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SRF Walrus

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SRF Walrus > SRF Teachings and Ideals > Spiritual Growth / Positive Development
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JoshHiram Registered User (12/17/03 5:36 am) Reply	Spiritual Growth / Positive Development Members All, How many of you would say that learning Hong Sau, Aum and Kriya have been a positive step in your own spiritual journey? Have some of you found that reading PY's books and other writings to be more of a spiritual boon than the meditation techniques? Dare I ask if there are some of you who wish they would never have stumbled across PY's writings at all? Your Interested Newbie, JosH
KS Registered User (12/17/03 6:14 am) Reply	Re: Spiritual Growth / Positive Development Master's message is of course not new. Truth has been around a LONG time (just about forever). However, Master does explain things in modern terms with modern language. So I am very happy to have found him and his writings. I also believe that finding the techniques was a very positive influence on my life and I accept Yogananda as my Guru. The organization is of course something completely different. I sincerely wish I had never become involved with that place. What a drain on the soul! SRF is a tool of Satan's to draw sincere seekers away from God. Don't be fooled! Don't worship the Mata's and waste time with the organization. They know less about the spiritual path that YOU do. Edited by: KS at: 12/17/03 6:16 am
redpurusha Registered User (12/17/03 7:33 am) Reply	Re: Spiritual Growth / Positive Development JosH, I've found that reading and intellecutally grasping the teachings to be relatively easy and enjoyable -a quick high. Putting them into practice, practing the techniques daily, and personalizing them to suite one's own individual lifestlye, is a much more difficult and drawn-out process -a lifetime of progress and Self-discovery. The writings are the inspiration. Success is like 1% inspiration 99% perspiration. If you read the Autobiography and get inspired, but fail to put any lasting effort into it, don't blame Yogananda (like many do). Everything works on cause and effect. The teachings and techniques have been a positive step in my life once I learned to apply them correctly. No regrets.
chrisparis Registered User (12/17/03 2:16 pm) Reply	Re: Spiritual Growth / Positive Development I'll chime in too. I think kriya is a very powerful and, potentially, positive tool for evolution. I agree that the SRF organization is essentially a petrified, crystalized body, and association with it can be damaging. But I have come to accept Yogananda as a very capable teacher, and the technique as an excellent technique. I don't practice it specifically as much as I used to, but learning it was a positive experience for me, and using it is also usually a positive experience for me.
username Registered User (12/17/03 3:01 pm) Reply	Re: Spiritual Growth / Positive Development I think that the organization is damaging and I know I would have MUCH better off had I never had any contact with the group. Kriya is no better or worse than any pranayam technique you can learn from reading a book (as opposed from reading kriya from a book (or lesson) purchased from SRF) Any spiritual guidance received from Yogananda is illusionary based on suggestions from SRF or fellow SRF members.
JoshHiram Registered User (12/17/03 4:44 pm) Reply	Re: Spiritual Growth / Positive Development Thank you for the responses so far. I look forward to reading more people's thoughts on the subject matter. I do think it wise, at this point, to separate PY and his teachings from the SRF organization for purposes of this discussion. It sure seems like there numerous fans of PY the "person" and his teachings, but not nearly as many SRF fans. While that is sad to read to this SRF Newbie (just got Lesson 21) I am not about to abandon the lessons. JosH Edited by: JoshHiram at: 12/18/03 5:46 am
ugizralrite Registered User (12/17/03 7:32 pm) Reply	Re: Spiritual Growth / Positive Development quote: "Any spiritual guidance received from Yogananda is illusionary based on suggestions from SRF or fellow SRF members." --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Not exactly sure what you're saying here, but unfortunately those altar photos do suggest a living personality. Lahiri Mahasaya was reluctant to have his photo taken, why I don't know, but I wonder how he would have felt about being on an altar? Spiritual benefactors, personal angels, may indeed surround us, but SRF certainly doesn't have a monopoly. Dawnrays speaks of a personal relationship to Yogananda, and I don't doubt her either. I think Yogananda lives today reincarnated as a female Catholic theologian, so what we have is a swirl of ambiguity, not logic but more like a magical interplay between the redeeming over-soul and the soul within. Don't ask SRF or the bliss bunny boards about such speculation lest you get the evil-eye from them. Free thinking and SRF are mutually exclusive terms. The lessons were fabricated by human beings and not from the lips of God. If you keep that in mind you will be ok.
username Registered User (12/17/03 8:05 pm) Reply	Re: Spiritual Growth / Positive Development A female Catholic theologian? That is the first time I heard this. Is this your belief alone or is there a group of people out there who believe this. Care to reveal the name of the reincarnated Yogananda? If she is in my neck of the woods, I like to go take a peek.
ugizralrite Registered User (12/17/03 8:20 pm) Reply	Re: Spiritual Growth / Positive Development Hi username, Well it borders on embarrassing I suppose, kind of my own personal oddity and overactive imagination, but go to the not in the main stream at the bottom of the menu and then to the sex and spirituality thread and in there somewhere is my post on the female Catholic theologian who had just published a book on human sexuality. Yogananda had to pop up somewhere, why not there? I don't know.
Punk Yogi Registered User (12/17/03 9:57 pm) Reply	Kriya Requires Creative Action What Kriya does, in my opinion, is it amps up the nervous system and allows it to become more acute and perceptive to subtler waves of information. This acquired sensitized acuity does not automatically guarantee a certain set of behaviors. The idea is to internalize the bliss and allow it to wield lasting impressions on the nervous system. In SRF parlance, this means "holding on to the effects of meditation." Brother Turiyananda often reminded us of an infrequently mentioned piece of advice of Yogananda's to centralize all the feelings of bliss into the brain and hold that feeling there for an extended period of time. This , he said, multiplies the results. One could then do it at the heart center or any other part of the body. Most of what's being talked about involves two categories of Kriya practitioners: Bliss Bunnies and the Non-Resulters. The Bliss Bunnies are just that -- people who regard spiritual joy as some yummy carrot they can munch on whenever their little rabbit tummies feel hungry. But this is not creative; in fact, it inevitably leads to the fetishizing of the technique, turning it into some mystical totem with the power to do all the work those passive little rabbits ought to be doing for themselves. Inevitably, life catches up. Remember the old computer term GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out)? What we put into life, or don't put into it, is what we get out of it. I ask the following: What are we doing with that Bliss? How are we utilizing it? Or are we allowing life to happen to us? Are we latching on to the values of the SRF organization only to discover that our lives don't work out because the SRF value system has elements to it that are thoroughly contradictory to our authenticity? We are creative beings. The fundamental premise of what it means to be creative is that we have the freedom to make choices and witness the results of those choices. Kriya, in my opinion, simply makes us a more sensitive radar dish. A sensitive radar dish can pick up good information or bad information. It still rests on the individual to act responsibly with what he or she's been given. This is where SRF has gone wrong. It encourages people to abandon their independent thinking for the sake of loyalty and devotion. What many ex-members are trying to do is experiment with keeping the best of both worlds -- amping up with Kriya without surrendering one's own authenticity. This often means a wholesale break from the organization and its fascistic reliance on style over substance. Each person has to handle it in their own way. Finally, there are those who experience no results and claim the technique actually ruins lives. This is naive. It's like saying, "Hey Joe! you've been practicing piano for years, why are you still just an amateur. Shouldn't you being booking recitals at Carnegie Hall? How come you aren't even half as good a player as Vladimir Ashkenazy?" Now, let's say a music academy comes along and advertises: "With our patented technique, we can have you playing piano at the same level as Ashkenzy in five years." So Joe puts his money down, and in five years all he gets a gig doing musicals for the school of the deaf because nobody else wants him. Now Joe's depressed because life didn't work according to his plans. Who's to blame? The academy for making false claims but also Joe for being gullible. The "frightening" truth is that we're all creative beings. What we get out of life is to a high degree dependent on what choices we make and how we implement those choices. Adding weight to this is the environment and unforeseeable events. But there it is. I think Kriya is still an excellent tool if used artfully. Edited by: Punk Yogi at: 12/17/03 10:06 pm
nagchampa2 Registered User (12/18/03 4:34 pm) Reply	Re: Spiritual Growth / Positive Development Josh, i am glad that I found Yogananda and srf as well. i consider that they were stepping stones on the path to God, and that i needed to learn certain lessons before moving on, just as i consider Walrus a stepping stone. i would add that hong sau, aum, and kriya were all positive steps, just as srf and Yogananda were, but as i said, only in that they were stepping stones. i left the teachings as presented by Yogananda but hold on to the Vedic teachings, as well as those of Buddha and Christ when they go along with Vedic teachings.
JoshHiram Registered User (12/19/03 7:43 am) Reply	Re: Spiritual Growth / Positive Development Nagchampa2, Do I understand correctly that you no longer practice Hong Sau, Aum or Kriya? If I may ask, what, if any, yoga techniques do you practice presently? JosH
JoshHiram Registered User (12/19/03 1:20 pm) Reply	Re: Modified / Altered Techniques Members All, How have the techniques of meditation been altered since PY physical death? Has SRF made them less effective in anyway? I gather PY would not approve of such actions. I'd like to learn/practice the techniques as PY intended. Comments please. Thank you, JosH
dawnrays Registered User (12/19/03 1:38 pm) Reply	Re: Modified / Altered Techniques This question has come up and been discussed at length in other threads I have read. I believe that, according to some original, typewritten lessons and descriptions of the techniques originating from Master, they are the same as in no different than the one's described in the current copies of the lessons. Master did modify some of Lahiri's original techniques to accomidate the average, householder yogi, I believe though. The kriya taught by him originally might have been much more involved (and more appropriate for a monastic). I also have heard that our techniques (that is the aum, hong sau, kriya) are very similar to techniques taught on other paths, so perhaps they are also somewhat universal. I have the most trouble with the aum because like many people, I find it boring. The EE's are usually worth it, the hong sau is relaxing and the kriya is of course, very potent. After many or even a few years, many people (like me) find that "a little goes a long way" in that it takes less kriyas and frequent meditations to produce the same effect. This would be in direct opposition of course, to srf's point of view that "the longer and more frequent, the better ". This personal experience has been confirmed by yogi's taking kriya from other, less restrictive organizations and from others I have know in srf. I highly recommend all the techniques, but I don't like thier basic, military type attitude. I found the Ananda fellowship to be much more user friendly if you have any access to this organization. They use the same basic techniques and teachings.
dawnrays Registered User (12/19/03 1:53 pm) Reply	Re: Modified / Altered Techniques Also, there are direct disciples of Master, like Kriyananda, as well as some others no longer associated with srf, who learned the techniques directly from him. As far as I know, the techniques they practice and teach are no different from the techniques described in the lessons.
bsjones Registered User (12/19/03 2:20 pm) Reply ezSupporter	Re: Modified / Altered Techniques From what little I know, it seems that the EE's are very much standard for a lot of swami-type paths.
username Registered User (12/19/03 6:12 pm) Reply	SRF after Yogananda's death I heard many years ago, that a LOT of people left SRF right away after Yogananda died. One person in particular is now a minister in another "new age" type religion. But I never got the REAL scope on what happened. Any one around at that time?

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