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SRF Walrus > Core Issues > After the Kriya practice
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aVulcanThinker Registered User (9/6/02 10:44 am) Reply	After the Kriya practice I found this post buried in another topic, but I believe it warrants its own thread: *Quote:* The refinement of the nervous system through the practice of Kriya seems to be real in my opinion. Anandamoy is a linear thinker. He has said that Kriya works like mathematics and certainly the "mechanistic" / energetic aspects of it do produce results. But, if one practices the technique of Kriya successfully without employing the gained experience in positive creative expansion and utilization of conciousness, then one may become merely a sensitive radar dish which may pick up any higher power. Some of those higher powers are not godly, and one might accidently think they are because of the exalted feeling. E=mc2 ... formula for good or evil? Depends HOW it is used. This is heavy stuff, and seems to me an important insight. One of the most difficult things to understand, for many of us, is how people ostensibly practicing Yoga for many years could still behave so poorly. I believe the key is in retaining responsibility and humility. The leadership of SRF has thrown away their reasoning capability. Indeed, they disparage and ridicule it. This has removed an important governor on behavior. And once they started on the slippery slope, it became harder and harder to turn back. True introspection would force them to confront their years of abusive behavior, and the prospect is just too painful.
username Registered User (9/6/02 1:06 pm) Reply	Re: After the Kriya practice E=mc2 Are you aware that this formular is now considered to not be valid by some scientists?
Gitano no divino Registered User (9/6/02 1:21 pm) Reply	Re: After the Kriya practice Good point, VulcanThinker. The obverse is also useful to contemplate: how is it possible that there are people of genuine compassion and wisdom who have never meditated and know nothing of it (I'm not interested in the pseudo-argument that they must have meditated in a past life)? Now, I know that many scientific studies prove the beneficial psycho-physiological aspects of meditation (depending, I suppose, on what kind of meditation you're doing). So, in terms of stress relief, general health, and mental well-being, there is no doubt about the benefits of meditation, in my mind. However, we are talking here about the cultivation of morals and ethics. Even if we could all agree on what moral and ethical behavior is, I've seen no evidence anywhere, in research or personal experience, to suggest that meditation necessarily makes a person more thoughtful, compassionate, serviceful, honest, hard-working, fair, law-abiding, etc., etc., etc. In fact, my observation is that people who meditate a lot can become listless and self-absorbed. They may develop narcissistic traits and, over time, become convinced of their spiritual superiority to the extent that they can rationalize almost any kind of behavior. This is clearly the case with the ruling elites of SRF, and I would say with former SRF elites like so-called Swami Kriyana-da. I think it's important to separate these issues, to develop realistic expectations from yoga and, ultimately, from ourselves. One of my chief objections to SRF teachings is that they cultivate wildly inflated and impossibly lofty expectations, which can only lead to disillusionment and feelings of guilt and inadequacy. It is actually quite a relief to realize that the BOD and, in my opinion, Yogananda himself fell far short of these ideals. I don't fault them for their failings, but I do fault them for POSING as divinely perfected beings and for demanding similar perfection from others.
djali123 Registered User (9/6/02 3:52 pm) Reply	Re: After the Kriya practice I'm not a long time meditator, but from my experience when the meditation is successful I am freer from attachment, desires, resentment etc.(whatever 'evil' qualities related to identification with the ego) I believe that as long as there's a little attachment to the ego there's selfishness left.
ochrediapers Registered User (9/6/02 8:21 pm) Reply	Re: After the Kriya practice Gitano, I totally agree with the posing part. I don't begrudge people their weaknesses, but to pretend like they don't exist and then put these unreal expectations on others is just beyond me.
gardendiva Registered User (9/7/02 1:36 pm) Reply	Re: After the Kriya practice Gitano... I couldn't agree with you more...thanks for the posting. One thing that I've read in my new study of Zen, is that whatever experiences that one has in meditation, whatever states one achieves, the work is, first and foremost, in every moment. It's being aware of what we're doing at any given time and coming to understand ourselves and our connection to this world around us. That being said, if a person's actions are clearly at odds with the concept of compassion, it's really questionable at how truly aware they are.
wholetruth Registered User (9/7/02 7:11 pm) Reply	Re: After the Kriya practice Yes, POSING as divinely perfected beings, that does seem to be SRF's problem. If only they had abandoned all the posing, all the resulting untruthfulness on their part (the constant revising and re-writing of PY's writings, the covering up and elimination of controversial facts of SRF's history, etc.) would never have been necessary. Of course, Daya and the other Matas probably would have been out of full-time careers, and a new religion for a higher age would not have been created, but there still might have remained an organization that you or I would like to belong to. Edited by: wholetruth at: 9/8/02 12:57:02 pm
Gitano no divino Registered User (9/9/02 8:28 am) Reply	Re: After the Kriya practice Very true. Actually, I recall that PY himself said that if you meditate too much, you become lazy. And Daya Mata said in one of her tapes that it is not possible to achieve realization merely through meditation (she was obviously refuting what Maharishi Mahesh Yogi claims about the benefits of TM). She declared that self-discipline and introspection were also necessary. All of this goes back to Patanjali, of course, who said that it was first necessary to master yama-niyama before real meditation could occur. I'm led by this to reflect on the fact that one of the yamas is gift-receiving. SRF always rationalizes Ma's house in the burbs and her expensive cars as "gifts" from well-meaning devotees (like tobacco heiress Doris Duke whose wealth derived from international narcotrafficking, getting people to commit slow suicide through addiction to nicotine). This is the problem that has bedeviled monastic institutions for centuries: wealthy people seek some spiritual "insurance" by donating cash and land to monastic orders, especially the more rigorous ones. These orders grow in wealth and influence as a result, and they become corrupt. The Cistercian monastery at Cluny is a good example from the Middle Ages. A few years ago in Korea a violent dispute erupted between two factions at a Zen monastery in Seoul over who would be the new leader. It seems this monastery had become quite wealthy, and each faction feared that if one of its own didn't get the top job, they would no longer get a slice of the pie. "Power [and wealth is power] corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely," said Lord Acton. He may have had Napoleon in mind, but the principle is eternal. When it happens in the context of a spiritual organization or teaching, such as Catholicism or SRF, it's especially disappointing. As Shakespeare said in one of his sonnets: "Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds." Edited by: Gitano no divino at: 9/10/02 12:08:59 pm

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