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        > What Master REALLY Said About It		 New Topic    Add Reply

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onlylove
Unregistered User
(11/27/01 9:30 am)
Reply 		What Master REALLY Said About It
Among the many changes that the matas have made to Master's Autobiography of a Yogi, this is perhaps the most insidious:

Master's words from the 1952 edition:
"To fulfill one's earthly responsibilities is indeed the higher path, provided the yogi, maintaining a mental uninvolvement with egotistical desires, plays his part as a willing insturment of God."

From the current edition, which was heavily edited by monastics:
"...Fulfilling one's earthly responsibilities need not separate man from God, provided he maintains mental uninvolvement with egotistical desires and plays his part in life as a willing instrument of the Divine."

Note that:
"...indeed the higher path,..."
was changed to:
"...need not separate man from God,..."

Note also that Lahiri Mahasay was married, with children. Sri Yukteswar was married, with children, before he became a swami.
Babaji? Who knows...

Clearly, Master did not come to bring Kriya Yoga and liberation only to those who could become monastics. His mission was FAR broader than that.

One for All
Unregistered User
(11/27/01 10:44 am)
Reply 		Perfect examples
The perfect examples always held up before the disciples were Gyanamata and Rajarsi. Both came to sanyas late in life after living as married householders.

Raja Begum
Unregistered User
(11/27/01 12:20 pm)
Reply 		RE: the alteration of Master's words
Excellent example of how the SRF teachings have been tainted by negative innuendos and slanted language. Notice how the original expression is said in a direct, positive, and affimative style, while the second has an air of negativity ("there's always the possiblity you could fall").

Crog
Unregistered User
(11/27/01 2:35 pm)
Reply 		Monks
Most of the monks I have known, and that is not many of them I admit, don't seem to give off an impression that they think the monastic life is inherently superior to the house holder life. Maybe Satyananda, but not most of them.

Raja Begum
Unregistered User
(11/27/01 3:26 pm)
Reply 		To clarify
It's more in the emphasis of a monastic miindset in preference to a householder one. Not that many monks are swaggering with monastic ego; nevertheless, the silent assumption is that monastic / renunciant life is superior to the householder path. This is indisputably evident in the SRF printed media and in the way SRF is structured as an organization. Basically we have an elite minority dictating a way of life to a majority they have nothing in common with.

KS
Unregistered User
(11/27/01 7:16 pm)
Reply 		Superior
The (new) idea that only monastics can be president of SRF indicates they are better or more spiritual. Of course they have extended that to also now say that only monastics may run departments. We are left with Bro. Paramananda running the publications center for heavens sake because he is a monastic and therefore trained in the ways of SRF.

Of course, the "ways of SRF" are not as well thought of as the bad ladies think.

Old Sadam keeps his family around him because he can control them and lean on them and make them do what he says. The bad ladies keep the monastics running things because they can swing the "loyalty" club and shout "obidience" at the monastics and keep them in line. The members have proven themselves to be unreliabile. (Good for them!)

Rigiditananda
Unregistered User
(11/28/01 12:13 am)
Reply 		Monasticism and the teachings
If you forgive me for being a bit "cingulate," let me say that the worst effect of monasticism has been on the teachings. Here is where many householders, have been badly damage by monasticism. The lessons and books are plagued with monastic thinking, which no teacher in his senses would endorse for householders. All that "Bosy thinking,” (Should Statements), Extremist Thinking (all nothing thinking) that some of us are complaining about now, is no other thing but monasticism -- "monasticistic thinking.” Such language is music for the ear of a few monastics, but poison for householder and for most monastics.

Of course monastic influence over householders is very old, and has poisoned the mind of many throughout the centuries. Why? Because during Kali Yuga only monasticism (extreme protection of the spiritual yearning) worked. But, as we ascend into the Dwapara Yuga we find that monasticism is an extreme, which leads to God a few and to hell many -- through repression, depression, and physical and mental inharmonies.

We are gradually awakening to our need of a BALANCE path, where all needs, from all chakras, are integrated harmoniously and we are not cut off at the waist!

In SRF we talk about being balanced in the spiritual path, but with the language used in the Lessons and books it is just lip service. Furthermore in SRF, there is little or no understanding at all of what a balanced path for the householder really is.

An excellent book that opened my eyes about these fascinating issues is “Chakra for Beginners” by Pond (I do not remember his first name).

KS
Unregistered User
(11/28/01 8:24 am)
Reply 		New thread for Balance related notes
I started a new thread.

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