Hare Krishna movement is "In this endeavour there is no loss or diminution, and a little advancement on this path can protect one from the most dangerous type of fear." Lars Martin Fosse has "Even a little of this law saves one from great distress. [See Tdg 20]

Translations differ, understandings differ. The special parts we look into, are "dire fears and colossal sufferings", or "great fear", or "the most dangerous type of fear", or "great distress". Also worth noting is that where Yogananda and Fosse have "save from it" the other two have "protect from it", which could be different.

To round it up: Fear of leaving Yogananda may be a staggering element in SRF circles.

Freedom to think for oneself is a boon. Being allied with soundness-helping wisdom from many quarters is another. Developing fair and fit skills for good living is a third boon. All these things can be evolved.

"Many sadhus ... wander in delusion," says Mahavatar Babaji in Yogananda's autobiography, and Yogananda himself was no exception, as revealed when toward the end of his life implored in samadhi (yogic absorption) something like "No more delusion! I won't have it!" Other, dissimilar Yogananda utterances are spoken well of in SRF, however: "We do not find fault with Paramahansa Yogananda's guidelines. Since we believe that he had attained complete union with God and therefore his wisdom is flawless". Such attitudes along with outré and bombastic claims by Yogananda may limit one's urge to investigate. Do you dare to think that gurus that are ritually invocated as all-knowing, almighty Christs can be wrong? Hope you will not fall short, and insert a slice of healthy scepticism before they make a fool of you.

Yogananda's guru, Yukteswar, endorses sceptical investiations. Both he and Yogananda talk against blind belief in some places. Accordingly there should be room for doubting Thomases, just as Buddha is into in Kalama Sutta. Opposed to fair scepticism and investigations is the tragedy of living an insignificant or mess-making teaching. There are other crosses to carry as well. Here is one:

THE GERMAN COMPOSER and musical theorist Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) was once conducting a rehearsal of one of his more dissonant orchestral compositions. At one point, he rapped his baton and said,

"No, no, gentlemen; even though it sounds wrong, it's still not right!"

Comment

If you say that the universe is illusory, as Yogananda and three more SRF gurus do [e.g., Hos 39], it follows that Yogananda and they all are unreal, and their writings and guidelines and the pledge are asked to sign. What will it be? All these gurus went for and set up, is found in and of the universe, unreal to them. If you can believe that, it follows there are no blessed or blessing gurus in Self-Realization Fellowship.

Given this, maybe oinks of hogs and sour talk of rotten potatoes is just as valuable as what sounds wrong "in a right way" -

De Wolf Hopper was calling down a speaking tube to the janitor of his apartment in New York. Hopper, unable to get the information he desired, just blurted out:

"Say, is there a blithering idiot at the end of this tube?"

"Not at this end, sir." [From Of]

❖ Sensible ones do not have to be foolish either. In some way it seems up to oneself.

Pranayama Focus

SRF (Self-Realization Fellowship) is adapted to a Hindu heritage and guru-faith. The fellowship teaches kriya yoga pranayama. The cult's demands in that matter are so stiff that they work as a fish trap. The bait: boasted of efficacy of kriya. A fish trap: Dire fear of leaving Yogananda once you enter to learn kriya. Yogananda's warnings against ever leaving him after initiation may be among the severest that are found. He talks of many lives of sufferings for that.

Yogananda taught a handed-over set of methods called kriya yoga. Less known to adherents today, he changed and simplified the methods too, by leaving out what the gurus of his own tradition says are essential elements, including Thokar Kriya and whatever they are called, all of them.

Yogananda's kriya is still designed to make certain "life energies", prana forms, turn inwards as tersely mentioned in the ancient yoga text Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. Successful training hopefully brings the attention more inwards, and then one may become a deeply "successful one", a siddha [an adept]. Such persons may be few and far between, though. A beginner has good hopes that he knows which kriya teachers are accomplished, and how well accomplished, and who are most preferrable.

There is the added problem of severely disappointed kriya practitioners who disclaim kriya yoga (ujjayi) in itself because they have not perceived any breakthrough or special progress from it. Here is a way: If you consider kriya as an art or sport, skilled practice is normally needed, and to some, lots of practice. You do not have to be religious to practice kriya and get raped, it is enough to be oneself -

Yogananda's Huge Cries

Was "Divine Peekaboo" Good for California?

The "Yogi-Christian" Self-Realization Fellowship was founded in Boston in 1920 by Swami Yogananda (1893-1952), and today has its international headquarters on Mt. Washington, a hill in Los Angeles. There are meditation groups and centres in over 50 countries. TIME Magazine of August 30, 1963 informs there were about 125,000 members at the time, and one-third of them in California. In the late 1970s I was informed in writing from the SRF headquarters that there were hundreds of thousands "all over the world". SRF has claimed to have a million members, yet a former vice president of SRF, Kriyananda, suspects the membership is nearer 10,000 than a million. He writes:

SRF has consistently - indeed, outrageously - bloated its membership figures ...

In the late 1990s, the largest number of items mailed out [from SRF] ... was fewer than 40,000. Those mailings had included such announcements as Christmas greetings, which would certainly have gone out to a considerable number of non-members.

My own suspicion is that their active membership number (those still living on this earth) stands somewhere below 10,000 - far below the one million ("or more") they have claimed. [Ry, chap. 14.]

Kriyananda also says, "In my opinion, SRF is dying on the vine [Ry, chap 6]."

If you want to check this data, there is good reason to hurry and get the book, for lately Kriyananda had a dream, and decided to stop printing of the book altogether:

I had a dream last night in which a saint ... said to me in reference to this book, "It is not your place to judge ... forget the book now."

I was deeply grateful to him. ... From now on I drop the subject altogether.

A fortnight later he added: "But a nagging thought wouldn’t leave me: “Why even publish this edition?" Finally I decided it was my conscience talking to me! So I wrote our publishing house and asked them to stop the print run. It has meant some loss of money." [1]

Anyway, estimates of how many members there are in the cult SRF, vary between "below 10,000" and one million or more.

SRF charges only modestly for all their "lessons", including the Kriya Yoga lessons. The California-based society has been headed by nuns over the last 30 years, and appears to be well off. But one third of its monastics left the fellowship's premises around 2001-2002.

You may wonder what their reasons were.

It pays to seek reliable witness information beforehand to avoid committing to cultish teachings. Such information may be hard to find and assess. Some former insiders may tell things fairly, others are not fair in what they set forth, for various reasons. What is more, cult makers often play on insecurity in young and inexperienced ones.

In a cult or sect you may find awkward "family" deals that could endanger higher or better forms of living and meditation. It is silly to endanger your future living by getting enamoured by garbage and verbiage.

Genuine and advanced humility may aid sympathetic responsiveness, not unlike sincerity and a strain of good-natured humour. Some modesty is good as well.

Some Inquiry

"In the past year, 40 monks and nuns left SRF. Why? I called [the fellowship] to find out if this was true, and they said it was, but their reason was: "We live in hard times." So if [the fellowship] is on the up and up, why did that many monks and nuns leave, some who had been there for 20 to 30 years? This is approximately one-third of all the monks and nuns. And why, when I have asked some about their reasons for leaving, are they afraid to talk about it?" - [From an SRF Discussion Board, of May 2004]

Getting immersed knee-deep in something less than excellent and top pleasant may not suit all who entered SRF filled with great dreams of Great Gains, including what is called Cosmic Consciousness for the lack of a better term:

Find the Divine Mother hidden beyond the skies ... Implore Her with continuous demand, with the resolve not to cease until Her reply comes ...

Say to Her, "Divine Mother, I am your child, your naughty child ...

If you appeal to God as the Divine Mother, She quickly gives in ...

When you worship God as the Mother ... you must say, "You are my Divine Mother. You have to forgive me ..."

You must prove to Her that you want Her alone. You must cry urgently and unceasingly ...

[Yogananda, Man's Eternal Quest [Ak 370, 374-75, 450]]

Yogananda advocates a similar approach toward God the Father too:

Whenever you find yourself with a few moments of leisure, make a sincere prayer, "Father, come to me, reveal Thy Omniscient Presence." ... When you wish to express your love for some one, you do not need to quote from a book ... So pray to God mostly in your own words of love and yearning, not in the borrowed language of others all the time. Never cease, keep up your prayers to God until He answers you. [Swami Yogananda, East West, Volume 1-5 July 1926 - August 1926.]

"We cannot please all (Proverb)".

Yogananda says what you should fill every moment of leisure with. An unceasing prayer that is mostly in your own words. Can you do it as he says? If mother's milk is denied sucklings, they can cry and become as desperate as Yogananda followers yearning for Mother's breasts and all that - because he tells them to do so. I call that approach Yogananda's Folly Yoga, as it may not be healthy at all.

If you fill each moment with desperate inward cries, there is something wrong. And if not at the start, then there will be as time goes on. You need to recognise your part in being taken in by foolish practises. Although, if you fill every moment with prayers to the Father and hence find no time for such poor child Mother worship and the like, the solution is not all right. Decide what to do in your spare time yourself. Don't listen to a fool-maker. Even though the guru recognises both an Anthropomorphic Father and Mother God, make it your business to abstain from what is not vital. It is soaring (gliding) inwards in dhyana (contemplation) that is vital, not desperate cries. As you ignore these gentle suggestions, great disappointments may be in store; great and unneeded disappointments. Such "yogic" training is not good for you, or is it?

Why ignore something else Yogananda tells?: Already as a child the coming Yogananda seemed quite fixated on enervating others. In his Whispers from Eternity he shares an experience when he was alone on a beach and sought God in vain for a while, clingingly, as suited his temperament and tact. Once Yogananda was about to weep in despair, he heard:

The sun of My protection shines equally on thy ruby-days and on thy coal-black hours ... Thou [must] have faith and smile, for the greatest of all sins against Spirit is not to be happy ... By being happy, thou dost please Me." [Wfe, No. 189]

This comes close to a line in a song: "Don't worry, be happy", but to be on the safe side, let us just state that "Happy children should not cry and whine." Nor should they be made to do so for years on end.

Humble Pie and Clinging

You yourself may naturally prefer happy, confident children to clinging and humble pie experts that cry far and wide for your attention, over and over and over, never giving you a moment's rest. Yogananda avoids that basic part of proper upbringing and makes a show of clinging emotionalism that may harm and break down some "sheep" of his when they get fixated on a completely unnecessary track of urgent bleatings and unceasing yearning for a mother sheep up beyond the skies. It is hardly practical.

There is a lot more to tell about some of the unnecessary ways of the "mad monk" (Yogananda). Try to decide yourself what to fill your spare time with and avoid transgressing. Have a say yourself. "It is your life", at least live as if it is.

Now the Hindu book Bhagavad Gita is presented as a key element in SRF's services, ritualistic outlooks and deeper orientations in life.

The Fellowship consists of lay members that are either uninitiated or initiated in kriya training. The initiates have to be members of the SRF Church. Among Church members some take what is essentially Hindu-monastic vows and become brothers and sisters, that is, monks and nuns. Some old nuns become mothers, matas. The monks and nuns play the role of clergy and administer the movement. There is a whole deal of social conformism strides within such an enterprise. Some derive a measure of well-being from conformity in a religious way of shared thoughts and attitudes, and others hardly so.

One thing that seems to be at stake in SRF is fairness as to apostolic Christianity with its sacrament rituals, practices, and outlooks from the early church, in part as instituted by Jesus, in part as ordained by the apostle Paul, in part as of many pagan religions of the Roman empire. Among Yogananda followers some Bible sayings are interpreted or twisted to suit a Hindu over-all outlook by and large. Is it as it should be?

Reflecting on and established in this useful knowledge, the sage one may find shelter and live in this world for long, free to resort to the peace of contemplation, proceeding toward inward freedom. [Cf. Yoga Vasistha, Yv 247]

The wider SRF scenario contains staggering elements

Life is in some ways rather as the cult investigator Philip Zimbardo lets us in on somewhere. There are many lessons to learn from cults. Some sides to them look appealing, but question if all are genuine, if words, doings, and what is established, match, and whether members get marred. As long as the large society has better things available, try that.

Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) is classified as a cult by some US sources that seem Fundamentalist. Tense cults may be termed sects, at least unofficially. Mark the irony of an SRF letter that says Yogananda is infallible, when records show that Yogananda changed views. Regrettably, there are also unwise statements in the SRF Lessons, for example against good, long sleep. Many need to sleep long. Yogananda's guidelines of cutting down on sleep till you make do with seven, six, or five hours a night, do not suit all [More].

His no to sex for unmarried ones, and only restricted sex for married couples, what do such guidelines do to guys who are bent on following his guidelines - "infallible guidelines from all-knowing guru" and so on? People differ. I recall one wife who told me and some others, "Yogananda destroyed my marriage." Her husband was a devoted SRF member.'

Personal integrity may gradually be at stake under cultish conditions, or where "cultish fever" is mixed with guru devotion. Sects develop from much devotionalism far and wide, and tend to bring on limited, narrowed views in many fields and walks of life.

China's ancient fable writer Chuang-tzu (Zhuangzi) once noted that you cannot talk of the ocean with a well frog. The frog is too limited. Those who conform to cramped, indoctrinated conditions and support a cult, may reap severely and ignobly limited outlooks and much fear.

Zo, (the Spirit-lord) of the Northern Sea, said,

"A frog in a well cannot be talked with about the sea — he is confined to the limits of his hole. An insect of the summer cannot be talked with about ice; — it knows nothing beyond its own season. A scholar of limited views cannot be talked with about the Tao; — he is bound ... Now you have come forth ... and beheld the great sea. The Chuang-tzu, 17.1.

We may suspect that more than one cult boss rides high on big boasts. So let an invitation to show off by more than big words, stand. [More]

In this world, claims of avatarhood signal that lots of respect is asked for. It may or may not go along with intrigues and bulwarked intrigues that can make followers nervous, tense, and disappointed in time.

Some seem to have overconfidence in their mission and are able to get disciples through fraud, and thereby create sectarians with many strongly felt problems.

Summary

To learn the breathing method ujjayi, hailed as the basic kriya yoga in the fellowship that Yogananda set up, you have to accept him as your guru for an unknown number of lives, on SRF's dictate. It suggests doing as they say he said, that is, it involves submission on your part in major ways all life through.

There are alternatives that do not take dignity and Human Rights from you.