so disappointed and many doubts

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SRF Walrus > Dealing with my doubts > so disappointed and many doubts
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nagchampa2 Registered User (12/2/03 5:33 am) Reply	Re: Life on Earth (This message was left blank) Edited by: nagchampa2 at: 12/23/03 7:57 am
dawnrays Registered User (12/2/03 5:47 am) Reply	Re: Life on Earth I wish you only the best. I only hope that you can now let go of your new found hobby of slandering and slamming a guru who's been dead for 50 years. Hopefully you will be able to conduct a more personal and one on one interrogation. It might take a little more nerve and planning, but it will certainly be worth it! How is yours going by the way Soul Circle? The next time you give Amachi a hug, why don't you instead bring up the topic of her orphanages and ashrams in India? Or has she (wisely!) not learned to speak English yet?
nagchampa2 Registered User (12/2/03 6:54 am) Reply	Re: Life on Earth (This message was left blank) Edited by: nagchampa2 at: 12/23/03 7:58 am
dawnrays Registered User (12/2/03 7:45 am) Reply	Re: Life on Earth I was actually referring to your poetic comments about "greed" and "lust". How boring perfect, desireless beings must be. Let me know when you find one (but I won't hold my breath!)
soulcircle Registered User (12/2/03 8:30 am) Reply	there is my heart...I have no guru dawnrays have you met the Ammachi you speak of, she comes to Seattle every June? Ammachi is not my guru I didn't hug Ammachi this November visit, not once My neighbor and friend, Jason Becker, lives for his friendship with Amma I make it possible for him to join her He doesn't walk and only talks via his eyes In fact he has been on life support for over 6 years, suffering from ALS since 1989 www.jasonbecker.com I consider her only a friend as I consider you dawnrays I am known among the people around Ammachi as a warm and open person, devoted only to the impaired, who feels it is ok to criticize her freely
soulcircle Registered User (12/2/03 8:47 am) Reply	there is one such person dawnrays should you ever visit me in the bay area i will introduce you a "desireless" person i am at the side of a couple times a week for ten years now since being sixteen she has been at the side of some impaired person, most recently, these ten years at Jason Becker's side she selfishly (her own words) gets more than she gives and her sense of humor from those who aren't able-bodied, when not at Jason's side or the people before him, she simply works to pay her modest bills and shares her love with her family so in less than 24 hours you hear of one such person at 40, who for 24 years has lived for others, because she selfishly is whole, humorous and happy in doing so ~~~~ dawnrays you are a friend, and there is a bonus in this post there is a second "one such person," Vandana Shiva Vandana Shiva, a brilliant scholar, participates on the world stage of ideas, at the same time she is deeply in and accessible to the communities of India, the villages, Dr. Vandana Shiva walks the walk. She is most noted in fields of food and water, ecology, women's empowerment....and her use of a stellar education is directed to the poorest of the poor. www.vshiva.net I learned of her from a postal worker. There are two more if you would like a third and a fourth, unblemished being, and beyond that a 5th and possible more. The third is a woman who grew up beaten and on the streets as a homeless child in Ireland, and became on of Vietnam's most noted humanitarians The fourth is a nun in Asia The fifth is an African-American women in Oakland. It's a wonderful world Edited by: soulcircle at: 12/2/03 8:50 am
ranger20 Registered User (12/2/03 9:06 am) Reply	Re: so disappointed and many doubts *Quote:* If you don't commit now, all will be lost for incarnations. Where that came from is one of the big questions. It's the trump card in the organization's power over individuals. No salvation outside of the True Church. So who wrote lesson 52? The AY description puts Lahiri's facilitation of the chela's own spiritual unfoldment at kind of an opposite pole. Messages on this board suggest that PY stated at the Lake Shrine dedication, that he had no interest in starting "a new religion." Notes here and on the Yogananda-dif board suggest that it wasn't until 1960 that the BOD made exclusive SRF membership a pre-requisite for Kriya. Messages here state that when Yogananda was here, Kriya initiation, and guru/disciple initiation were two distinct events. The BOD claims to represent Yogananda's "true wishes," even when they weren't articulated during his incarnation. In some cases they probably do. In this one, "lost for incarnations?" I no longer believe I can get to the bottom of it from textual study, and I find I no longer care nearly as much. I can just hold the question, and regard a variety of answers, without worrying so much over which is the True Answer.
dawnrays Registered User (12/2/03 9:28 am) Reply	Re: there is my heart...I have no guru Yes, I met her twice (and hugged her) almost 20 years ago when she came to Washington, DC. I have also been to many Sai Baba meetings and one hariharihanda meeting (sp.?) I have been to other kinds of meetings to pay respects to other guru's besides my own. I used to date a guy that spent 23 years in the Washington, DC self-revelation church (started by an exmonk from Mt. Washington). He used to buy crates and crates of the AY to give away. Although his church had differences with srf, I never once heard him critisize it. There are no doubt many wonderful people in the world, but perfection and beauty are in the eye of the beholder. I think that in God's eyes, we are all perfect and there is much margin for error and sometimes faults and inconsistancies are even endearing (as they make us all more human and accessable). Master's great gift was trying to make God accessable and personal to all. He once referred to God as "more than human". Edited by: dawnrays at: 12/2/03 9:29 am
SerenityNow7 Registered User (12/2/03 9:29 am) Reply	Re: so disappointed and many doubts ranger20, how about this one. At the Tibetan Buddhist center the lama there said that if you feel anger towards another person who is a bodhisattva you will lose all your good karma you have acculumlated from all your incarnations. Bodhisattvas are enlightened beings reborn to bring others to enlightenment and it's quite possible to not know who one is. Message...don't get angry...EVER. I had a problem with this which is part of what led me away from there. Talk about manipulation! And the T.B. folks are supposed to be the good guys.
SerenityNow7 Registered User (12/2/03 9:36 am) Reply	Re: so disappointed and many doubts Dawnrays, Yogananda being all too human is only part of the problem to me. The other is that he is presented as being God-like, infallible, worthy of worship. That is the problem. I've got plenty of flaws, but I don't prentend otherwise. Still, I wouldn't tell people I'm celibate if I weren't. I wouldn't take credit for books I didn't write. If Yogananda did these things, am I still to look up to him and worship him as an icon when he didn't share my own moral code? Do you not believe what Nagchampa has revealed here? She's given names so it would be easy enough to check out. And if you check it out and find it to be true, would that change anything for you?
dawnrays Registered User (12/2/03 9:55 am) Reply	Re: so disappointed and many doubts I never said I didn't believe her. I think that Yogananda's major flaw was also his greatest strength in that he was extremely magnetic and larger than life. I believe he had a huge ego and was also vain. Those are flaws and strengths too. A huge ego is great when channled properly, which I believe he did most (if not all) the time. I feel very bad for him if he was caught in this ridiculous image game and very, very bad if it was with Tara Mata. She was a notorious bxxxxx, impossible to get along with and for all I know he was being blackmailed (she was mainly responsible for the editing problems and in my opinion was a bad influence on daya). You know, these are flaws. Some kinds of flaws are easier for some to deal with than others, but really we all have them. Highly talanted and egocentric people don't really bother me. There is a reason why Sri Yukteswarji was not sent here. He was very holy and saintly but he would have been highly unsuitable as would almost anybody else I can think of. India and America are very different and most Americans respond to "star power". That's just the way it is.
ranger20 Registered User (12/2/03 10:47 am) Reply	Re: so disappointed and many doubts *Quote:* I feel very bad for him if he was caught in this ridiculous image game and very, very bad if it was with Tara Mata. She was a notorious bxxxxx, impossible to get along with and for all I know he was being blackmailed (she was mainly responsible for the editing problems and in my opinion was a bad influence on daya). On the George Burke thread, in the "Non-SRF Teachings and Ideals" section, people have quoted at length the long footnote where Burke outlines in detail, the damage Tara Mata seems to have done to the writings, as well as to Kriyananda. What I do not think I saw there was another little section of the footnote. This is a paraphrase, because I do not have the text with me. Burke says that when people complained to Daya about what Tara was doing to the writing, she said she could not do anything, "because Tara could destroy this work if she wanted to, but she never said how." I do not know his sources, though he seems to have met with a number of direct disciples.
ranger20 Registered User (12/2/03 11:00 am) Reply	Re: so disappointed and many doubts *Quote:* Yogananda being all too human is only part of the problem to me. The other is that he is presented as being God-like, infallible, worthy of worship. That is the problem. I'm not the only one who has had the following experience (I just mentioned George Burke above, and he noted it too). After stilling the mind somewhat with pranayama techniques, then what? Burke said he discovered very clearly, the liability of "not having any religion." When Lahiri, in the AY, gave Kriya to "Hindus, Christians and Muslims," it seems much different than the contemporary world, where so many are disaffected with traditional religion, and so are lacking the very traditional structures that could contain, interpret and guide various raw spiritual experiences derived from powerful techniques. I've suspected that a realization of the need for some kind of organizing structure to handle raw "spiritual or psychic" experience, is one of the motives for SRF's drive to become "the religion of the coming age." I don't think for a minute that it's pure selfish motives. I think there are originally altruistic motives that maybe got turned as the ends came to justify the means. In the case of "becoming the new religion," I think they have been trying to push the river, and in the process, adding elements like "lost for incarnations," and "perfect founder." that ex-SRF people have had so much trouble with. Edited by: ranger20 at: 12/2/03 11:10 am
etzchaim Registered User (12/2/03 11:34 am) Reply	Re: so disappointed and many doubts "After stilling the mind somewhat with pranayama techniques, then what? Burke said he discovered very clearly, the liability of "not having any religion." This is interesting - because Burke appears to be doing very similar things with Orthodox Christianity that several Jews are doing with Judaism (including myself). It's more of a reinterpretation of the 'tradition' through a mystical lense - not that the traditions themselves did not already have a mystical tradition within them, but people like Burke and some of the people I know through the Jewish Renewal movement, are bringing the meditation techniques out into the forefront of the religion and keeping some of the structure - though not all of it - and reinterpreting the religion along a more modern psychological/yogic way. I think the problem with SRF and the potential problem for anyone doing this is the tendency to fall into the belief that this is the "One True Way" and is more 'correct' than the other attempts at the same thing. Another issue with SRF, among quite a few, is the inability to admit that there COULD be something wrong with their approach - as in the need for more psychological understanding of what happens when people practice meditation and dredge up repressed material and manifest power trips etc. Edited by: etzchaim at: 12/2/03 12:22 pm
Borg108 Registered User (12/2/03 11:37 am) Reply	Re: so disappointed and many doubts Nag gave no facts or supporting information to support her accusations. It seems that Nag is willing to believe negative things about Yogananda because she trusts the person who told her these things. I would like to see some evidence in the form of facts and/or logical reasoning before blindly accepting someone else�s opinions. As for the scanty information that was provided, so what if Yogananda stayed with a woman disciple while in New York? Papa Ramdass, a greatly respected Indian saint, lived with a highly devoted woman disciple who left her worldly husband and children to be with him. Swami Jnanananda, who is well regarded throughout India, now shares a house with a woman disciple. Nag�s inference that Laurie Pratt had Yogananda stay with her in New York and then had a child may give people the wrong impression. My understanding is that Laurie Pratt was married prior to having her child, then moved to be near Mt Washington with her child once she was divorced. As for the former Dhirananda, what people in this culture may not understand is that in India it is considered unthinkable and the height of disrespect for a swami to revert back to householder life once he has taken final, lifetime sannyas vows. His old self his said to have died when these vows are taken. Even though SRF monastics slip out of their final vows rather casually, in India anyone doing so would be ostracized and given no more respect or credibility. It seems that worldly desires were so powerful in the former Dhirananda that he was willing to go against this strong social conditioning and break his lifetime swami vows. Based on this evidence (not on what someone else tells me), I would be more inclined to think any improprieties came form him rather than from Yogananda. As for Yogananda being "a fake but had great powers which he abused", again I see no evidence of this. No one now really knows what went went on with respect to the writings back in the 1920s. It is likely that the former Dhirananda had a better command of the English language then and was a better writer than Yogananda. So he may have written up the things that Yogananda asked him to write. Who knows these things now? As for Yogananda's display of powers, sometimes God lets saints do this to inspire and strengthen the faith of their disciples. Soon after Yogananda met Gyanamata, he was told BY GOD to make a weighted salt shaker lay down for Sister's benefit. Soon after meeting Dr. Lewis, he demonstrated his powers when Doctor was caught in a very bad storm at sea. Bhaktananda tells a story about how Guruji poured an endless supply of carrot juice from a small container one time when there wasn't enough to go around. Only Bhaktananda noticed this. "Except ye see sign and miracles ye will not believe." The Guru comes to help others evolve more quickly back to God. If that means inspiring them in the beginning with the demonstration of powers, then so what? If Yoganada were a fake, would he have been able to so easily express God's love and inspire it in others? Would he have been able to enter into samadhi at the age of 17 and ecstatically commune with Divine Mother throughout his life? Would he have been able to raise others, such as Rajasi and Gyanamata, to exalted states of consciousness? Are Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya, and Sri Yukteswar also fakes because they exhibited powers on occassion, powers to raise the dead, appear to others half way around the world, prolong others lives, grant samadhi experiences, etc? Edited by: Borg108 at: 12/4/03 9:16 am
nagchampa2 Registered User (12/2/03 11:40 am) Reply	Re: so disappointed and many doubts (This message was left blank) Edited by: nagchampa2 at: 12/23/03 7:59 am
SerenityNow7 Registered User (12/2/03 11:45 am) Reply	Re: so disappointed and many doubts "After stilling the mind somewhat with pranayama techniques, then what? Burke said he discovered very clearly, the liability of "not having any religion." Please tell me more of this "liability"??? SN7
ranger20 Registered User (12/2/03 12:05 pm) Reply	Re: so disappointed and many doubts I'd have to have the book in front of me, but apparently he asked various members and monastics what they did after practicing the techniques, and didn't find any satisfying answers. He enumerates responses he got, that sound like New Age relaxation techniques. In his overall study and development, he came to give central importance to mantra yoga. He discovered the Eastern Orthodox belief that "the Name of God IS God." He mentions using, at various times, the rosary, the Jesus prayer, and a Christ centered mantra he got in India from Ananda Moyi Ma. Interestingly, although he is very critical of many aspects of SRF in the 1960-62 time frame, he writes of positive experiences with Daya. She apparently was accessible, and he mentions 1-2 hour interviews with her. At one point she advised him to try to relate to the Divine Mother, which led him to explore the rosary prayers, which he found fruitful.
etzchaim Registered User (12/2/03 12:21 pm) Reply	Re: so disappointed and many doubts My own view of the "liability" of not having a religion: I found myself wanting more of a foundation, a home, you might say. It's fine to say that all religions are one, and that they express the same thing in different languages, but I needed an expression of who I was within all of that, so I could center myself around something. Maybe it was an identity of some kind, or a specific language to put all the pre-verbal/'raw mystical' experiences into. I also knew that I needed something that was 'western', something that spoke to this lifetime and the needs the current vehicle I have - sorry if that sounds out there. My personal experience was that when I related to Hindus, I wasn't experiencing the grounded feeling of being a part of that community. Other people do, and that's what they need. I'm not sure how else to put it. It didn't work for me, although there was no way I was going to give up Yoga. I didn't relate to all the deities, etc., and it didn't feel like "home". I had also tried Tibetan Buddhism (my take on the deities there is that even the monks view them in a psychological framework, as symbols of mental states, though they would not put it exactly like that) but didn't feel that that was 'who I was', either. This is going to be different for everyone, though, obviously. It's important to find out what makes you move towards God. Edited by: etzchaim at: 12/2/03 12:30 pm
etzchaim Registered User (12/2/03 12:29 pm) Reply	Re: so disappointed and many doubts Borg, I have the same feeling about Dhirananda. I'm wondering if he was already having some issues with doing Yogananda's ghost writing and the cohabitation (which says to me nothing more than that Yogananda was staying at someone's house), triggered a lot of his own issues and resentment. His son's statements about him show him to have been a rather volatile and bitter person. On the other hand, it disturbs me that it took a ruling in court in Dhirananda's favor for Yogananda to give him severence payment. Seems to be an ego issue.

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