Yogananda on Bhagavad Gita

ajay0 said:

Deity worship, pujas, mantra recitation, bhakti marga (nama recitation), all deals with Bhakti yoga or for those of an emotional temperament.

Kriya yoga deals with Raja Yoga or yoga of mysticism.

Both are different paths to the same goal of annihilation of karma, and attainment of liberation or Self-realisation.

Lahiri Mahasaya attained enlightenment through Raja Yoga.

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It appears to me that self-realization as in the state of 'samadhi' is possible only for those who follow Raja-yoga, am I correct?

I am assuming that kriya yoga deals with the chakras, and of the great Kundalini yoga.

I am not sure if a pure bhakta can ever attain samadhi or feel the effects of self-realization.

All I wonder about is, whether Raja-yoga quickens the spiritual process and elevates us to a reality that is far higher than a bhakta can attain...

Any thoughts, kindly share.

Viraja said:

It appears to me that self-realization as in the state of 'samadhi' is possible only for those who follow Raja-yoga, am I correct?

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Not at all. All the yoga's are paths towards it, provided there is meticulous execution of the yogic process.

Bhakti is the easiest and most pleasant.

Jnana is the fastest, but also the most dangerous due to the scope for delusion as happened with Virochana and others.

Viraja said:

I am assuming that kriya yoga deals with the chakras, and of the great Kundalini yoga.

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Yes. It also deals with the study of prana or life-force.

Viraja said:

I am not sure if a pure bhakta can ever attain samadhi or feel the effects of self-realization.

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Ramakrishna was a bhakta, and so was Mira.

Viraja said:

All I wonder about is, whether Raja-yoga quickens the spiritual process and elevates us to a reality that is far higher than a bhakta can attain...

Any thoughts, kindly share.

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All yogas go to the same goal.

Nisargadatta was a bhakta and Jnana yogi. Janaka was a Karma yogi and jnana yogi. Lahiri Mahasaya was a karma yogi and raja yogi.

You can practice karma yoga and other yoga's with bhakti yoga, if you want to. It depends on your liking or temperament. The more the practice, obviously the faster the progress.

Raja yoga should be studied under a good master, as improper or imprecise methods can lead to issues later on.

A little from Yogananda's Introduction to his commentary, volume 1:xxv:

"This Bhagavad Gita that I offer to the world, God Talks With Arjuna,
is a spiritual commentary of the communion that takes place
between the omnipresent Spirit (symbolized by Krishna) and the soul
of the ideal devotee (represented by Arjuna). I arrived at the spiritual
understanding expressed in these pages by attunement with Vyasa, and
by perceiving the Spirit as God of creation relating wisdom to the awakened
Arjuna within myself. I became Arjuna's soul and communed with
Spirit; let the result speak for itself. I am not giving an interpretation,
but am chronicling what I perceived as the Spirit pours Its wisdom into
an attuned soul's devotional intuition in the various states of ecstasy.

Many truths buried in the Gita for generations are being expressed
in English for the first time through me. And I again acknowledge that
I owe much to my paramgurus, Mahavatar Babaji and Lahiri Mahasaya,
and to my Gurudeva, for their revelations, which have inspired the
birth of a new presentation of the Gita; and above all, to their grace in
blessing my endeavor. This work is not mine; it belongs to them, and
to God, Krishna, Arjuna, and Vyasa."

Nicholas W. said:

Here is a little about the Avatar behind the modern public Kriya movement and a few of the links in the lineage. There are more than just the four mentioned:

Mahavatar Babaji

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Avatara, huh. Nicholas, you are posting in Hindu DIR. Don't feed us rubbish. Is that what Buddha taught?

Viraja said:

If I am not derailing this thread, can someone answer the question, "compare Kriya yoga with bhakti practices"...

I feel very guilty I'm not practicing Kriya yoga, the very idea of meditation intimidates me. But I'm devout and I pray a lot.

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OK, you are impressed with the Babaji videos. But there are many ways to get enlightenment in Hinduism - Jnana, Bhakti and Karma. How did the sages of old get realization when there were no Babaji videos? They make meditation so difficult when it is simply sitting in a quite place and thinking concentrically about things without being disturbed by extraneous thoughts. Is 'Kriya Yoga' the only door to heaven?

Viraja said:

It appears to me that self-realization as in the state of 'samadhi' is possible only for those who follow Raja-yoga, am I correct?

I am not sure if a pure bhakta can ever attain samadhi or feel the effects of self-realization.

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No, I do not think you are corrfect. All these are just names - Raja Yoga, Kriya Yoga, Kundalini. IMHO, they mislead the seeker and do not benefit any. Bhaktas get the same benefit without any meditation. For them, the name of their deity is meditation.

It is just wrong to be a seeker: all one needs in life is to know how to survive. For that one trusts God through the process of satya-advaitic surrender until the realisation attained means that one is God, not a seeker.

Shantanu said:

It is just wrong to be a seeker: all one needs in life is to know how to survive. For that one trusts God through the process of satya-advaitic surrender until the realisation attained means that one is God, not a seeker.

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If that were true or even good advice, there would have never been any God realized Ones who sought & found thru other paths.

Nicholas W. said:

If that were true or even good advice, there would have never been any God realized Ones who sought & found thru other paths.

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The only objective of life, the purpose of living is to survive and live up to a grand old age because death means you are finished. There is nothing beyond. This is because there is no rebirth or reincarnation of the self.

With that in mind the only path that attains this objective to live on is called the truth path: this means persistently and perenially acting to protect oneself from harmful elements in Nature. One does not attack nor probe out to seek anything. When one does only that instinctively God as paramatma comes to assist the process of survival. So one becomes attuned to God and sees no difference between the self and God. This is the Ultimate Reality and Ultimate Realisation.

That is the only enlightenment that is desirable for by following the truth path one lives for another day as far as ones body-genetics is supposed to take one. And God knows that since He has created a living being and therefore has a duty to protect that being if the being has surrendered to Him. It leads to the attainment of advaita.

That is the art of living: mere survival through truth accommodation or satya-advaita. One should not have any other objectives.

I therefore do not do follow noble truths and eightfold paths to enlightenment or nirvana as you Buddhists do.

"..death means you are finished. This is because there is no rebirth or reincarnation." A most curious form of Advaita materialistic thought. No truth to it, at all.

Nicholas W. said:

"..death means you are finished. This is because there is no rebirth or reincarnation." A most curious form of Advaita materialistic thought. No truth to it, at all.

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Yes, that is true. But I was not always like that: I was a seeker for all my life with a mission to accomplish, until it finally dawned on me that no one takes any notice of what I have done and achieved not even God. So I am back to my materialistic self that I abandoned at the age of 40 when I suddenly thought that I had a spiritual awakening. Over the next 22 years the only thing I learnt was what I needed to do to survive in this world. I used to save money for a rainy day and minimise my expenditures as saving the planet for environmental reasons. Now I have abandoned that and any spiritual objectives for all I learnt was I am God here on Earth to live out a human life to utilise all the resources that I can lay my hands on with my wife and daughter and enjoying myself by going on holidays to see different countries and to visit my relatives in India.

So this week I also got myself a credit card after these 22 years and we are running a second car in the family for convenience and to open our options so that we do not worry about our only car breaking down and leaving us stranded.

That is the swadharma I talk about to @Aupmanyav. One must take care and look after oneself. It is a very British thing but for the wrong reasons: The British want to live up to old age to serve the State and the Queen whereas I do this now to serve myself. I think God has given me only one life and I should make the most of it. I am 62 years of age and am going in for my MRI scan in the Hospital on 18 December 2018 to see if my high prostate specific antigen (PSA) count detected by my doctor indicates have prostate cancer. I am anxious about it because I want to live.

I want to live up to at least 80 years of age and contribute to knowledge for all humanity through my Blog as my dharma: you can access this by googling 'Shantanu Panigrahi's Blog' - 'Towards Knowledge for World Conservation'. I am not allowed to provide a link here any more as it is against Forum Rules to do so.

Shantanu, May you live a long and healthy life!

Nicholas W. said:

Shantanu, May you live a long and healthy life!

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Nicholas, you know what you are saying: you are wishing God a long and healthy life. You are indeed blessed I am sure.

To keep the body in good health is a duty... otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear. - Buddha

Thus to keep oneself healthy is a sacred duty, to ward off delusion and error on the mental plane as well. This is important in terms of cultivating viveka and discrimination between the real and unreal.

Nicholas, have you read Yogananda's book 'Autobiography of a Yogi' !

I read it as a teenager, and it helped me to get rid of the fear of death and loss, and brought me closer to the spiritual path. The Bhagavad Gita also had a similar influence on me.

I am looked after by the Mental Health authorities of the United Kingdom, and it has never done me any harm whatsoever that the doctors have confirmed. I have been prescribed risperidone antipsychotic medication for my persistent delusional disorder and sertraline for the depression (recently the risperidone dosage was increased from 3 mg daily to 4 mg daily because it was not working according to the Consultant Psychiatrist and now they are recommending psychological therapy on top). I am also on atrovastatins for high cholesterol and am being examined for prostate cancer and prediabetes. So I am not in the best of health at my age even though I say I wish to live up to 80.

But that is my life: so even God suffers from health issues which does not stop him from performing his dharma of generating knowledge for world conservation for the betterment of humanity in the 21st century by providing this update on material and spiritual matters through me as a living God.

Nicholas W. said:

"..death means you are finished. This is because there is no rebirth or reincarnation." A most curious form of Advaita materialistic thought. No truth to it, at all.

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Oh, you are not familiar with it. Death does not mean that what you are constituted of, built with, is also finished. The substrate of all that exists in Brahman, and there is no change to Brahman ever. That would continue to exist after death as it existed even before birth. Neither death nor birth are truth, they are illusions. You are That, Brahman. "Tat twam asi". Adi Sankara (the first Sankaracharya) said:

"Na me mṛityuśaṅkā, na me jātibhedaḥ, pitā naiva me, naiva mātā, na janmaḥ;
na bandhur, na mitraṃ, gurunaiva śişyaḥ, cidānandarūpaḥ śivo'ham śivo'ham."

(I neither have fear of death, nor differences due to species or caste, I have neither have a father nor a mother nor even a birth. I neither have relatives nor friends, I am neither a guru nor a disciple, I am the ever blissful form of Shiva, indeed, I am Shiva.)
Atma Shatkam - Wikipedia, Verse 5 (also known as 'Nirvana Shatakam', Six Verses to Nirvana)

Nicholas W. said:

If that were true or even good advice, there would have never been any God realized Ones who sought & found thru other paths.

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As per the Upanishads, Virochana the Asura believed deludedly that Brahman was the body and rejected the vedic dictum of Brahman being pure consciousness.

Prajñānam brahma - Brahman is pure consciousness (Aitareya Upanishad 3.3 of the Rig Veda)


Indra on the other hand, through patient study, contemplation, satsang and meditation eventually realized that Brahman is pure consciousness.

The story of Indra and Virochana is illustrated in the ancient Upanishads to showcase the fact of how delusion can mislead people to the wrong path and erroneous conclusions.

A wise lesson for us to profit by.

Aupmanyav said:

Oh, you are not familiar with it. Death does not mean that what you are constituted of, built with, is also finished. The substrate of all that exists in Brahman, and there is no change to Brahman ever. That would continue to exist after death as it existed even before birth. Neither death nor birth are truth, they are illusions. You are That, Brahman. "Tat twam asi". Adi Sankara (the first Sankaracharya) said:

"Na me mṛityuśaṅkā, na me jātibhedaḥ, pitā naiva me, naiva mātā, na janmaḥ;
na bandhur, na mitraṃ, gurunaiva śişyaḥ, cidānandarūpaḥ śivo'ham śivo'ham."

(I neither have fear of death, nor differences due to species or caste, I have neither have a father nor a mother nor even a birth. I neither have relatives nor friends, I am neither a guru nor a disciple, I am the ever blissful form of Shiva, indeed, I am Shiva.)
Atma Shatkam - Wikipedia, Verse 5 (also known as 'Nirvana Shatakam', Six Verses to Nirvana)

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In Vyvaharika, the body disintegrates into its atoms at death and is recycled into plants and then new animals including human beings. That is the only and continual reincarnation that has been going on for hundreds of millions of years since life began on Earth. That is the Brahman (Atman in living beings) and it never changes. In Paramathika, there is no birth nor death as all that is illusion for the only thing that exists in the absolute truth is God.

Nicholas W. said:

"..death means you are finished. This is because there is no rebirth or reincarnation." A most curious form of Advaita materialistic thought. No truth to it, at all.

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Bullcrap

DanielR said:

Bullcrap

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Observations like this are insightful.