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History Buff
Unregistered User
(9/8/01 9:28 pm)
Reply 		The Mormon Connection
How many of us are aware of how historical practices of the Mormon church have factored into SRF culture?

Is is an admitted truth that Mormon theology is the result of plagiarism from less-known parts of the Bible. When members began to suspect this, the Church of Latter Day Saints engaged the services of theology doctors who would make the problems stand up against contestation. The person most responsible for this was Orson Pratt. Now, as any SRF history buff knows, Orson was Laurie Pratt's grandfather. And Laurie Pratt became Tara Mata, editor-in-chief of SRF publications --- foremostly, the editor of Guruji's Autobiography of a Yogi.

To continue, Orson Pratt's job was to give an intellectual veneer to the false "channelings" of Joseph Smith. He did a marvelous job. A brilliant intellectual, can convince others that broken glass is diamonds. The Mormon church has taken great liberties in bending the truth whatever way it suits them.

Now enter Laurie Pratt (aka Tara Mata). Like grandfather, like granddaughter. Laurie was a Berkely graduate, a proficient practitioner of astrology, a persuasive public speaker, and a penetrating writer who, like her grandfather, had the ability to arrange words to achieve an effect. Is it possible that she might have tweaked Master's writings in order to empower SRF as growing organization? Did she strategize and calculate? We're we subjected to subtle propoganda? I think these are valid questions which should be answered. This is part of our legacy. We feed on SRF culture. And, as you know, you are what you eat.

Tara Mata was not SRF's sole Mormon connection. There's also Daya Mata, Ananda Mata, and Mrinalini Mata. Hmmm? Now that's serious. The four most powerful and influential people in our lives (besides Master) all share the same heritage. All of them nurtured by a false religion. All of them quite used to having truth bent to serve the church. All of them used to having a church validate itself through its material standing as well as faith and the absence of intellectual inquiry.

Disenchanted Mormons have the same trouble we do leaving their church. They're caught in a severe psychological bind where they feel their loyalty to their own welfare versus the church at cross purposes.

And forgive me for sounding scary, but any religious organization with professed ambitions to become a world influence is going to be under close scrutiny by intelligence agencies. Is it possible that our Board of Directors are conscious of this and are trying to shelter us from the real world so we can practice devotion in peace? That, in my opinion, would be both a blessing and a curse.

History Buff
Unregistered User
(9/8/01 9:31 pm)
Reply 		Links to explore
If the above article intrigues you, visit the following sites...

www.2think.org/
www.exmormon.org/

jlm
Unregistered User
(9/9/01 7:07 am)
Reply 		Links to Mormonism
Dear History Buff,

You have brought up some areas that I wondered about when I began to realize what SRF was "made of". I too was questioning the numbers of mormons that were instrumental in the beginning.

I have other questions along those lines:

Richard Wright went with Master to India and kept a diary. He was also the one who compiled the lessons. He was a mormon as was his mother and two sisters. Did he rearrange his writing to fit his thinking instead of Masters? Why is nothing ever mentioned about the father and husband of the Wright clan. Could it be he had other wives also?

There was an article recently in the New Times here in LA stating that Master had fathered a son and DNA testing was being done (under the sole auspices of SRF) to determine if this was true. The article also stated that Tara Mata alias Laurie Pratt had a daughter while she was a nun. No one is recorded as having been the father. What goes on here? Does more mormon thinking come into play here also?

The latest book giving Master's interputation of the bible has been done for over a year. It is being held up because of legalities involving the law suit with a man named Ben Erskine who says his father was Yogananda.
Obviously, there must be enough evidence to suggest this is true or SRF wouldn't be so scared about the copyrights which would then belong to Mr. Erskine since he would be Yogananda's closest living relative.

Someone else has written here about what happened after Rajarsi died. That person stated that Faye Wright was made president not by popular demand or by instructions from the ether, but because all the other mormons decided she would be president. The other mormons being all the Wrights and the Browns (Mrinalini and her mother). Making at least five in a group of few members.

In the autobiography, Faye recalls that when Master passed she felt the mantle come onto her. Then why was Rajarsi made president?

Why are years spent editing books? Revising them later?
Who does this? Mrinalini and Daya. It gets curiousier and curiousier!

Shadowman
Unregistered User
(10/14/01 5:42 am)
Reply 		What Mrinalini could learn from another Brown
Not everyone who goes to church is close-minded. Hugh P. Brown spoke for freedom of thought in the Mormon Church. I wonder if he was related to Mrinalini and Meera Mata who also had the same last name. If so, Mrinalini sure could learn a thing or two from this relative

QUOTE:
"We are grateful in the Church and in this great university that the freedom, dignity and integrity of the individual is basic in Church doctrine as well as in democracy. Here we are free to think and express our opinions. Fear will not stifle thought, as is the case in some areas which have not yet emerged from the dark ages. God himself refuses to trammel man's free agency even though its exercise sometimes teaches painful lessons. Both creative science and revealed religion find their fullest and truest expression in the climate of freedom.

I hope that you will develop the questing spirit. Be unafraid of new ideas for they are the stepping stones of progress. You will of course respect the opinions of others but be unafraid to dissent - if you are informed.

Now I have mentioned freedom to express your thoughts, but I caution you that your thoughts and expressions must meet competition in the market place of thought, and in that competition truth will emerge triumphant. Only error needs to fear freedom of expression. Seek truth in all fields, and in that search you will need at least three virtues; courage, zest, and modesty. The ancients put that thought in the form of a prayer. They said, 'From the cowardice that shrinks from new truth, from the laziness that is content with half truth, from the arrogance that thinks it has all truth - O God of truth deliver us'."

HUGH P. BROWN
Speech at BYU, March 29, 1958

Shadowman
Unregistered User
(10/14/01 5:44 am)
Reply 		Hugh P. Brown again
"We should continue to become acquainted with human experience through history and philosophy, science and poetry, art and religion... One of the most important things in the world is freedom of the mind; from this all other freedoms spring. Such freedom is necessarily dangerous, for one cannot think right without running the risk of thinking wrong, but generally more thinking is the antidote for the evils that spring from wrong thinking. More thinking is required, and we should all exercise our God-given right to think and be unafraid to express our opinions, with proper respect for those to whom we talk and proper acknowledgment of our own shortcomings.

"We must preserve freedom of the mind in the church and resist all efforts to suppress it. The church is not so much concerned with whether the thoughts of its members are orthodox or heterodox as it is that they shall have thoughts. One may memorize much without learning anything. In this age of speed there seems to be little time for meditation.

"And while all members should respect, support, and heed the teachings of the authorities of the church, no one should accept a statement and base his or her testimony upon it, no matter who makes it, until he or she has, under mature examination, found it to be true and worthwhile; then one's logical deductions may be confirmed by the spirit of revelation to his or her spirit, because real conversion must come from within... "

Musicman
Unregistered User
(11/20/01 2:16 pm)
Reply 		Master's children?
jlm has made a startling reference to Master's having possibly fathered a child. Could you, jlm, please provide the date of the New Times issue in which that appeared? You're absolutely right: SRF wouldn't take this seriously unless there were some plausibility. Anyone would be crazy to sue SRF if there weren't a shred of evidence. They could be countersued into oblivion, couldn't they? Libel, slander . . . I'd love to know what the tests reveal. Hopefully you will keep us posted.

jlm raised another good point: whatever happened to Faye's father? Was he such a wimp that he just let his family run off to LA to follow an Indian guru? What is it about males in the Wright family, anyway? I remember years ago Ma saying that she didn't like neckties and wished the monks wouldn't wear them. You don't have to be an expert on Freud to know that the necktie is a phallic symbol par excellence. Talk about emasculation! This fear and loathing directed towards men--except Master, who was, after all, very androgynous--is a key to the way they treat the monks (though they're also hard on the nuns).

I believe that polygamy was outlawed as a condition of Utah's admission into the union. But it's still practiced by some people in more remote areas.

As for Tara Mata, that's a real mindbender. If you examine the old East-West magazines, you will see ads for horoscope readings by Laurie Pratt. The ads list a PO box in Atlanta, GA, where inquiries should be sent. What connection did she have with Georgia? SRF is like a huge onion, and peeling away the layers of propaganda, subterfuge, and deceit is absolutely fascinating--and incredibly disappointing. How were we so easily gulled into this? My excuse--I was young, naive, and frightened of becoming an adult (which means confronting and embracing your mortality). Will I be able to salvage anything of my spiritual life after this exercise is finished?

Another Ex
Unregistered User
(11/20/01 9:12 pm)
Reply 		Tara Mata
Acutally, the Mata's are harder on the nuns than on the nuns--and this is coming from an ex-monk.

The monks have much more liberty than the nuns. Our sisters on the inside are like prisoners in solitary confinement. There are precious few who are trusted even to cross the street by themselves. They are not allowed to go on camping or extended hiking trips. It's pitiful. Seems the matas are into controlling the women more than the men.

RE: Tara Mata.
She left the ashram after a few years at Mount Washington and returned to Atlanta, where she had her child. When Master came back from India, he knew he needed her help again and proclaimed: "I'm going to get Laurie back."

I don't know why she left. Does anyone have the inside scoop on that?

Fidelity
Unregistered User
(11/20/01 11:56 pm)
Reply 		Tara Mata
Who knocked her up?

Musicman
Unregistered User
(11/28/01 1:01 pm)
Reply 		Laurie, preggers
Mein Gott im Himmel! I . . . just don't know what to say--for blessed once! This is the woman who edited the AY. This was the "lion of God" who declared she could refute any argument and was ferocious in defense of the work, the one who said monastics didn't need to think, the BOD would do that for them. She attacked anyone who was trecherous or disloyal to SRF. Master said he didn't allow her to meditate because she'd be in samadhi all the time, etc., etc., etc., ad nauseam. Forerunner of a new race, blah, blah, blah. I'm no puritan, and during my ultradevotional years, long ago it now seems, I was frustrated, guilt-ridden, and embarrassed by my attraction to and dalliance with the opposite sex. I needn't have felt so bad. It would have been easier for me to accept myself and change GRADUALLY if I had known that the SRF idols (even Master himself?) had clay feet. Instead, we get these marble statues, unassailable in their absolute perfection. Baloney!

I guess this could be viewed in different ways: 1) how wonderfully understanding and forgiving Master was of human weakness; 2) how much he was willing to overlook someone's shortcomings if they had something valuable to offer him; 3) how much different things are now, given the ultra-repressive sexual enviornment of the ashram (where, per Master's own teaching on the subject, touch is considered the most dangerous of the senses); 4) how this conflicts with the disdain for "primal mud" littered throughout the teachings. Of course, no one says he condoned the sexual escapade and pregnancy, but in typical Hollywood fashion, she chose to deprive the kid of its birth mother and not let it interfere with her sadhana. Whatever happened to it? Maybe it was put up for adoption. Some things are worse than having a child out of wedlock, like not assuming responsibility for it.

Of course, none of this is ever made known by SRF. So we develop these wildly unrealistic expectations of "saints" whose real lives we know nothing of. When we find out, there's only one way to go--down. Does anyone else find him/herself to be hoping that the DNA tests are positive and that Ben Erskine really is Master's son? The picture would then be complete.

Been there
Unregistered User
(11/28/01 8:55 pm)
Reply 		Tara Mata's child
Do you know for certain that she abandoned her daughter? Some distant memory, maybe just gossip, leads me to believe this was not the case.
As far as hoping that Master had a child, I can understand your point. It would be somehow a relief, a help in leaving all the mythology and perfectionism behind. But I can leave it behind anyway, renouncing the need for any intermediary between me and Love.

Musicman
Unregistered User
(11/29/01 11:29 am)
Reply 		Jumping to conclusions
Good point, Been There. It's very tempting to jump to conclusions, and we don't know what her relationship with her daughter was or what role she played in her life. There's another intriguing thread going now about Cindy Davis in the Legal Department. People are wondering how it is someone can leave the ashram ("traitor," right?) and then be brought back in as a trusted lieutenant. Well, it worked for Laurie during Master's regime. And we have to remember that Jesus forgave Mary Magdalene for her sordid past and allowed her to get close to him (in fact, during the Middle Ages there was a legend that she had a child by him). Anyway, we don't want to spread and amplify rumors. But I'm still savoring this. There is a bit of the iconoclast in those of us reading and contributing regularly to this board, and iconclasts love to see icons get smashed (the meaning of the word). It's perverse, but also liberating. But you're right: we don't have to wait for the skeleton to pop out of the closet, we can be free of idol worship right now.

Raja Begum
Unregistered User
(11/29/01 1:28 pm)
Reply 		From one Iconoclast to Another...Dear Musicman...
You nasty Idealist, you!! :evil

.....and an excellent writer!!! Hope we get a chance to meet some time.

Spi
Unregistered User
(11/29/01 2:35 pm)
Reply 		Leaving and returning
When did all these fun graphics happen? Did I miss something not checking in very often?

Leaving the ashram and coming back to help should be the normal thing. Cindy's case is weird because usually when people leave the bad ladies don't let them come back. People leave and don't usually even want to come back. ;) The place has a really negative impact on people. If you are reading this and don't know that, I am surprised you are reading this!

Two women, now making serious problems for SRF, are exceptions. I wonder what that means.

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