Yukteswar Christ Teachings

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A Said Christ's Yogi Tenets

Setting the Scene

Yukteswar (1855-1936) was a swami (monk), a disciple of Shyama Charan Sharman Lahiri (Lahiri Baba), and the guru of Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952) who attracted quite a following in the United States, after adapting his message to his audience. Yogananda writes of Yukteswar, who trained him, and Yukteswar wrote the slim book The Holy Science and a commentary on the Bhagavad Gita.
Yogananda founded a fellowship, SRF, that was turned into a church with monastics, and which have deteriorated into a cult. SRF publishes books and talks by Yogananda and the Holy Science by Yukteswar. Headquartered in Los Angeles, SRF also has meditation groups and centres in over 50 countries. Yogananda says his guru Yukteswar was an incarnation of divine wisdom, (jnana-avatar, that is,) jnanavatar; a Christ [a], and "a master in every way" [Ak 99]; one of "unerring spiritual insight" [Hos v], one whose words oblige the cosmos [Pa, ch. 17 ].

[a] Paramahansa Yogananda. "Yogavatar Shyama Lahiri Mahasaya's Ladder of Self-Realization, for Salvation for All". Inner Culture, March 1937. Jesus forewarned against false teachers and false Christs. The New Testament tells that all Christs but himself are false Christs [Cf. Matthew 28:18-20].

SRF ritually worships Yukteswar as a guru and Jnanavatar in front of six altar pictures of the gurus of SRF. Jesus and Krishna are there, and four more. [Pa 499-501]. So Yukteswar prestige has been built up; devotees of Yogananda promote it, in part by overdoing their guru praise.
Those who have not been into the cult of SRF, may think the things presented here are small, and that greater things should be done. They also think it is well to strive to know God, to strive upward, instead of relaxing and diving inside. The latter is part of sane meditation. The former is frustrating, and established by Yogananda.
In SRF many monastics have made a great show of reverence till they meet with misfortunes and griefs and drop being monastics there. Around 2002 one third of the monastics left the premises. Let us hope for their sakes they manage well and are helped to get thrifty. There is no blame in that, generally speaking.
Big words capture many, along with unfulfilled wishes in the caught. Hence, one must be on guard and prefer to pass by sick-making conformism wherever one comes across it. Otherwise it may mean tough luck and injuries - maybe not to all, but the risk is there, as can be gathered from tales by former monastics and others.
I will now go into some hailed sayings of Yukteswar and consider to which degree they may be universally useful.

Tenets and Comments

"Look fear in the face and it will cease to trouble you." [Yukteswar]
COMMENT. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. And of course, if fear appears, there could be a reason for it somehow. Fear is at times rooted in subconscious calculations of a sort, of hunches or feelings. Care to discern the possible reasons for fearing, and hope your fears are sane and not all irrational, perhaps stemming from obsolete nervousness and neuroses, and need expert care.

"Forget the past. The vanished lives of all men are dark with many shames." [Yukteswar]
COMMENT. No, learn from the past is fit. What is apt, is to derive benefit from significant lessons of the past. That is surely appropriate.
And to the degree that fit shame and remorse work for good in somebody, one should neither lessen nor deny them their good work either.

"Disbelieve in the reality of sickness . . . an unrecognized visitor will flee." [Yukteswar]
COMMENT. Be realistic instead. As Yogananda says, "Modern medicine has its uses. Why deny the facts?" Do not drop regular medical check-ups, for they have saved the lives of many and helped better living too. So take to good coping. Yogananda got medical treatments, also as prescribed by Yukteswar. You find stories about it in the Autobiography. When tall words - taken more or less out of context to seem inspiring - conflict with the actions of those who said them and taught them, it is their actions that show what they really think to be fit.
To get sound counsel, try to recognise what is the matter with you. A good diagnosis can help your cure and stop what is set adrift. Also, find proper steps out of your plight as soon as can be, instead of illusionism and denying hard facts.

"Attachment is binding. It lends an imaginary halo to the object of desire." [Yukteswar]
COMMENT. Don't get emotionally attached to the gurus of SRF, accordingly. There are decent books, marriage partners, family, children and values; be strong and stick to them.
Some children get suffused with love and overbearing care, others not. In any case the natural drift of the emotions is that possessive feelings cool off as we mature. "If you love somebody, set him or her free" reflects that deep trend or lesson that many possessive parents are to learn. But see to that your young ones get proplerly instructed or educated, not tamed and suppressed and scared overly, and gain enough security to date and marry as they mature and are handy enough for it. It is in the art of living.
Thus, some grow out of their infant attachments and form other ones, be it to the neighbour's wife and a car. See what a man spends the most quality time on or in. Is it the car or his wife? Stages of id-linked development are here: [LINK]

"Remember that finding God will mean the funeral of all sorrows." [Yukteswar]
COMMENT. Maybe funerals don't appeal to you? But do not think that Yuktewar did not suffer after he had found cosmic consciousness. Both he and Yogananda suffered, and there are stories about it in the Autobiography of a Yogi and elsewhere. Do not disregard the witnessing of gurus that fall ill, grieve, and adjust accordingly. That higher states induce and introduce happiness, though, is not drivel. It should be very, very good to attune to that.

"Ordinary love is selfish, but divine love is without change. The flux of the human heart is gone forever at the transfixing touch of pure love." [Yuktewar]
'Flux' is a central word here. It means among other things 'flow, moving on, change, and fluctuation'. 'Transfixed' should mean 'held motionless by or as if by piercing'.
This refers to Yogananda's Autobiography; you have to dig up the stories there: Speaking of Yogananda - after he had become a disciple of Yukteswar, who also told Yogananda that he loved him, Yogananda once ran away from him, hoping to gain enlightenment in the Himalayas. He was far from motionless -
Does the map (saying) fit the terrain (what happened between, say, Yukteswar and Yogananda? We do not think so, as Yukteswar allegedly had transfixed Yogananda at their first meeting, and told of his love for him.
Buddha on the other hand is credited with saying, "As a Tathagata [Awakened One] speaks, so he acts; as he acts, so he speaks." That is good! [Buddha (Catukka Nipata Pali 23)]"
Or maybe Yukteswar meant that his own heartfelt divine love could not adjust to the sins of pet disciples, because he was steady? But not up to the situations? It is hard to be a "love-machine".

"Roam the world as a lion of self-control; don't let the frogs of weakness kick you around." [Yukteswar]
COMMENT. Self-control (sound discipline) may help you if it ties in with fit instructions for living. Good company may help you too, And a way to walk also. Thus there is the Teachings, the Sangha, the Path. One should refrain from limiting oneself to one's loss. That counts too.
Peeling the pep-talk imagery aside, Yukteswar says, "have self-control; don't let weakeness get the best of you." The question is whether it is fit self-control we talk of. First of all, accept what you are. If you want to develop or improve yourself, be yourself too. You may have to go deep for it. A lion is a killer by instincts. It ambushes and slays innocent animals, operating in flocks. That is parts of its so-called self-control. But Yukteswar encourages vegetarianism.
Much in modern society calls for curbing of naturalness in humans, and wholeheartedness may come to suffer through it in time. Freud has written a book about the unpleasantness of the culture. There are good sides and bad sides to it. Victorian moral reflects the stilted, stultifying and neurosis-making feigning and putting on airs that often is mistaken for culture, even high culture. Thus, so-called self-control is at times quite opposed to acting naturally. Whatever it is, go for getting the best of it, and get victorious enough to relax enough.
On some occasions Yukteswar himself was far from living up to keeping a stiff upper lip. In one, he could not compose himself when a friend of his died. And when a pet disciple had given in to bad habits, Yukteswar asked Yogananda to get rid of him; getting rid of a former favourite disciple was much too hard for Yukteswar himself. A bright, young villager became Yukteswar's favourite, but after the favourite had succumbed to vices, "Master summoned me and brokenheartedly discussed the fact that the boy was now unsuited to the monastic hermitage life.
"Mukunda, I'll leave it to you to instruct Kumar to leave the ashram tomorrow; I cannot do it!" Tears stood in Sri Yukteswar's eyes. [MORE]
We should not be taken in by swelling citations or orations. And stunting one's emotions and other facets of one's higher life is not asserting oneself enough where it counts, either, but quite a danger to many.
Human assertiveness needs to be coupled to what does not encourage degeneration. There are self-help books with tips and tricks on to assert oneself in a culture dominated by big firms and their assertive bosses. It cmight be good to learn some delicate techniques to assert yourself properly, and free from gross manipulation . Also, see where the money go and who benefits as you want to live better. Conform assertiveness training looks suspect.
One should not ignore the need for sane protection as he works to lessen deep-seated insecurity, which is a problem for many American students, as detected by Professor Philip Zimbardo [LINK]. There are books that go for teaching you "to ask for what you want in life and get it with Assertiveness Training". [Cf Edo]
Yukteswar's disciple Yogananda refused to marry. Setting aside the expressed wishes of his father, Christ [so called by Yogananda], Bhagabati, Yogananda did not pay attention to: "In marriage, being the right person is as important as finding the right person [Stephen Jay Gould]". However, if two persons are not compatible in the first place, striving only for an amount of self-assertiveness is not so smart.
Proper assertiveness is quite an art. Some lower facets of the assertiveness art may be trained, but not by taming, and higher facets of fit assertiveness may not be directed from those outside and bystanders. Heuristically tinged monitoring of oneself could bring many advantages. Some are found in Choosing Success, a book with a good and benevolent outlook. [Suc]
Don't discard or dismiss yourself and your own brains for your conform education and training. Find the conditions for getting into higher activitives of learning; that could help a fare too, according to Benjamin Bloom and others [LINK]. Being stout helps a lot too, for people tend to justify their self-conceptions and much else to what they have the guts to realise and stick to in their way of living. Being told things we cannot do anything about, seldom helps.

"Everything in the future will improve if you are making a spiritual effort now." [Yukteswar]
COMMENT. He who decreed it, had longed for a son to train in yoga. But even after great successes in yoga, Yukteswar still did not have any son.
About his guru, called Lahiri Baba: "His stalwart body developed a small boil on the back." He did his kriya, but died anyway. It happens to so many . . .
Swiss-born Brother Anandamoy, a direct disciple of Yogananda in SRF, once told at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles during the SRF convocation in 1971 that Yogananda suffered too as he was nearing death, and said it was for the sake of disciples. "And then he looked at me!" said Anandamoy.
In Yogananda's Man's Eternal Quest too we can read that Yogananda suffered when a wishing well of cast concrete "accidentally slipped and fell with all its terrific weight on my foot". The pain was terrible, he says, and his foot seemed completely mashed. He was carried to his room where "Day by day the pain in my leg became almost unbearable." [Ak 377-78]
"Everything will improve because it won't" - wasn't that the teaching?
Will anything bad in future improve its badness if you are making a spiritual effort now? Hopefully not. The teeth you lost many years ago, what does it matter if they improve today? And what the bad soup you got two years ago? Is it so sure that it will improve? Yukteswar's saying generalises. And things that are OK already, need no improvement.
Frankly, people put trust or faith in sayings of Yukteswar on the authority of Yogananda, the guru, or due to massed faith. "Don't believe everything you hear" is a sensible saying. But do go for merits in this life for the future, teaches Buddha. One should do good and cherish one's own life, but not succumb to exaggerated and unrealistic notions of profits either [LINK].
Yukteswar is at least partly in tune with Buddha's higher teachings right here. [LINK]

Divine Mother Could Not Stay - Being with Yogananda's Disciples Was too Hard

At the SRF Headquarters

Have you ever considered that where people talk much of 'divine' and 'God ' - whatever is of highest renown - there could be a dire need for it lurking in the background somewhere? The farther away from the Light, the greater the need for Light? Or like empty barrels making much sound as the "cry for Divine Mother"? In The Science of Religion [Scp?] there is this tenet: "We pray to the Divine when we are in a pucker." To the degree that is true - granting there are many other outlooks that are valid for investigations too - monasteries may be full of secretly materialistic or god-less persons.
Impossible? There is still more to learn from Yogananda in the matter: During his all-day Christmas meditation at the SRF Headquarters, surrounded by his close, monastic disciples, "The Divine Mother appeared to him and the awed disciples heard him speaking to her. Many times he exclaimed, "Oh, You are so beautiful!" But suddenly he cried: "Don't go! You say the subconscious material desires of these people are driving You away? Oh, come back! Come back!" [Say 74]
The Divine Mother could be driven away, we are taught; by his close disciples who were materialists in hiding. Secret materialists may bring about their desires for wealth, publicity, and other facets and assets of materialistic living as time goes by, including a stupid cult.

Where they speak of God on their side, suspect something fishy anyway

"First behave vilely, next drag God into it as your partner, boss, and so on and claim God is on your side, and blesses your side - and you do God's work, for example." Many misuse "God" in an authoritarian structure that goes against mature sharing of the good sides to life. Some who do this, go on behaving terribly. The teaching that "The boss is to your loss," is an ancient teaching from 1 Samuel 8 throughout the history of mankind. It reflects that many bosses tend to go for their own gains at the expense of subjects and neighbours. The desire for heavy profits has to be curbed in vile ones. "Hoist up the sail while the gale does last" is another teaching. [Ap 245]. Try to combine them in your living.
As for followers of this and that who put much effort into appearances and backing up their god-bosses, it may be appropriate to suspect they hail themselves invertedly, indirectly, by projections and whatever: After all, "It takes one to know one." Indirectly they say they are godlike themselves - Where they claim me to be God himself and then succumb to following me in bigoted ways, they indirectly say, "I have it in me too, now give it to me!" Something like that may be feared. Against unseasoned greed for great and easy gains, Buddha says the disciple is not to believe him foolishly, but work his own way up, adjusting to his teachings. [LINK]
Be yourself and refrain from commiting yourself to an unwelcome and inferior role under abusing others. Opposite to that, to the degree that verbal baits resound deep inside you, you could be in for fumbling a lot. Look to the fish. Their bait is in essence a part of a plot. Jesus told his chosen disciples to fish men. And the shepherd makes a living of shearing and slaughtering his sheep at the proper time.
"How much more valuable is a man than a sheep!" [Matthew 12:12] "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." [Mark 2:17]. Accordingly, don't be an "ill sheep", be a worthy human. See what happens to fish and sheep that are taken by fishermen or taken care of by good shepherds (bosses). They are used up as gains. So be on your guard.

Out of Darkness: Some Sensible Advice

Go against taming, for "the great ones tend tame others" to make them conform to "games" and ways of living the profit from on behalf of others. The subjected ones from then on live in a strange kind of half-symbiosis with their cheered leaders and hail the queen as fanatics, whether she deserves it or not, for example. Subjects get too concerned with roles, decor and stiff, formal rules of etiquette, it may be added.
There are other sayings of antiquity than boss sayings. Proverbs are among such sayings. Some are helpful, but the majority of such sayings may not be helpful.
The character of cultists needs to be strengthened fitly. And getting onto the way of heaven makes successes.
Some cults are bad, but the large society is built on corporate greed and sustaining markets these days. Marketing experts of much unneeded cosmetics, hair cream, and the like gain billions yearly from talking to the deep insecurity around and its corollary: following fashion whims in conformity. In the West there are so many unnecessary things to buy, things that add very little help to a life. And more is called for in a successful life than shows and inconsistent activities.
Look at what really takes place and never mind as you go about minding your own essential business. Remember to ask for evidence first for this and that, so as to avoid succumbing to marring faith over and over, or unfit, idealised teachings.
Look at the bigwigs and note the difference between their cherished sayings and what they lived up to or act on. Bear in mind Buddha's sincere, "You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person will not be found: You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection." May we add "you yourself deserve a good share of the fruits of your good efforts" to that.
Be bold but not imprudent so as to improve your standards of living, your residence, and do not give away hard-gained assets to cults or churches out of inculcated belief that serves top-dogs on your behalf. Do not automatically believe in traditions and authority figures. Compare: [LINK].
If a statement or lesson works for good nearly always, acting sensibly on it could be fit in the long run, but there is no automatic guarantee of success in such cases. So "Don't put all your eggs in one basket" to be more on the safe side where it matters.
Searching carefully for the settings or circumstances where a grand-looking theory or statement could work strongly to your advantage, is in the art of living. Verifications of this and that can be had at different levels of significance. Statistics serve to give alternatives to "maybe" and "hopefully". "Most likely" is better than "likely", and "very probably" is better than "probably", for example. Thus, learn to grade possibilities to your ability, to help you as to trends in the long run, or to gauge odds.
Be quite guarded in the public space, to be on the safe side. Fame can be dangerous too.
There is much you can do to improve your lot if you get access to fine instructions and perhaps neat equipment and tools too.
A man who believes in great promises with next to nothing substantial in and behind them, could need to reflect better and get rid of stupid attachments.
A person's life space - his subjective evaluation of goals and the environment - at least co-determines his behaviour [cf Sop 10]. So how sect followers subjectively interpret reality - having many parts told to them - determines their beliefs and behavours. You could lose straight, common sense, reciprocal deals, and much else valuable by degrees if you dispense with realism and calculating. Good theory can be great help where "There is nothing so practical as a good theory," as Kurt Lewin said [Sop 11]."
Let charity starts at home, and assume little.
If you find yourself deep in a sect, be guarded and seek to get out of there as well as you can.
If things are lenient or fit for it, build good assets to improve your lot in life. You may try to help yourself, but it may not be possible. Learn to gauge odds before you go for anything.

Literature
Ak: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Man's Eternal Quest. New ed. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1986.
Ap: Mieder, Wolfgang (main ed.), 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: Philosophical Library, 1946. Online. [oaks.nvg.org/pv6bk12.html]
Edo: Fensterheim, Herbert, and Jean Baer. Don't Say "Yes" When You Want To Say "No". London: Futura, 1976.
Hos: Sri Yukteswar, swami. The Holy Science. 7th ed. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF), 1972.
Pa: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Autobiography of a Yogi. 11th ed. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF), 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.
Sop: Smith, Eliot R., and Diane M. Mackie. Social Psychology. 2nd ed. Hove: Psychology Press, 2000.
Suc: Jongeward, Dorothy, and Philip Seyer. Choosing Success: Transactional Analysis on the Job. New York: Wiley, 1978.

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