>
SRF Walrus
Mt. Washington, Ca
Open discussions about SRF
Gold Community SRF Walrus
    > Core Issues
        > Why we feel guilt		 New Topic    Add Reply

<< Prev Topic | Next Topic >>
Author Comment
Amidala of Coruscant
Registered User
(7/27/03 2:46 pm)
Reply 		Why we feel guilt
I think I understand why we all struggle with trying to find the balance between our inner connection to Master's kriya blessings and the outer issue with the organization.

The reason we struggle with so much guilt while trying to find our own unique path to the Lord yet still with Master's kriya blessings, is because we have been told over and over again that the SRF work was something Master was very particular about and that he wanted absolute loyalty to the work in order to get the full blessing of kriya. I am still struggling with this part as I learn to embrace my own path along with still doing the kriya routine and to combine the two feeling the assurance that I still am getting Master's blessing.

Didn't Master expect total loyalty to the organization or maybe is it more that he counseled certain people to be loyal to that organization because that's what he knew they needed for their spiritual growth whereas he might have told someone else the very opposite and to venture out because that was were their work and mission both for themselves and for others needed to be accomplished? And then maybe SRF only published the sayings of Master that had him counseling on loyalty to the work and SRF made those the public writings to make it the same advice for everyone?

Because we want to feel assured we are still blessed, we often may feel guilt and struggle to leave the outer work because of how maybe Master did in fact quote to a few people that advice but then SRF made us think that Master was talking to ALL of us exactly the same that anyone who left the organization would be doomed for eternity. But the fact is, for example, he would encourage one devotee to get married because that is what she needed for her path, and then counseled another devotee to completely renounce the idea of marriage---another example, Master would tell one person to mix more with others and to another person, he would counsel them to be alone more with God.

ranger20
Registered User
(7/28/03 11:34 am)
Reply 		Re: Why we feel guilt
Amidala,

This certainly belongs in the Core Issues folder - it has to be one of the biggest stumbling blocks for SRF people at that point where the organization ceases to be a good fit.

The equation of loyalty to Master = loyalty to SRF harks back to the pre-reformation Catholic Church, "no salvation outside of the One Church!

Some time ago, I saw on this board, the assertion that it was not until 1960 that people were required to renounce other church memberships, and join "SRF Church" to receive Kriya. Can anyone on the Walrus substantiate this? Because if this is true, it was a deliberate move to use Kriya as membership carrot (and guilt the whip) that came well after both Master and Rajarsi.

Here's a rhetorical question: how many people in SRF do you know who make their way in the world with a self-respect and self-esteem based on their trust and positive relationship with a God of infinite love, acceptance and compassion?

Well I do know a few Christians, and a few more recovered alchoholics who fit that description, but I think collectively that SRF people are pretty riddled with self guilt. And I do not believe this was the intent of a master whose chief disciple called him an "incarnation of divine love."

I keep feeling that some kind of perversion of Master's intent for the role of the organization has occured.

username
Registered User
(7/28/03 2:09 pm)
Reply 		Re: Why we feel guilt
I'm always beating myself up for stuff that isn't my fault. I didn't always do this. How do you stop? What was it that SRF told us that makes us do this?

Amidala of Coruscant
Registered User
(7/28/03 2:46 pm)
Reply 		Re: Why we feel guilt
I am working through this right now. SRF tells us how wrong it is to have certain emotions and feelings and makes it sound like Master is saying it all and that only the chakras above the heart level are good.

It makes it sound like if we have any emotions, then we're falling on the path. Here is an example. I went through a period where I felt just plain resentment that I have to go to work and that period lasted a long time (was tied with other issues of course) but when I look back on that time, I realize it's a good thing I experienced that negative feeling because now I am able to very deeply understand the heart of the children who don't want to wake up in the morning and would rather just do what they want and not have to do their school work. Now I am able to help kids through these angry resentful feelings and they even hug me for it beccause I've been there and they know I'm for real and I know that that period was part of my growth so I could help others. So really I am now questioning why is it that SRF makes Master say all our emotions feelings and attachments are the lower emotions....when perhaps some of these times are what make us grow more spiritually.

ranger20
Registered User
(7/28/03 4:27 pm)
Reply 		Re: Why we feel guilt
username:
Quote:
I'm always beating myself up for stuff that isn't my fault. I didn't always do this. How do you stop? What was it that SRF told us that makes us do this


It's not, of course, just "something they told us," that would be easy (or easier). "I'm not okay" is a pervasive message in the American culture (schools, corporations, advertising come right to mind, as institutions that control behavior through the message of inadequacy), and since the days of the Puritains, religious guilt has been as American as apple pie, or maybe even preceeded it to these shores.

So I sometimes think of an analogy to a garden. If I transplant something to a soil heavy in this or that kind of mineral, the plant can't help but absorb it. Similarily, SRF was "transplanted" into a "soil" where puritain-like guilt has been an element of our religious institutions for centuries.

Well, that's the way I think when I'm not in the mood to blame. Yet I do believe that Paramahansa Yogananda's love and compassion have been pretty effectively masked by the organization. I have an increasingly hard time finding those qualities, and for masking that compassion for other ends, I think there's probably a pretty heavy karmic debt to be paid. As my wife, who hasn't even read the Walrus put it yesterday, "this just isn't the SRF we joined 20 years ago."

One writer I enjoy wrote:
Quote:
Justification by grace through faith means that I know myself accepted by God as I am. When my head is enlightened and my heart is pierced by this truth, I can accept myself as I am. Genuine self-acceptance is not derived from the power of positive thinking, mind-games, or pop psychology. It is an act of faith in the God of grace.
-- Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel


I don't think that's a description of the God image most in SRF carry around with them! As far as what to do about this, I find it a long term battle, and the people on the Walrus are unexpected allies I found this spring. Part of it, for me, has been a process of just getting angry, kind of a slow burn at being deceived in such an intimite place, as my spiritual aspirations. Contrary to being an all "bad" emotion, anger, when focused, can carry a lot of energy, a lot of leverage for change. I don't quite know where it's going yet, but I know one place where it's not going, is back the way it used to be.

This is a great thread, I know I have more to say about it, but not right at this moment.

Edited by: ranger20 at: 7/28/03 7:25 pm
etzchaim
Registered User
(7/29/03 8:25 am)
Reply 		Re: Why we feel guilt
Perhaps there is a lot of Dualism in SRF. Some of this may be the Western traditions themselves, or it may be something that became a mishap within SRF itself.

I was thinking about this last night. In the world of the Creation, you have the positive side and the negative side. One side could not exist without the other. If there is an extreme stress on the positive, then the shadow side, the negative, is going to show up as well and vice versa for an extreme stress on the negative.

In a Monist system, the positive and negative are viewed as two parts of the same thing. Emotions can be positive or negative, even within themselves, say, love, for instance, even spiritual love, can express itself in both a positive and a negative way, and hatred can be both positive and negative, as well.

I can't help but think that some of what Yogananda taught has been misapplied - the issue of having emotions is an example. Instead of neutralizing emotional states, including the positive emotions as well as the negative, there is a judgment cast on the 'negative' ones, and a 'polarity' develops to defend the conscious self from the offending emotion. This doesn't get rid of the emotion, it will push it into the unconscious, so that either it is projected onto other people, or turns into a 'voice' in the head that 'attacks' the self, or even appears to be a separate entity within the person (akin to "possession") that 'says bad things' or whatever. This type of phenomena can be seen very clearly in the projection of the 'devil' onto particular types of people or groups in the history of Christianity, and in a very recent tragedy where a 'voice' 'told' a woman to kill her children and the people who know her have described her as a model church going woman who could never have done such a thing.

It seems to me that by accepting the 'negative' side, not judging it, and working with it, along with the 'positive' (which also needs to be neutralized) both sides can then be brought into the center (Shelley would call this 'collapsing Ida and Pingala') and then transmuted into divine energy and lifted.

The pattern in SRF seems to be to separate the two sides, and project the shadow, or to turn on oneself and attack, causing depression, and even suicidal tendencies.

Etz

Edited by: etzchaim at: 7/29/03 9:32 am
soulcircle
Registered User
(7/29/03 8:29 am)
Reply 		Please, SRF Walrus, thank you
Hello Guests and All,

SRF Walrus or anyone, please hyperlink the four or five posts immediately above to Links To Really Good Threads

When friends/people
Express Kindness
Express Caring

Walking in Each others
mocassins
The world has
more co-operative families

When Feelings
of civility
Weave with
Healing Thoughts

Many random
act of kindness

Many senseles
acts of beauty

Inspire one and all
To better community/ies

to guilt-free postings
and communitycircle/s

Edited by: soulcircle at: 7/29/03 8:33 am
soulcircle
Registered User
(7/29/03 8:35 am)
Reply 		ranger20
thank goodness for rhetorical questiona

etzchaim
Registered User
(7/29/03 9:14 am)
Reply 		Re: Why we feel guilt
I have to add that I think it is true that Yogananda would have tailored his teaching to individuals and what has happened in SRF may be a distilling of his teaching, a picking and choosing of specific 'teachings' that have been chosen for reasons that may subconsciously been part of a collective shadow (of the leaders within SRF) and it's been snow-balling.

The remedy, I think, is to stop judging oneself, and start observing, allowing the 'shadow' to emerge and then allow the positive and negative parts to neutralize each other. The problem is that in order to do this, people will need to accept parts of themselves they have been told are 'bad', either by SRF or from the backgrounds they come from, and if any of you talk about it with people caught up in the dualist pattern of thinking, you will again be told that you are 'bad', so it becomes a catch-22 situation, which is why it's been snow-balling in the first place, so make sure you are talking to either a good therapist, or someone who is not caught up in a judgmental spiritual path.

Etz

Amidala of Coruscant
Registered User
(7/29/03 12:03 pm)
Reply 		Re: Why we feel guilt
Your post sums up everything my therapist is tellling me today. One of the common threads that runs through "recovering" devotees is the obssessive need to have people approve of them and "give permission" to feel that what they're doing is okay. My therapist was telling me that that is my main issues on the spiritual path that keeps me stuck--the need to have people approve of me---just like how we always learned in SRF that if the MC didn't approve of something we do, we were wrong and therefore God didn't approve either.

ranger20
Registered User
(7/29/03 12:09 pm)
Reply 		Re: Why we feel guilt
Quote:
what has happened in SRF may be a distilling of his teaching, a picking and choosing of specific 'teachings' that have been chosen for reasons that may subconsciously been part of a collective shadow (of the leaders within SRF) and it's been snow-balling.


I'm pretty sure that something like this has to be at work. I think it's pretty well accepted that "perfectionism" is a self-defeating mode of operation in any endeavor, because the individual can never meet their own standards, and the anxiety this causes tends to negatively impact even what they can do.

I think SRF has been over time, selectively printing writings, or quoting them on tapes and in talks, that fosters this perfectionist attitude in spiritual life.

That's part of why I keep conceiving of the situation in terms of "grace vs. works." No matter what my criteria (number of Kriyas, number of good emotions, hours of service etc) if I imagine I have to somehow earn the love of God and Guru, I can't possibly do enough, and even if one day, I do manage to pitch a spiritual "no hitter," I know I'm not going to be able to do it tomorrow. If I have to earn the regard and respect of God I'm inevitably going to find myself to be a looser, and find that God is untrustworthy, because if I slip up, He's outta here!

If I cannot trust God and Guru, then my spiritual life effectively stops right there, and the humblest "bullock cart" churchgoer who does trust God is probably in a much better place than I am, regardless of of how good my Kriyas are!

I think that coming to believe that God completely accepts me just the way I am is probably the most important spiritual task I have. Then I have a foundation to grow from over time. Which toddler has the best chance of learning to walk, the one whose parent understands that falling down is part of the process, or the one whose parent yells at him when he stumbles?

I really believe that much of the editing of Yoganandaji's work serves to create the image of the latter kind of parent as "God," and it's probably good to consider it a manafestation of the neuroses of the leadership.

Quote:
The remedy, I think, is to stop judging oneself, and start observing, allowing the 'shadow' to emerge and then allow the positive and negative parts to neutralize each other. The problem is that in order to do this, people will need to accept parts of themselves they have been told are 'bad', either by SRF or from the backgrounds they come from, and if any of you talk about it with people caught up in the dualist pattern of thinking, you will again be told that you are 'bad', so it becomes a catch-22 situation, which is why it's been snow-balling in the first place, so make sure you are talking to either a good therapist, or someone who is not caught up in a judgmental spiritual path


Some 10+ years ago I got a masters in psychology, and one of the requirements was a year of personal psychotherapy. I wound up working 3 years with a Jungian, and one of the biggest battles I had was to get beyond labeling my emotions as good or bad, and feeling responsible for them. I finally came to understand that I am responsible for my actions, but much of the content of consciousness, emotion, thought, impressions, etc, has a kind of automatic and autonomous nature. Jung himself wrote of discovering that many of his thoughts were not "things he did," but were like "animals you meet while walking through a forest."

One of the most effective ways of dealing with the actual flow of thought and emotion, is, as you say, to just observe. This is to take a page from the Buddhist's insight meditation. If I begin to dispassionately watch, either in meditation or action, the moment by moment flow of thoughts, feelings and memories, I discover some really interesting things. The very "best" and the very "worst" of emotions or thoughts rise and then fall. I begin to detach, and take my thoughts and emotions more lightly, while just naturally coming into the awareness that "I" am not the contents of consciousness.

I worked at that for a while when I was reading Thich Nhat Hahn, and it was very valuable. I also got a chuckle that year hearing one of the SRF senior monastics quoting one of Hahn's illustrations almost verbatim at a Convocation talk. I'll guarantee that some of the monastics read "works of other teachers!"

Amidala of Coruscant
Registered User
(7/29/03 6:08 pm)
Reply 		Re: Why we feel guilt
Quote:

if I imagine I have to somehow earn the love of God and Guru, I can't possibly do enough, and even if one day, I do manage to pitch a spiritual "no hitter," I know I'm not going to be able to do it tomorrow. If I have to earn the regard and respect of God I'm inevitably going to find myself to be a looser, and find that God is untrustworthy, because if I slip up, He's outta here!

I think this is the main issue especially with the more sincere devotees. We forget that our relationship with God is totallly about being loved and accepted for who we are. It is not about constantly having this fear of, "Am I doing this right, Lord? Will you accept this, Lord?" When you truly feel secure in someone's love, you don't go constantly asking those questions or as I have done so much, seeking everyone else's justification and approval that what you're doing and how you're relating to the one you love is okay.

While we want to improve ourselves and be in tune by making the right choices, we really do tend to beat ourselves up too much and forget that He is the one Who wants to love us.

etzchaim
Registered User
(7/31/03 12:43 pm)
Reply 		Re: Why we feel guilt
Ranger20, you wrote: "Jung himself wrote of discovering that many of his thoughts were not "things he did," but were like "animals you meet while walking through a forest.""

Thats a great way to look at thoughts. I just bought the remake of 'Alice in Wonderland', which also works along the same line as "animals you meet...". Some of my thoughts are like running into Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum...

Looking at emotional states like that is probably useful too.
Emotions flow in and out just like thoughts do, but we're not our emotions. I've noticed that I go through regular patterns of feeling unstable about money issues. It really doesn't seem to be related to actual external situations, but when I get caught up in that emotional state, I start to do things, or fail to do things that have an effect on my work and financial life. I think needing to feel loved or approved of, which Amidala is bringing up, is very similar. If we don't feel lovable, or if we feel that there is something innately wrong with us, then we can more easily accept other people telling us that we are doing something wrong and need their approval. Getting attached to that feeling of depression, that "I'm not loved" is where the issue lies. We aren't our emotional states, we're Light and Consciousness, but have become attached to the thoughts and emotions we have, believing that that's who we are.

We can say that Yogananda was an incarnation of Divine Love, but it's also true that each one of us is also an incarnation of Divine Love. The difference between Yogananda and many of us is that he REALIZED he was an incarnation of Divine Love, and we are still trying to uncover that within us. If it's difficult to say "I am also an incarnation of Divine Love", try adding "but I'm only just beginning to realize it". That takes the sting off :)

What makes us alive is the Divine energy that flows through us. We can call it love, consciousness, will, energy, or whatever. The task we have is to detach ourselves from the temporary flux and flow of thoughts and emotions and attach ourselves to the Divine flow of love and consciousness that we really are.

Etz.

Edited by: etzchaim at: 7/31/03 12:45 pm
dawnrays
Registered User
(8/3/03 10:05 am)
Reply 		Re: Why we feel guilt
True Believer,

Once when I was living on the east coast, I called Mother Center to get counseling from a nun. I didn't identify myself and either did she, but I recognized her voice as Sister Parvati as I had heard her lecture in person.

I wanted advice on a relationship I was in, whether it was "right" or "wrong". She assured me that it was positive and that there was a strong past life connection and not to end it. She also told me to "go with my heart".

She had no background information on me other than the few things I mentioned on the phone about it. I later wrote to Daya Ma about the same thing and a similar thing happened.

As a result I did not end the relationship and it has had a long term positive effect on my life.

I also felt like this was an initiation.

dawnrays

<< Prev Topic | Next Topic >>

Add Reply

Email This To a Friend Email This To a Friend
Topic Control Image Topic Commands
Click to receive email notification of replies Click to receive email notification of replies
Click to stop receiving email notification of replies Click to stop receiving email notification of replies
jump to:

- SRF Walrus - Core Issues -



Powered By ezboardŽ Ver. 7.32
Copyright Š1999-2005 ezboard, Inc.