Is Self Realization Fellowship SRF a Cult? Was Paramahansa Yogananda a Christ? I was in SRF for many years. Here is my take on these questions. It is not the purpose of this blog to convince anyone of anything. I created this blog to help others who may be looking for this type of information.
I recently received an email with the following link and a "Well, what do you have to say about this smartypants?" message. http://ompage.net/Text/singleeye.htm I didn't want to publish the email because it was rather abusive, however I do think the question itself deserves an answer, so here it is. First of all I looked up the passage in question, which was found here: Treasures in Heaven
19"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22"The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. 23But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! 24"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%206&version=NIV
It is a discourse on the proper view of money and possessions.
Ok, so back to the analysis by Mr. Ompage and Yogananda....
To the contrary, it makes perfect sense to modern day translators who are not Yogi's and do not meditate. It only makes sense to 'Yogis' as a reference to a "Spiritual eye" because they have taken it out of context. The Spiritual eye depicted in images of Hindu Gods is a third eye, not a single eye. A single eye would be a cyclops. There is no reference to anything like this in the Vedas or Gita that I can find. The only ancient Spiritual text that this appears in is the Christian Bible. So it makes sense to try to understand it within the context that it is written. It DOES mean single or simple ("good") and it IS a figurative expression. So everyone agrees on these points. http://strongsnumbers.com/greek/573.htm In common Greek usage it means "simple". The text of Mathew was written in Koine Greek, the common language. It was written for the common people, in the language of the people, not formal.
I asked my friend Tom to translate this Bible passage from Greek for me. In this passage Jesus is giving a lecture (to a large audience) on how to keep a proper attitude toward money. If you were to go with Yogananda's interpretation (Did Yogananda speak Koine Greek?) then in the middle of talking about money, Jesus suddenly makes a statement about the spiritual eye (having learned about it from Babaji while on a super secret trek to India) and then goes right back to talking about money again. According to Tom the meaning is to have an eye for the simple things, good things, healthy things. So as to not lay up your Treasure on Earth but in Heaven. In this discourse Jesus is apparently quoting Ben Sirach from the Apocrypha (not the Gita or Vedas). http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/nets/edition/30-sirach-nets.pdf Laying up Treasures to the most high was another figurative phrase commonly used by the Jewish people of this time. So the "single eye' and 'Treasures in Heaven' were catch phrases. Sound bites. Kind of like "a stitch in time saves nine". Jesus gives no additional explanation because no additional explanation would have been necessary. Everyone knew what he was talking about. He was talking about charity and simplicity. The eye as a lamp is paralleled in Luke and Matthew to mean generosity and simplicity. A Jewish man at the time of Jesus would have translated Proverbs 10:2 as "The treasures of the wicked are of no benefit, but the righteousness (tsedakah) rescues from death". Tsedakah meant alm giving. Charity. Using your resources not for luxury (like mansions and swanky cars) but for helping others in need.... Ok, well, so much for Yogananda's analysis. (Thanks for the help Tom.) Peace and Best Wishes, Katie (AKA 'Smartypants')
If Jesus were preaching today to an American audience, his message would not be, "Sell all ye have and give to the poor;" "take no heed for the morrow, what ye shall eat, what ye shall put on." These and other beautiful sayings of Jesus could not be strictly applied in the West today.
If Jesus were preaching today in America, he would employ all the methods of the successful businessman, and use newspapers as a means of drawing to him today's multitudes. *He would have to erect churches to house the religious multitudes, which would bring with it a need to concentrate on finances and raise money.
Paramahansa Yogananda
YOGANANDA
SELF PROCLAIMED SPOKESMAN FOR JESUS
Yogananda once prayed to Jesus Christ for reassurance that he was interpreting his words in the Gospels correctly. Jesus appeared to him in a vision; the holy Grail passed from his lips to Yogananda's. Jesus then, so Yogananda later told us, spoke these words of heavenly assurance: "The cup from which I dost drink, thou dost drink."
From: Original Christianity
Yogananda was also the God ordained spokesman for Krishna, who I believe was a Hindu, as he doesn't look Jewish.
My Commentary:
"Original Christianity" was Judaism. Jesus (Yeshu) was Jewish and taught from the Torah. He did not teach from the Vedas or Gita. I do not know if Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, a Prophet, a Rabbi or just a rebel against hypocrisy and the brutal Roman empire, but I do know he was solidly Jewish and not Hindu.
Most of the "Beautiful sayings" of Jesus were direct or paraphrased from Proverbs and Deuteronomy. Apparently Jesus told Yogananda that he would be a "businessman**" if alive today. Apparently Jesus didn't mention the Torah to Yogananda which seems odd given that it was the foundation of his teaching. Yogananda said that he had a vision of Jesus and Krishna walking hand in hand together, thus verifying that the teachings of both men were the same.
It makes me wonder...
Was Krishna wearing a yarmulke?
SO WHO WAS THE GURU OF JESUS?
It is Interesting to me that all of the Gurus seem to be eager to hitch their cart to Jesus the Jew and hang on to his shirttail in an effort to establish themselves as his peers, yet there is no record of him mentioning them....
Peace and Best Wishes,
Katie
*Jesus attended Synagogues and ministered itinerantly. He was a Jewish man under Roman rule who never started a Religion or Church.
**Jesus worked in his family business as a skilled Carpenter or Craftsman in a time before power tools and hardware stores.
The first guru in the SRF lineage is Babaji .
He is hundreds of years old but looks forever young. He lives in a cave in India with his sister.
That there is no historical reference to Babaji need not surprise us. The great guru has never openly appeared in any century; the misinterpreting glare of publicity has no place in his millennial plans. Like the Creator, the sole but silent Power, Babaji works in a humble obscurity. Babaji, the yogi christ of India
So he operates a little bit like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.
No one knows anything about him (where or when he was born, who his family was, where he went to school, his cell phone number etc) except that he was sent to bring the ancient teaching of Kriya Yoga to the World. He is in constant communication with Jesus. He was Krishna in a former lifetime.
He was chosen by Babaji to spread Kriya to the world. They met while Lahiri was out walking.
'I remember!' My voice was half-choked with joyous sobs. 'You are my guru Babaji, who has belonged to me always! Scenes of the past arise vividly in my mind; here in this cave I spent many years of my last incarnation!' As ineffable recollections overwhelmed me, I tearfully embraced my master's feet.
"'For more than three decades I have waited for you here-waited for you to return to me!' Babaji's voice rang with celestial love. 'You slipped away and vanished into the tumultuous waves of the life beyond death. The magic wand of your karma touched you, and you were gone!
"'My guru, what can I say?' I murmured brokenly. 'Where has one ever heard of such deathless love?' I gazed long and ecstatically on my eternal treasure, my guru in life and death.
Babaji made him a magic golden castle that disappeared and then he went forth to spread Kriya.
A vast palace of dazzling gold stood before us. Studded with countless jewels, and set amidst landscaped gardens, it presented a spectacle of unparalleled grandeur. Saints of angelic countenance were stationed by resplendent gates, half-reddened by the glitter of rubies. Diamonds, pearls, sapphires, and emeralds of great size and luster were imbedded in the decorative arches. ...'The magnificent palace will be the scene of your initiation tonight into Kriya Yoga. -From Autobiography of a yogi 1946-
Lahiri Mahasaya devised the Kriya technique which so changes the brain-cells, spine and body that they can express Cosmic Consciousness in three, six or twelve years (in determined, advanced students) and in twenty-four to forty-eight years (in ordinary students).
So did he "Devise Kriya" or did Babaji teach it to him as commanded by God? We may never know.... however...
He freely gave Kriya initiation to those of every faith, including Hindus, Moslems, and Christians... Article
This sounds very important and magnanimous except the population of Benares is over 80% Hindu, less than 3% Christian and the rest Muslim and misc. I would be surprised to find that this tiny population of Muslims and Christians were beating a path to his door to pledge loyalty to him and learn Kriya. I would be willing to bet that his disciples were Hindus...with perhaps one or two folks from other persuasions thrown in. To his credit he at least OFFERED it to others who wanted to worship at his holy lotus feet and you have to admire that. He was opposed to Kriya yoga being associated with any organization and never started one himself which is also to his credit.
Some of his notable disciples included Sri Panchanon Bhattacharya, Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri, Swami Pranabananda, Swami Keshabananda, Sri Bhupendranath Sanyal, and the parents of Paramahansa Yogananda. Others who received initiation into Kriya Yoga from Lahiri included Swami Vhaskarananda Saraswati of Benares, Balananda Brahmachari of Deogarh, Maharaja Iswari Narayan Sinha Bahadur of Benares and his son. One biographer even speculates that Lahiri initiated Sai Baba of Shirdi into Kriya Yoga, based on a passage in Lahiri's secret diary.
(all Hindus?)
Many of his grandchildren have their own Kriya yoga initiation groups. There are other linage of people who studied Kriya from one of his other disciples. Some want your undying loyalty while others will give you the Kriya initiation on more of a hit and run basis. There are some versions posted for free on-line. With a google search you can find lots of people teaching various types of Kriya and they all claim to have the best one, so if you are interested, it can be an adventure. Google away.
III.
Guru three:
This very handsome, dignified, fully clothed (G-rated) man is the third guru, Swami Yukteswar.
Some reports say he was a Swami before meeting Lahiri and being initiated into Kriya yoga. His name was Priyanath Karar until he was initiated into the Giri Swami order. After that he met Lahiri who became his guru and initiated him into Kriya yoga. I do not know who his guru was before that if he had one. He had several disciples who learned from him.
He studied at a Christian Bible school in India. During this time he became interested in combining the Bible with the Gita and yoga. He then met Babaji at the Kumbha mela. Speaking on behalf of God, Jesus and himself, Babaji asked him to write a book comparing the Bible and Hindu scriptures which Yukteswar did. He was also a Hindu astrologer who worked out yuga patterns and determined that the Earth is in a different Yuga than other Hindu astrologers believe.
After his death he resurrected to Yogananda and told him about the astral world. He is currently the savior of the planet Hiranyaloka.
"My son, you may now comprehend more fully that I am resurrected by divine decree," Sri Yukteswar continued, "as a savior of astrally reincarnating souls coming back from the causal sphere, in particular, rather than of those astral beings who are coming up from the earth. Those from the earth, if they still retain vestiges of material karma, do not rise to the very high astral planets like Hiranyaloka....
"The ordinary astral universe-not the subtler astral heaven of Hiranyaloka-is peopled with millions of astral beings who have come, more or less recently, from the earth, and also with myriads of fairies, mermaids, fishes, animals, goblins, gnomes, demigods and spirits, all residing on different astral planets in accordance with karmic qualifications.
This is not the Krishna that we had when I started SRF. The old Krishna looked like a girl with over the top eye makeup. That Krishna seems to have disappeared replaced by this new hunkier guy. In fact all of the Gurus seemed to have changed over the years.(*see bottom of page) They all have on clothes and Krishna has lost the heavy eye makeup. According to Kriyananda he was not on the original altar but he was on the one I got back it the 1980's so I do not know when he was added by SRF.
But I digress,
Krishna is the Christ of India. He later incarnated as Babaji though he is still worshipped separately. He is an avatar and the main character of The Gita. He is widely worshipped in India and is celebrated by followers throughout the world.
Born Mukunda Lal Ghosh to devout Hindu parents who were devotees of Lahiri. His family worshipped the Goddess Kali. Yogananda followed the teachings of his parents and their Guru, embracing the religion of his childhood. He was a disciple of Yukteswar who initiated him into the Swami order. He came as a missionary of Kriya yoga to America. Paramahansa Yogananda was the founder of SRF. He is the reincarnation of Arjuna from the Gita. Yogananda placed his picture on the altar with the other Gurus for his followers to admire. He considered himself an Avatar (perfect incarnation of God). He was very humble. Most of this blog is about him already so there is no need to say more. If you want more information his autobiography isHere
VI.
Guru six:
Jesus
Born in Bethlehem Judea approximately 2000 years ago to devout Jewish parents. He was a keen religious student and elders were amazed at his understanding and wisdom. Jesus was considered a Rabbi amongst his people. He began a ministry to his local people. He could have spent his early years as Jewish men of his time did. Studying Jewish scripture and law. praying, apprenticing in a trade such as, oh, I don't know...maybe a carpenter.
But the God of his people wasn't good enough for him.
Instead he forsakes all his upbringing and culture and traipsed off to India (through Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan) to learn Kriya Yoga from Babaji. Babaji, Lahiri and Yukteswar were the wise men who came to visit him when he was a baby, so Jesus was destined to learn the guru business from Babaji. Then Babaji sent him back to Nazareth to gather 12 disciples to teach Kriya Yoga to. Other people took note of him when he went about healing the blind, raising the dead, walking on water and preaching a doctrine of peace, justice and love. Eventually the tide of public opinion turned against him and he was executed. Jesus was actually the reincarnation of Elisha. John the Baptist was Jesus' Guru when he was Elijah John 1:21 .
21They asked him, "Then who are you? Are you Elijah?"
He said, "I am not."
After his death many of the 12 disciples wrote about his ministry but they didn't mention the yoga postures, kriya, reincarnation or any other yoga stuff. This prevented this soul evolving information to reach America. This was disappointing to Babaji who then called a meeting with Jesus in his cave in the Himalayas to create a plan for Yogananda to bring Kriya to America.
Most of Jesus 12 disciples stayed around the hood to preach and write but two. One was Thomas (of doubting fame). He went to India to build a temple and convert Hindus to Christianity. This is confusing because Thomas apparently knew Kriya but didn't teach it to the Hindus who one would think would be ripe for it. Instead he made them into Christians.
Christianity originates in Israel. One of the Apostles (the 12 chief disciples of Jesus), St. Judas Thomas, was a carpenter. He was brought to India by a merchant to build a temple. St. Thomas arrived in Kerala, in south India in 52 AD. He succeeded in converting local Indians to Christianity. His converts were called Syrian Christians.
According to tradition, St. Thomas made his first conversions by a miracle. At the village of Palur, he found some Brahman priests throwing handfuls of water into the air as they performed their purification prayers. Thomas threw some water into the air himself, and it hung suspended in the form of sparkling flowers. Tradition continues that most of the Brahmans embraced Christianity on the spot, and that the rest fled. To this day, no orthodox Brahman will take a bath in Palur.....
By the sixth century there were Indian churches in contact with the Christian bishops of Syria. In 883, King Alfred the Great sent an English bishop to make an offering for him at St. Thomas' shrine in Mylapore. But contact with the West was precarious, and by the end of the Middle Ages the Indian church was practically forgotten....In their isolation, the Indians developed surprisingly few originalities of dogma.
The other Disciple that went to India was Barthalomew .
This is written about in Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius . Again he went to convert Hindus to Christianity not teach them Kriya yoga.
"Christianity has been long established in South Kanara and its adherents are more numerous here, than any other district of India. It is certain that, foreign Christian merchants were visiting the coastal town of Kanara and during that period of commerce some priests also might have accompanied them for evangelical work. According to tradition Kanara had its first missionary the Apostle St. Barthelomew, who landed on the shores of river Swarna at Colombianor Colombo village an ancient maritime port adjacent to Kallianpur, stayed there to preach. He was popularly called Bethel and so the origin of the place Barkur..."
We get a lot of weird information when we are in a cult. I don't have the patience to go over every nutty thing and I am sure you don't have the patience to listen to all of this stuff either.
These are just a few that come to mind.
Loyalty and our connection to God
When I was in SRF we were told that Loyalty is the highest law and we therefore MUST be loyal to SRF. We could never leave without breaking Gods highest law.
If Loyalty to a religion was the highest law my family would all still be druids or something. I mean seriously if we could never change from one belief to another or one religion to another SRF wouldn't have any members. Everyone would still be the faith they were born into. This is told to you to scare you into staying. They don't want you to develop any Spiritual independence and move on.
Learning a meditation technique isn't a life sentence.
Postrating yourself before Gurus
I don't know exactly what is happening in this photo but I think she is touching his feet.
Bowing before pictures of the Gurus is an integral part of the SRF experience.
Consider yourself warned.
Really weird stuff in step 6 of the lessons
Lots of people who take the SRF lessons start losing interest in reading them in great detail by the time they get to step 6. If you get that far there are some really strange techniques. One is "The Tunnel to Eternity". I can't write the whole thing out because it is copyrighted but I can give you an overview;
You sit on a blanket that insulates your feet from the pull of Gravity or world currents. Wool is the material of choice. Imagine you are a trillion miles above our big blue planet.
1) Imagine you are a "soul-chick" and you are positioned on the Earths yolk. You are attempting to break through the shell of the atmosphere like John Glenn in the Mercury capsule. Your mind can travel from America to outerspace in just 60 seconds.
2)Visualize a white shell and picture a golden tunnel with a 50 foot mouth. (Your bird pilot is aiming his imaginary flying machine toward that mouth in the golden tunnel)
3)In an instant you fly through the gold tunnel, then the blue tunnel then pass through the silver star.
4) you have just traveled a million miles in less than a minute.
Congratulations! Now imagine the frequent flyer miles you have coming!
Incredibly there is an illustration of this in the lessons and it shows the "Cosmic Vitality" tunnel and the starry bliss gateway.
Soul Chick being briefed on flight instructions
SCARY STUFF: selection from the book, Mans Eternal Quest:
"There are however a few astral beings known as "Tramp Souls". They are earthbound because of strong attachments to the world, and are desirous of entering a physical form for sense enjoyments...Tramp souls do occasionally succeed in entering and taking possession of someone's body and mind, but only when such a person is mentally unstable or has weakened his mind by keeping it often blank or unthinking. It is like leaving a car unlocked with the key in the ignition; some vagrant may get in and drive off. Tramp souls want a free ride in someone else's physical body having lost their own that they were attached to."
Paramahansa Yoganada
Always be on high alert! Do not relax or let your mind go blank! A tramp soul may jump in and take a joyride in your body. Heaven knows what kind of hot water it will get you into!
Strange Biblical Interpetations.
Here is just one example:
Yogananda states in the SRF lessons that the true meaning of Mathew 13:13 (when they look, they cannot see, and when they listen, they cannot hear ) is that our eyes are meant to be like x-rays that can penetrate through the astral world and see saints and "fine rays dancing" and saints moving through the ether. He says that leaves turn orange in the fall because they are returning to the infinite so we can see their color with our x-ray vision.
Ok. Well, lets look at that whole biblical verse in Mathew shall we?
10Jesus' disciples came to him and asked, "Why do you use nothing but stories when you speak to the people?"
11Jesus answered:
I have explained the secrets about the kingdom of heaven to you, but not to others.
12Everyone who has something will be given more. But people who don't have anything will lose even what little they have.
13I use stories when I speak to them because when they look, they cannot see, and when they listen, they cannot hear or understand.
14So God's promise came true, just as the prophet Isaiah had said,
"These people will listen
and listen,
but never understand.
They will look and look,
but never see.
15All of them have
stubborn minds!
Their ears are stopped up,
and their eyes are covered.
( Here, I think the esoteric meaning is that Isaiah is talking about how idiotic the Aum technique is)
They cannot see or hear
or understand.
If they could,
they would turn to me,
and I would heal them."
Alright. So the way I read this it sounds like Jesus is answering why he preaches with stories instead of using Jewish scripture. Nothing about x ray vision. What it appears Jesus is saying is if he were to stand up and teach boring Scripture like a Puritan Minister
(Here is a Puritan minister. He could preach for 8 hours straight. If a parishioner fell asleep the usher would smack them in the head to wake them up)
The people would go brain dead and nod off. Jesus didn't get up with a powerpoint presentation and bore people to death. He went the way of Spielberg. Make it entertaining and fun.
leaves turn orange in the fall because there is not enough green chlorophyll as the sunlight diminishes and the tree begins to rest for the winter. The leaf is actually orange (red if it has more glucose) and with the chlorophyll we see green. It is not because that are going back to the infinite (although they do seem to take an eternity to decompose if I don’t rake them).
The Yogananada tree
Deck the halls with Yogananda Fa la lalala lalalala
From SRF:
Recently, scientists have discovered a remarkable physical fact about this spiritually beloved tree: It has been scientifically recognized as a unique variety never before documented by horticulturists and officially named after Paramahansa Yogananda. The name is now listed as Litchi Cultivar Yogananda Selection.
Turns out Dr.Kumar needed SRF's help to save his research gardens so he did this fluff piece for them.
The Ranchi-based Horticulture and Agro Forestry Research Programme (HARP) ” under the aegis of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) ” is set to lose all these if the Jharkhand government goes ahead with its plan to acquire land from the institute to build bungalows for over 115 MPs and MLAs.
Now there are lots of sites that discuss this self promoting species naming process but I thought this one was best:
Naming species after celebrities is one seriously effective way for scientists to draw attention to taxonomy. Giving species a famous name for more public interest is "shameless self-promotion," says Quentin Wheeler, the director of the International Institute for Species Exploration in Arizona (whose names populate four of our top-15 list). "When you are a taxonomist and are mentioned in Rolling Stone," Wheeler says, "you know you have arrived."
Scientists are given free rein with naming, as long as they abide by guidelines set by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. The rules for patronyms—or scientific names in honor of people—do not limit which names are used.
