What does is say about Hinduism and yoga when swamis and gurus have sex with their followers? I think it says that these people failed and abused their positions of power and authority, but it doesn’t say that it’s the fault of Hinduisim or yoga, and it would be unfair to say that it was.
Hinduism is not an organized religion with a clergy. So if an individual Hindu guru/swami does something unbecoming, those actions only reflect the individiaul guru/swami. It is not the same in Christianity, because it has a clergy and thus their actions are representative. If this includes the highest places in the Church this is an indictment on Christianity.
Moreover, we understand the swamis actions as not absolute evils. We understand that overall these swamis are developed souls, but they have not reached enlightenment yet and still suffer from pangs of desire. This does not mean we will reject them outright, we can still learn from them.
Humans CAN follow dictates. Humans can resist doing wrong because of fear of punishment. Humans can also transcend that and do right out of a love of God. Humans can also sin and stumble and be forgiven and start over.
I have met many “average joes” in my church who are good holy and spirtual people because of their devotion to Catholicism.
The fear of God is just the beginning, as would be a fear of imprisonment to someone inclined to stealing. Eventually that fear can be refined into a desire to do good.
This is basically primitive psychology. This psychology teaches the basic carrot and stick approach. If somebody does wrong you punish them and if somebody does right you reward them. It has been found in modern psychology that this is the most ineffective way of training humans, and in fact produces rebellion, resentment and repression. This is historically reflected in the sexual revolution in Europe, as soon as the Church’s influence waned on the life of individuals in Europe in victorian times, what followed was an explosion of repressed sexuality.
You keep ignoring these facts of history. You keep ignoring the huge endemic problem of child molestation and sexual deviancy in your own Church. They are outcomes of the bad psychology employed in your religion.
It has instead been found in modern psychology that the best way to train a human is not punish or reward them if they do something wrong, but to regulate their behaviour using positive and negative reinforcement. A negative reinforcement is when the human is subjected to unpleasurable circumstances and the action that produces pleasurable feelings then becomes enforced. The human then learns the action that produces a pleasurable response and does that. A positive reinforcement is when the human is subjected to pleasurable circumstances, and the action that produces non-pleasurable feelings then becomes non-enforced. The human then learns the action that produces a non-pleasurable response and does that.
However this kind of classical conditioning applies mostly to animals because they are more stimulus-response driven, than humans. More effective methods based on learning approach in psychology is to use variable positive and negative enforcements. This is when a pleasurable feeling is then not produced always by the same action, but only sometimes. This kind of approach is used very effectively by corporations in order to maintain employees.
Yoga psychology goes further than modern psychology by using the natural pleasure and pain responses of the body and allowing the subject themselves through awareness to note which responses produce pleasure and which produce pain. The subject then learns how to behave in a manner that will produce maximum pleasure for themselves e.g., which breathing techniques produce the most relaxation and mental balance, which postures produce the best spinal alignment, which food produces the most healthy state. As this is naturally learned behaviour this type of learning is the most effective and most enduring.
The difference between Christianity and Yoga/Hinduism is not just merely ideological and doctrinal, it is the difference between primitive and advanced.
Christianity is based on primitive cosmology, psychology, physics, sociology and this is why it is problem-laden. Hinduism and Buddhism are based on advanced cosmology, psychology, physics and sociology and this is why they are less problem-laden.
Christianity is clearly on its way out. We have rejected most of Christian cosmology, psychology, physics and sociology already in the modern world, in favour of the modern - in favour of the Eastern.
