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 Yogananda's Legacy  for the World

and the Restored Gospels of Jesus

See>>yogananda-srf.org

Also See;yoganandafortheworld1.com

and>> Paramahansa Yogananda at Google + site

and >> http://paramahansayoganandalegacy.blogspot.ca/

and ; https://plus.google.com/112930302802632567200/posts

https://www.facebook.com/PYislove

 

               It was Paramahansa Yogananda who not only made a great contribution to the restoration the ancient teachings of Jesus Christ and Kriya Yoga to the world, but according to many recent witnesses He personally lived that Christ like life in every aspect. I have not heard of a greater modern Living Prophet!
This blog will present some aspects of Yogananda's Legacy for the world as it is known by His Self-Realization Fellowship.

With greatest clarity and insight  He shows us the way to transform our lives through regular practice of Self-Realization Fellowship Study Lessons... and other important Yogananda wisdom writings. The Science of Kriya Yoga from YSS/SRF will help you reach your greatest potential in this life.  With increasing Mind Awareness and Happiness along the way. Go for it !

This Master's life example and works are transforming/enriching the lives of millions through Self-Realization Fellowship/YSS home lessons and publications. They come with ongoing personal counselling and personal instructions/initiations by SRF monastics.
Since Yogananda's passing in March 1952  Self-Realization Fellowship/YSS has experienced continued growth and open-
minded progressive development in many areas. Contrary to negative comments by competitors, SRF/YSS is moving forward with great and enlightened leadership.

This is not an official SRF/YSS site.

= More links about Kriya Yoga =

kriyayogatoday.blogspot.ca

London on Meditation Circle of SRF/YSS

The successful Launching of a Modern Spiritual Legacy - Biography of Yogananda

Yogananda SRF devotees Spiritual forum

Self-Realization Fellowship Lessons on the advanced kriya yoga meditation & lifestyle.


SRF/YSS has succeeded in successfully, accurately, and
reliably publishing the major portion of the
Master's great legacy in written, audio, 
and video formats.
 His newest orange covered 
editions of the
 "Autobiography of a Yogi" are still 
appearing on best seller lists.[Spain 2011].
These Self-Realization Fellowship orange covered editions
still radiate with the power of Yogananda's light and love!

All other bootleg editions of the 1946 Autobiography are incomplete & out of date with the masters wishes[including Kindle 1946 editions].
 

 These are the scientifically proven and time tested methods 
that Jesus and Krishna 
privately taught to their disciples in ages past. 

  This is what was never written by Jesus's
  apostles following the master's
 instructions.
JC said "Hearing they do not hear, 
seeing they cannot see,...so I speak to
them in Parables" pp

The lives of many true saints of this path are are
a living testimony to the validity and quality
of this new global spiritual dispensation.
SRF is not a cult or a new age teaching.
SRF is not a subsect or offshoot of any other faith,
as it contains the essence of all major faiths.

Do not be misled by theories of "only one way"
or "progressive revelation" claims.
 

Gospel writings & teachings have suffered many 
distortions for political, cultural, personal and other 
reasons  for so many centuries, leaving the average
believer with faulty understandings of the Real
nature and presence of the real "First Christ."
This universal "Christ Consciousness" was known long
before the time of Jesus as "Kristos" for the Greeks 
"Kutustha Caitanya" or "Krishna consciousness" for Hindus.
In the 19th century a number of savants and 
healers in the East and the West began significant 
spiritual movements to popularize the more
accurate picture of ancient teachings of the
 formless Christ consciousness, Pluralism,
transcendentalism, 
and self transformation.

This early work in India and America has been
further clarified and demonstrated in the
lives of a number of  persons such as the Fillmores,
M Curtis Hopkins, Earnest Holmes, Emmet Fox,
and many others of the New Thought Alliance.
 But it was Paramahansa Yogananda 
who brought
from India the advanced methodology of  Kriya Yoga
techniques and of his own life example.
He founded the 
non-sectarian  society of the
Self-Realization Fellowship/Yogoda Sat Sangha.
This legacy, is a major global dispensation that
 is clearly changing the direction spiritual thinking in  Western and global civilization. 

That same "Consciousness of the Christ"
was fully manifested in the 
lives of many other 
saviors/Gurus from various cultures since the world began. 
Open up your mind to these new and enlightening healing self-transformative concepts.
One will not make serious progress spiritually until one
can go beyond the dark programming of ones cultural
religious  heritage. Which more or less teaches you 
popular ideas of the "many". 

Remember always, Yogananda's teaching of 
this "universal Christ Consciousness"  does not
contradict the Bible, even though it may seem to
contradict your personal interpretation and
religious programming of  said scriptures.
If your education and programming was done
solely by academics and clergy, you may have
some serious work to do on reprogramming yourself.

Paramahansa Yogananda said; Do you see how much the church movement needs reformation? They expect people  to follow religion by proxy. But truth has to be lived,  it has to be Realized as part of ones being."
[Page 239, Journey to Self Realization, SRF Publishers LA USA.]

The most important missionary
duty you will ever have is changing yourself! 
Free yourself  from the "One Way Trap." 

One of the cultural deficits that originated with
the writings of the first gospels was the tradition
of secrecy that allowed writers to give only a hint
of the means and methods of becoming like a Christ.
Jesus said that the public should be taught in
"Parables", as they could not understand deeper issues.
His apostles followed this tradition by leaving out
most of the esoteric methodology for achieving that
higher consciousness. All of this missing data is
now being unveiled by the Holy Spirit through
Yogananda's Self-Realization Fellowship.
These advanced concepts of Pluralism and
Kriya Yoga, and the accurate teachings of
Christ Consciousness
that were taught to the original apostles in private by Jesus. 

The earth is no longer flat, 
The sun does not revolve around the earth.
The earth 
is no longer six thousand years old.
We have many,many, lifetimes on this planet.
We are not the puppets of a cosmic dictator.
No Single Prophet, Faith, sect, or Holy Book
is some God's "only way" or final word on truth.

That " Only One Way" chant is now a dying
myth 
in today's better informed world.

Even if you deem your favorite sacred writ to 
be
 divinely inspired or inerrant, that's the lesser problem.
Your 
greater problem is your programmed personal misinterpretation of  scripture. Your own interpretation will change over time - what then?

Which one of the many interpretations is correct
is not always so easy to know. Are you aware
that most of what you believe is not the teaching
of great souls, but the legal edicts of Roman
politicians [
emperors] who were aware that
religion was a great way to control the masses.
All of that false intel is now programmed into your genes!
Free Yourself with Kriya Yoga Meditation ! 

The Self Realization Fellowship/YSS, to whom
Paramahansa Yogananda gave full authority
and copyright over his legacy and teachings, 
and through which the spiritual blessings
& personal guidance of the masters still richly flows, 
 maintains the devotion and fidelity of Master's wisdom and Yogananda's teachings for the world. 

Yogananda is a "Living Prophet." Those who seek lesser teachers teachers will primarily look for a body.
They will be also looking for someone who
will give them a position or praise as a
lesser teacher long before they are ready - this is an Ego trap.  
 A true Guru 
will teach you how to become really free
of all of your limited 
programming, and teaches
a non-sectarian universal
way of relating in harmony with all our relationships. 

 

Blog posts : "prophets"

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Suggestions along the way for seekers of truth.

.Thursday, March-18-10

         ***The  Avatar ***

"O Bharata (Arjuna) Whenever virtue (dharma) Declines
and vice (adharma) predominates, I incarnate as an Avatar.
In visible form I appear from age to age to
protect the virtuous

 and destroy evildoing in order to reestablish righteousness."

From "God Talks with Arjuna" by Paramahansa Yogananda
SRF Publishers LA USA, 1994 (a Gita Commentary by).

The Avatar is the great soul who reached God-Realization in a previous
lifetime, and voluntarily returns to human form to fill
a special role in
humanities evolutionary process.
Because
the consciousness & stature of such soul is so much more
advanced than
His peers in general, such a one is not so easily recognized
by the masses of people who are still restricted by their cultural and
religious programming. Yet there are so many devotees
of regular
teachers that imagine their own teacher is " 
the one"   or the only avatar
of a certain age. Most of
these claims are merely wishful thinking.
Just as so many
churches vainly claim
                                     that their truth is the"  only real truth."

If you should ever here of ten athletes each claiming they
all came in first in the same race - you will know that they
are all confused about something! Even the ability to
recognize such a "Great One"  is no small/simple task.
Such souls come on earth very rarely and are even
beyond the development of most of our great saints.
Like the unfathomable vastness of all the universes in
outer space, so is the full stature of an avatar beyond
normal human comprehension.
In the Bhagavad Gita the Avatar/Savior Krishna said," 
     " Whosoever, freed from delusion, knows me
as the
Supreme Spirit, Knows All, O descendant
of Bharata.
(Arjuna). He worships me with his
whole being. "

"From "God Talks With Arjuna, SRF Publishers, LA, USA

It is this phrase," Freed from delusion", which
refers to my oft repeated theme on these pages
about becoming free from our many illusions,
especially the delusion that the relative world is real.
Yet even before this happens we must be free from
the negative and erroneous aspects of our religious
and cultural programming as well as the greater
challenge of seeing the world as it really is.

The role of an Avatar/ prophet/Savior being
to raise the consciousness of a localized part,
or a much
broader cross section of humanity
may leave one wondering at times if a certain
individual could
possibly be in such a high
spiritual consciousness to serve in this role.


This is a most difficult area to understand in religions,
as we are used to seeing
in the lives of most great spiritual
beings such divinely manifested
qualities that one should
strive for.

However, it seems that there have been times in
world history
when the prophet was to play a role
that from some aspects
may appear unbecoming
[in certain regards]
of what one would expect to
see in the life of an avatar.

In the cases of both Moses and Mohamed for
example we have a record of great leaders
who
at times condoned/practiced certain types of
violence and seemingly unspiritual/coarse acts.
Their flocks simply were not ready for a higher
level of teaching, and had to be brought forward
a bit from where they were, with a fear mongering
God and many narrow rigid rules.
One can[unless programmed] easily look at that
history and find it wanting/different, but that was
then and this is now.
There are some persons within those groups who
are doing heroic work
at great risk in that difficult
process of reformation .


Some of this may have been done the way it was done because
of the ways of the cultures
they were addressing, and the very
situations those cultures were entrenched in at that somewhat
not so opportune time the Prophet needed to play His role.
Thus He was required to work within those entrenched parameters.
Looking back in time from today's world as we see it with the
available data, with different cultural eyes, too many of these
situations may raise a lot of uncomfortable questions[except
for the clergy who would rather not ask too many questions].

 I will not go into details at this time, as the ancient
and modern
history of all these matters are available
for all to read
  from various sources.


Yet, if a situation required even a great soul to play a part for the
sake of those who
had to be raised up from crude beginnings as
a civilized community, that part he/she played as the will of God.


The very unfortunate aspects of such situations are that since
in reality the religious world
is so rife with fanatics and con
artists of every stripe and style, the above explanation
I just
shared could easily be mistaken as a pass or exception for
certain misdeeds/conflicts by power seeking teachers.


This is where very profound and intuitive spiritual
discrimination comes into the picture.
An intuitive awareness developed by a great deal of
Meditation and spiritually healthy living.
It is very difficult for most persons to be able to tell
what the true status of a proclaimed teacher really is.
Too many persons are influenced by charisma and crowd
excitation, as well as their own innocent hopes and programming.
To be able to tell the difference between a live and a living Guru,
also the levels and values of different teachings can be so easily
misleading to the seeker,
especially when the novice seeker
is trying to find his/her way though this complex subject.
The greatest blessing in todays' world is the convenient availability
of  so much data. Don't let this opportunity pass you by, keep seeking!
Take your time to digest all these new insights, while deeply meditating.

In this area there are so many hidden "  traps" ,  and many
get caught in them while looking through the dark glasses
of ones karmic disposition and programming disabilities.
So much egoic wishful thinking takes place that makes it
appear one has found the perfect way or teacher. Maybe?
And maybe what you have found is the only way for you.
That may very well work. It may take a lifetime to really know.
Just keep in mind - that "  
one way"   is the"  wrong way."

Hopefully one will eventually find either what one is really looking
for[that can be anything],
or one will find the clear and sure
direction of the better way to truly advance
in the way one can
best understand the path. This will be a little different for

different personality groups with differing needs.

If in ones spiritual search a person ends up in any
faith/Path believing that all persons must
also follow
the way yo
  u have attached yourself to, thinking it is the
"ONLY WAY " for all persons
-you can be sure of three things.

First, you have not gone forwards, but merely sideways with
different names and forms to worship.
  Second, you are still severely entrenched in popular programming that essentially keeps most persons in the most limiting views of God an mans evolutionary directions.
     Third, You will surely be a long time even understanding your own faith.

The basis of some great misunderstandings amongst orthodox
religionists in this matter stems from misreading motives and

the misunderstanding of the Prophets exercise of "  lineage closure".
Statements of closure made by various prophets such
as ---

 Jesus saying "  Many shall come in my name saying,
" I am He"   look here or look there "..."believe them not."

who also said "I am the way the truth and the light, no one comes to the father except through me? "John 14;  This oft quoted out of context piece of misunderstood script will only make sense if one reads a few verses further down the page "  It is not I that am speaking - but the father that does all these works." This context  now changes the  meaning of it all! Jesus never was and is not the only way for all persons in the world! Only for those who are destined to be his personal devotees is He the only way. For those of other faiths - they too have their own true saviors.
---or as Muhammad "  Allah  will never send a new prophet or religion to this earth after this,"
Re the Hadith-from Muhammads' last lecture. [ how is it that so many great prophets have succeeded Muhammad eg Sankara, Lahiri Mahasaya, Paramahansa Yogananda, etc, etc .
---or as Bahaullah"  If any person claims to be a prophet of God within the expiration
of one thousand years. Know that person to be  fraud, and if such a person does not
recant His claim, great will be the punishment awaiting him."
From Gleanings [last page]. And along came other great ones.

---Or  as 10th Guru of the Sikhs,  Gobind Singh , saying there
would not be any more gurus in that lineage.

---or as Paramahansa Yogananda,  who said there would be
no more "Gurus" succeeding Him in His branch of the
Sacred
lineage of the Self-Realization Fellowship/YSS tradition
in the lineage of Mahavatar Babaji. Yogananda also took this
a bit further by warning us about the unreliability of the various
Psychics who in the future would claim they are getting all kinds
of messages from Him for the world etc. And so it is happening.
Misreading of motives is another problem - if you are dealing with
a great soul/prophet, such a one would not be looking for the
monopolies or status that ego based individuals would seek.
Not in the bigger picture. So claims to exclusivity are minor
in these [ if non-existent ] in these noted statements of closure.
Giving them an absolute and literal interpretation will often
contradict history and common sense.

Keep in mind that such statements were also used as
political tools to control the masses by power hungry
authorities and wannabe teachers. Beware the clergy!


There is also the matter of errors in more ancient documents,
even your favorite "God" may not always eliminate human
error in written and translated documents. 
Whose translation are you going to interpret?
What will your own interpretation be 25 years from now?
Our perspectives and associations are always changing/evolving!


There are several things going on here, and although from one point of view it appears that many of these comments are claims to exclusivity, it is not so. These
statements were originally intended  words of protection, direction, and caution for the faithful.
 Initially, because of the restless nature of many devotees, the leader /prophet must make some clear statement to protect His earnest followers from becoming distracted by the many, many, copy-cat charlatans who always inevitably attempt to duplicate or even hijack the masters work as soon as He leaves the earthly visible scene . The securing of the legacy itself is also an important consideration in this process of "   closure" .  It seals the work so that it will be free from misuse for some future period and not diluted by too many other opinions by the founders successors and/or competitors. There are exceptions to this when the founder is succeeded by great souls of God-Realization. Such persons with egos subdued are now concerned about becoming famous etc.          
Hopefully if the devotees are listening to Him and not every opportunist out there,  they would not be looking for the comforting hand holding from dead gurus who are still living in this world. Many of whom will vainly claim some unique and/or exclusive position of authority as the true successor of  so and so. But people being as they are, seeking with such innocence, hope and trust, really eat this up. It must be a side effect of the unreal /relative world called "MAYA."

Closure also aids in keeping some limits on the sheer quantity of Holy Writ, which seems to become rather voluminous when dealing with some prolific writers. When one understands that these writings can often be very profound and subtle in their meanings. Even in the plainest language writings of many pages become difficult for the mind to coordinate and remember. If you add to this the writings of too many leaders in a single movement [NRM] confusion and contradiction may eventually seem to result. END

 

"  Now we see through a glass darkly,

   Then we will see face to face." KJV

 The key to watch for here is the word "Then".
The term "then" is not just when you join a Church ?
and praise a God or a Savior, it is when you greatly
change yourself and become Self-Realized as did
history's greatest saints and Yogis. This is exactly
what Lord Krishna said in an earlier quote above -
"   being freed from delusion."
In the meantime regular meditation etc will gradually improve
your intuition and your spiritual discrimination - the polishing
of that direct link to divine wisdom and attunement.

To become free of this problem popular belief requires
the breaking free of false knowledge,
with which every
human being has been programmed no matter what
your faith, culture, or status [with the exception of the
Great Ones- those who are God-realized, these are persons
who in this or other lifetimes have succeeded in breaking
through the darkness of popular belief systems and have
clearly penentrated to the core of Reality{the true God}
].
Such persons are the Saviors of the world and sometimes
great religious or spiritual movements are founded on
their lives and works/teachings by followers.
We all have to understand that this is the initial
challenge
for every human being, every seeker and devotee.
This step is the matrix to realizing that the world as
we see it/know it through the senses is also "  not real."
Thus this material world is known as the world of Relativity.
Recognizing and understanding the very existence of this
endemic problem and working ones way out of
it is a major
first step on any progressive spiritual path/search.
Joining
another church or cult with all its euphoria
may temporarily excite you, but the real change can
only come if you have true divine leadership/guidance
through which you can change yourself. Missionary zeal
is the deadweight to spiritual progress -change yourself.
Going sideways is not the same as going forward!
Beware of those who assume to know how to save you if they do
not first realize their own innate predicament in this regard.
And have at least gone past much of this problem of delusion.
"The blind cannot lead the blind." Yet in the world of persons,
this seems to be a main position adopted by most well meaning
evangelists and missionaries and other unrealized teachers.
Things have not changed very much - these are the modern Pharisees.

 Some dispensations were meant to bring various cultures to higher
lessons of life and appear more universal in their teachings and
may never seem out of date, whereas other dispensations were for
timely local purposes to serve certain cultures/races in their
social/spiritual baby steps. All have some enduring principles
that are eternal in their application to human life mixed in with
their topical social rules. Then we also have the fact that so many
teachings/ideas/writings can get changed [even politicized]
along the way. One cannot begin to really progress spiritually
if one imagines that keeping on with popular traditions alone
will lead to any kind of immortality/salvation/truth.
Popular ideas are generally of the very lowest quality.
Whether in area of food, religion, entertainment etc.
Usually promising  some degree of truth, salvation, security,
and rewards which they really have no power to give to any one.

Or perhaps it is also a matter of  "  taking the sugar and throwing the sand away,"    as the Master said. Not always easy to know what is no longer relevant when one is trying to prove to the rest of the world that ones book is the most perfect one in the world.[that alone is a non-starter]. You will obviously have to spend more time understanding the whole picture to see all parts as really being the same elephant! [In reference to a story told by the Master "  5 blind boys and the elephant "]

Whereas the former type of dispensations - such as came
via Krishna, Jesus, Shankara, Buddha, Yogananda,
and the
greatest mystics of various faiths represent a
pluralism with more mystical teaching on prayer and
meditation, the subtler aspect of the spiritual life in
greater detail, few social and material rules[less politics],

and a God of Love and forgiveness.
This level of dispensation is for more universal application
for the long term and can truly be applied to all
serious seekers regardless of nationality, culture and faith.
This level of teaching when properly
applied and
understood will show more freedom from politics and fear.
This level of spirituality gives one true empowerment.

Those other popular teachings will be full of harsh rules for social
and material living, God fearing threats and the most rigid
codes imaginable. Such teachings will need major reforming
to meet the needs of to-days world, and those who were
telling
everyone else to
change to their way may themselves be in
the greatest need to change.  Many people are now seeing Reality
in a different light, reading old writ with new eyes. Eyes that see
more clearly that than those eyes programmed by theological systems.

The best truism for serious religionists is to confine their exclusive
claims to their personal needs. Saying that their chosen path is the
only way for themselves. Beyond that there is great danger to all.
The tail is wagging the dog!

Reminds me of a marriage in trouble, each person thinks
it is the other
who should do the changing to make things right.
The great conflicts in the world
of religion will not abate until
we all start looking within to solve these problems.

Pluralism would be a great first step for all Middle-eastern
originating faiths to
subscribe to, it may even make a great
contribution to world peace.


Only those who are God-realized have the right to suggest
others to be like them, even follow them!
They are in the best position to show us the way.

And such great ones never use force [as policy]
to persuade the world of their wisdom.


Namste, PYisLove..IMHO


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