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Date Posted: 00:10:57 05/21/03 Wed
Author: Hendrik - 8 Apr 2003
Subject: Re: Beautiful post !!
In reply to: R - 7 Apr 2003 's message, "Beautiful post !!" on 00:10:05 05/21/03 Wed

When I occasionally write in a somewhat rude tone I usually regret it afterwards. This time I don't. For the first time indeed. Dumping a lot of the nonsense and philosophy that is spread in the name of Kriya these days gives one a liberating feeling.

I also believe that we as human beings are really on our own, but not everyone will arrive at the same place in his/her quest. I have the impression that some people expect that everyone will sooner or later tune in to their mindsets, like parrots. What will be achieved will always remain a part of a greater, completer truth and not be the same for everyone though there may be an underlying unity. It is for us to decide what we are willing to receive and whether we want to walk the wide or the narrow lane.

Falsehood comes in when a proponent of one particular aspect of Truth becomes sectarian and falls back into a sort of tribal behavior, scoffing at those who think in a manner different from their own, and start speaking in a derisive tone about what they don't understand.

Some people find the Christ, others Krishna, some Nirvana, others the Self, still others Parabrahman. And in Zen as far as I know the way itself is the goal.

Last week I read a book on the remarkable German satirist, occultist, and yogi Gustav Meyrink, a man with an unmistakable intelligence and much experience in the field of everything yogic and paranormal. A hundred years ago, at a time when there was little knowledge about yoga in his hometown Prague he managed to grasp some of the basic principles of yoga. For a long time he practiced Hatha and Raja Yoga (including inner breathing and Hong-Sau, as in Kriya) up to eight hours a day, dismissed all experiences, powers and gods and found, at first his self, and later what he called the central-self. But two years before his death he had an experience which made him denounce all his tapasya and understanding of many years in one single day and at once he turned away from self-knowledge. He said that his long years of spiritual practice were not really wasted, but indeed he now equated it with black magic (he had some experience in this field too which lashed back and crippled his leg) because they made him be preoccupied with himself only and not serving "the other one" or "the very old man" - a phrase from gnostic tradition. He now considered his previous existence as a yogi a fundamental mistake and his turning around a conversion. He said better late than never.

On his deathbed he was immersed in immeasurable love and solemnly informed his family, "But look, there is only one God: Christ!" He had turned from self-knowledge to love and surrender. It has to be mentioned that he had despised religion and Christianity in particular all his life until the dramatic change in his last years. To him it had been nothing but a subtle projection of the human mind.

Both Dr. Lewis and Rajarsi remained Christians until the end and even Yogananda himself seems to have been a worshipper of Christ. They simply were not as bigheaded as to mock everything higher, as a lot of others do.

There are some teachers who ask their students to not engage in reading spiritual books, teachers who recommend the shutting away of all scriptures and who react panicky when they see Lahiri Mahasaya's works - the writings of the authoritative guru of their own tradition being republished somewhere. Writings that Lahiri Mahasaya himself took care to be published in the last years of his life.

Why don't they want this? Because they know that these writings as well as knowledge from independent sources will invalidate their own limited understanding and as a result their own comfortable position will crumble and the disciples leave.

The greatest danger to such people are independent minds and knowledge in general, so they have to discourage the study of spiritual traditions, equate A with Z, and declare everything outside their own scope as illusion or delusion. They try to convince notorious doubters with treating them with mental paradoxes and logical confusion. It is an attempt to veil their own ignorance. -- As I said this is the typical behavior of people who have an inferiority complex; they have a need to always assert themselves before others and overestimate themselves before themselves.


Enough of this. I haven't read anything by Hesse yet (I read only sparsely) but I found a nice multi-language site about him some months ago, perhaps you will enjoy this.

Hendrik


Hesse Portal

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