Re: David Frawley -- KRIYA YOGA DISCUSSION BOARD

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Date Posted: 08:10
Author: ketch - 10 Oct 2001
Subject: Re: David Frawley
In reply to: Anonymous - 10 Oct 2001 's message, "Re: David Frawley" on 08:07

Once again you come here repeating the same propaganda without providing evidence to back it up. If it is true that SRF made literally hundreds of changes which were not authorised by Yogananda then show us these changes. Show us all the changes made since 1956 (unless you can provide some evidence that SRF's claim that all changes up to 1956 were at Yogananda's instructions is untrue), or 1951 so that we can all judge for ourselves if these changes are reasonable or not. I doubt if you can do this however, as you are just repeating Ananda propaganda which you have not checked yourself.

On this matter, I looked at some used book suppliers, and the 1956 version seems to be available, though not the 1951 version. It is my intention to purchase a copy of the earlier version and compare it with a later version at some time. I will report what I find here.

The comments you make about Yogananda's signature are valid. Changing someones title is one thing, to alter a signature is quite another, and in my opinion is not justified. This has been discussed here, but is not relevant to this thread.

I doubt that you have any way of knowing whether or not SRF possess any letter or other written evidence showing that Yogananda wished them to update the book after his passing. In any event what SRF certainly did have was a large number of direct disciples of the Paramahansa, many of whom had been with him much longer than Mr Walters, and were in a far better position to know what his wishes were in this regard.

Returning to David Frawley, I looked at his online autobiography and there is nothing in it to suggest that he was ever a follower of Yogananda as you suggest in an earlier post. He does claim to have practised kriya yoga back in 1970 stating:-

"My study of eastern traditions was not merely intellectual but involved experimenting with yogic and meditational practices. I began practicing intense pranayama, mantra and meditation teachings in the summer of 1970. These mainly came from the Kriya Yoga tradition, which I contacted in several ways. "

He does not state who he learned these things from, althout he appears to have learned some of it from a teacher in Denver. There was not the large number of different sources for kriya which exist today at that time in America. From his brief desription I suspect that what he actually learned was not the system taught by Yogananda, but was something else with the name Kriya. Whether this is so or not he gave up the practise quite soon.

He then states:-

"
In early 1972 a friend and I moved to California to explore the spiritual groups and communities that were more common there. We visited a whole array of India groups: the Ramakrishna-Vedanta center, Self-Realization-Fellowship (SRF), an Aurobindo center, the Krishnamurti foundation and several other gurus and their ashrams, which all taught me something."

What exactly he would have learned from a brief visit to an SRF center is not explained, but nothing suggests that he felt any special link with Paramahansa Yogananda.

Frawleys comments about Babaji do not seem to be refering to visions, or inner experiences. He claims that Babaji is a "well known Himalayan yogi in this broad tradition". He does not appear to be aware of the tradition in Kriya that Babaji is known to only a very few kriyabans in each generation. Yogananda appears to have met him once. Sri Yukteswar three times, and a small number of others great Kriya Yogi's may have met him. Most people have to take his existence on faith.

Furthermore this is far from being the only point in Frawleys book review which shows him to have little understanding of the matter. For example he states:

Yogananda left not only SRF but a number of independent disciples, several of whom have become well known in their own right and who carry on the teaching along different lines. These teachers, who tend to be forgotten under the shadow of SRF include Kriyananda, Roy Eugene Davis, Shelly Trimmer, Norm Paulsen, and Swami Premananda, to name a few.

Shelly Trimmer I am not sure about, but none of the others was teaching independently in Yogananda's lifetime. Swami Premananda seems to have been given a great deal of autonomy, while Paulsen had left SRF but was not teaching. The others remained with SRF during Yogananda's lifetime.

Another example:

"Yogananda himself gave initiation rather freely, a point that later editions of the book wish to forget"

Although Yogananda did initiate many people he actually applied some strict criteria for initiation (with some exceptions) making most people wait for about a year and study preliminary techniques first.

If Frawley is such an expert how is it that he can make so many mistakes in such a short article?

I stand by every word I said earlier. Frawley's expertise lies in other areas. He is not a Kriya Yogi, he probably never practised what we recognise as Kriya, even if he did it was only for a short time back in the 1970's. He is entitled to his opinions, and they are as valid as most people's. However he is not an expert in this particular field, he is in no position to judge what Yogananda's intentions were, and his book review appears to be based on Ananda propaganda rather than any genuine knowledge or research.

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