Cults In Yoga - Siddha / Brahma Kumaris / Sahaja Yoga, etc (often non physical Yoga)

Yoga Discussion General Yoga
#199

[QUOTE=AmirMourad;57025]Surya,

"Sri Sri Ravishankar is not enlightened, but naive, gullible and childish. He finds it very difficult to give spoken interviews, and I saw his performance in his debate with Zakir Naik and it was pitiable. A man who is always trying to smile, clearly has something wrong with him. I have seen his face when he’s not smiling - and it ain’t a pretty sight. "

I agree. The man is far more of a politician than a master. That is one of the reasons why he constantly makes an effort to smile - he wants to project a certain image of being blissful. And I have heard many of his responses to questions - it seems that he is not interested at all in assisting others towards their awakening. He constantly offers sweet words to those who want to hear sweet words. Otherwise, he would not have continued saying things which are just intended to make you feel safe, comfortable, secure - giving consolation to ones ego. Because he knows very well, just being a practical man, that if he were to do such a thing - more than half of his disciples will flee from him. If he were to state things which come a bit closer to reality - then most people are not going to find it appealing because reality has no obligation to fit into your view as to how things should be. Perhaps, such an approach may be useful just as bait so that others may get caught in the hook and go deeper. Even Gautama Buddha used to mold his language according to the people to whom he was speaking - when he was speaking with Hindus he used to use the word “Atman”, even though a central part of his teaching was the opposite - “Anatman”.

But that is not Sri Sri Ravishankars approach, because in the first place he is not interested in bringing others to their awakening, nor is he awakened, he is just interested in building a reputation for himself and the foundation he represents. It is just his profession. Many “masters” are not really “masters”, they are just performing their profession. They are a bit like priests, although they do not have that title or represent an organized religion. The followers who come to the priest come to him because they believe that he has some intimate connection with God, the same is the case with those who come to these “masters”, people believe they are enlightened without a question and that is all that is needed. That is how people like Sri Sri Ravishankar, Shri Mataji, Bhagavan of the Oneness movement, and others - have been successful at obtaining more and more followers. The whole work is just the work of satisfying other people’s ego, and in this way it is not different than the way businesses function in the business world. In fact - what they are doing is just business work, they are just interested in building a reputation for their non-profit organizations - not assisting others towards their liberation.[/QUOTE]

Good observation :slight_smile:

#200

How about "Patanjali Yoga Peeth" of Ramdev Baba?

Does the following link makes any sense?

http://www.chauthiduniya.com/2011/03/baba-ramdev-is-exposed-by-pramod-krishnam-exclusive.html

Honestly, I do not have any affiliation to any of these cults, I love following scriptures and try getting as little as possible.

However, this thread is to put forth all the available information (true or false) about cults for the readers and so I am posting this. It is for the individuals to decide.

#201

[QUOTE=Sahasrara;57026]True, agreed.
Do you mean to say that SY is the only way? If yes, can you justify why SY is the only universal key to open Sahasrara and not others?[/QUOTE]Because in 1970 Shri Mataji has opened Sahasrara chakra at Collective level and SHE holds the key.

#202

[QUOTE=Seeker33;57034]Because in 1970 Shri Mataji has opened Sahasrara chakra at Collective level and SHE holds the key.
http://youtu.be/RpNYZAAQ0fM[/QUOTE]

Only she holds the key not Jesus too? Not Allah too? Not any other cult? Before her who was holding the key, Maharishi Mahesh yogi? Why not Hanuman? Why not Gayatri? Why not Shiva? Why not Maha Visnhu? Why not Krishna? Why not Krishna of ISKON? Why not Shakti, whose reincarnation is Mata ji, perceived by Mataji cult members? Why should I follow an incarnation and why not directly Shakti?

All others are not holding the key, because they cannot be published in youtube or youtube did not exist in that period or they did not have an organized business to collect donations and conduct charity projects?

This is the very nature of the cults :slight_smile: They start preaching they are the only one who holds the key to enlightenment?

What happened to all those who got Kundalini raised in that mass Mesmerization? How many are doing good and how many left the organization? How many are in jail and how many are atheist? Do you have the statistics of all those who attended and got their Sahasrara opened? What happened to all those who has their kundalini raised? Can you publish the complete list of people who attended this?

After Sahasrara opened what happens? You start your own organization and start collecting money for charity projects? Enter into politics? Start doing arms deals all over the world, like some cult figure did?

Is the dharma of modern age Sahasrara opening?

Why not you try my method of opening Sahasrara, before you discount and say only she holds the key?

Can I have a choice to follow others too? Are they all fake?
[B][U]
Wow! Fallacy is truth where ignorance is bliss![/U][/B]

Om Tat Sat! Hari Om Tat Sat!

#203

If someone is thirsty he will seek water. Did you awaken your Kundalini?

#204

[QUOTE=Seeker33;57039]If someone is thirsty he will seek water. Did you awaken your Kundalini?[/QUOTE]

Are you open to try the method I suggested? If you do not want to, you are not thirsty and you do not want to awaken your Kundalini :slight_smile:

There are some who can quench their thirst with Coke, Pepsi and any Soda. I like water only. Am wrong, or you will brand me that I do not know to quench my thirst? :slight_smile:

Can you tell me any other water other than the water you are giving me? I am allergic to your water :slight_smile:

Please answer my questions and do not counter question. I think you want to flood this thread with your SY only by not giving chance to discuss about other cults:) I understood your tactics Sir:) Move on.

#205

Whatever terms and names that can be used, they are all certain to impose limitations. All words and descriptions are just the projections of thought. Anything that can be said about it, is just pointing towards the Way and nothing else.

There is a wise saying in our tradition: “The mind is both the enslaver and the liberator” Yes, it is the mind that has enslaved us through language by separating everything into separate things in time and space, with names, labels etc - but the same language can liberate us, when you can clearly label things, understand how things work, and then utilize those things towads our benefit.

Like it or not, you have to use language. You do live in a real world. You do have senses and you do have mind. If you did not use language, you would not know the difference between a snake and a rope, between poison and medicine, between what is right and what is wrong. You would up living a highly foolish life where you would try climbing up a snake, taking poison when you have a tummy ache, and failing your math exam because you think 2+2 = 5. In short you would get yourself into all kinds of mess, and more likely than not, you would be dead before you knew it.

So put your borrowed Buddhistic philosophy to one side and get real. I am different to you and you are different to me, does that not establish we are separate people? If you get pleasure, I don’t. If you get pain, I don’t. If you get enlightenment, I don’t. Why, because we are separate conscious being. I make my decisions, you make yours.

That there is an is “us” is undeniable. For even to deny you, you would have to admit the one that denies. The fact that there is a you, who knows, sees, desires, feels is absolute. There is you and then there is a world that you interact with, that contains all kinds of things from other people, animals, planets, stars, solar systems, galaxies. If you deny this, then you are irrational.

Our wise scientists have noted that there are very clear differences between “us” and the “world” For example, we can forget things, we can get angry. Imagine if the sun forgot to shine one day because it got angry :wink: Wisdom then tells us that “us” and the “world” are very different in quality. This is the wise discernment between matter and consciousness, spirit and not spirit, observer and observed. It gives us knowledge that we are separate substances, it lets us know that we are merely witnesses of the world, we are not actually in it. The great science of Yoga which you take for granted was built based on this discernment. It reverses the illusion that you are in this world. Ultimately, taking you to a state beyond being and non-being. It takes you from consciousness, subconsciousness, unconsciousness to a state beyond all three. It takes you from physical body, mental body, causal body to something beyond all three. It takes you to the ultimate.

What you are trying to pretend is that you are already at the the goal before taking the journey. You expect us to throw away language, throw away control, throw away our ego, and just leave ourselves prey to nature. And that is why you are a huge fool. If you leave yourself prey to the world, you will be preyed on :wink:

Drop both being, drop even non-being, and come to a direct encounter with the inexpressible.

That ain’t going to happen until you can have a direct encounter with the expressible :wink: Ground yourself son, or you’ll fall into space.

#206

Just an observation: What the dialogue between me and and Amir is really accentuating is how different Buddhism and Hinduism are. One denies the self, one asserts it; one denies language, one asserts it; one denies control and one asserts it… one is lost in the clouds and the other is practical and down to earth :wink:

This is why Hinduism invented all the sciences and Buddhism went the nihilism path. Yeah, lets just annihilate ourselves and not make any efforts and do the gardening or something or drink tea and become one with the moment. No wonder the Buddhist province Ghandara fell to Muslim invaders immediately. The Hindus at least put up a fight in their kingdoms :wink:
Ever heard of Buddhist freedom fighters? :smiley:

#207

A case could be made for the Samurai, if not being freedom fighters, at least being brave warriors.

#208

Of course when we go to Far Eastern cultures like Japan and China, Buddhism takes on a more violent character. This can be explained as the merging of a pacifist Buddhism with the more violent warrior culture of Japan and China. In my example I am concentrating more on Indian Buddhism.

#209

[QUOTE=Seeker33;57034]Because in 1970 Shri Mataji has opened Sahasrara chakra at Collective level and SHE holds the key.
http://youtu.be/RpNYZAAQ0fM[/QUOTE]

Corrcection - She [B]HELD[/B] the key , Shri Mataji passed away a little over a month ago.

Sahaja Yoga was already a very small movement with small amount of followers, anyone with free will and common sense and who was not gullible or naive stayed well clear of it - anyone looking into it objectively saw it was a Cult, just as anyone looking objectively into the Moonies (Unification Church) or Scientology would clearly see them as Cults and something to avoid. We will see how long Sahaja Yoga lasts without the Guru.

[B]‘There is no smoke without fire’ as they say, Cults like Scientology, Moonies, Sahaja Yoga, etc have such terrible reputations and are constantly surrounded by negative reports for a reason! [/B]

#210

[QUOTE=Sahasrara;57040]Can you tell me any other water other than the water you are giving me? I am allergic to your water :).[/QUOTE]Dear one. You have wrong identification that “I am allergic to your water”. May be Sahaja Water is allergic to you. Who is the doer?

Prakriteh kriyamaanaani gunaih karmaani sarvashah;
Ahamkaaravimoodhaatmaa kartaaham iti manyate.
27. All actions are wrought in all cases by the qualities of Nature only. He whose mind is deluded by egoism thinks: “I am the doer”.

#211

[QUOTE=MindNinja;57052]Corrcection - She [B]HELD[/B] the key , Shri Mataji passed away a little over a month ago.

Sahaja Yoga was already a very small movement with small amount of followers, anyone with free will and common sense and who was not gullible or naive stayed well clear of it…[/QUOTE]We will see buddy. Just watch.
[B]Incarnations are working from their Viraat level. [/B]

#212

Baba Ramdev is not enlightened, but he is a dharmic person and a fine Yoga teacher of contemporary times. He has been responsible for reviving the education of Yoga, Pranamaya, dharna, Ayurveda and dharma in general in India today and making it respectable again, because of him millions of Indians practice yoga today. His Yoga camps are free, they are televised on the Hindu spiritual channel Aastha and Patanjali Yoga is being taught for free or for very cheap prices(?1-2) in the UK and you are getting proper yoga. It has become widely respected in the Indian community here, even the Sikh community. Baba Ramdev has also campaigned against corruption, terrorism, capitalism, black money and other such blights on Indian society and millions of Indians are now aware of them and taking some action against them. Thus Baba Ramdev’s contributions to India today are massive. God bless the man.

My only criticism of Baba Ramdev is not to speak too much. He speaks fast, he speaks loud, he speaks a lot and he has an opinion on everything. This is why I know hes not enlightened, but an ordinary person like we are. He is a fine Yoga teacher though and has started a huge Yoga revolution in India. I would never accept him as my teacher, because I am looking for enlightened people.

#213

Regarding Seekers claim that ONLY SY is the right way and method. This is to be expected, as all bad cults claim exclusivity. The first thing you are taught when you go to your first few SY sessions is to stay away from others, every other way and method is condemned. This caused quite a dilemma for me and my friends when we went, because we were practicing other methods and traditions as well - but we were flat out told that we MUST only practice SY and nothing else. The reason they gave for this was that in order to give SY a fair trial and see if it works or not we should spend a few months practicing only it and nothing else. This sounded semi-reasonable to me, but the truth is, it is a ploy to get you to practice only ways their and method forever.

SY denounces every other tradition very strongly. One of the SY leaders was telling us a story of how we met somebody and was getting on very well with them, but then they told him they were part of a cult which was on the SY denounce list, he then said he vomitted and immediately got away from him. He reported to us he had felt the negative vibrations which caused him to vomit. I sat there thinking, “You did not feel any vibrations when you first met him and were talking to him, you only felt them when he told you he was part of a cult you are told is evil” I realised then more strongly I was dealing with highly extremist and fundamentalist people. I think this was roughly the time period when we left.

A cult member becomes a dependent of the cult for all information and methods, so they shut themselves off from all information and methods outside the cult. As Seeker has, though he quotes the Yoga Sutras, he only quotes the lines that SY uses for their ends, but has not read the whole text. Had he read the whole text, he would know that YS is an entire manuel and training guide to how to get to the goal of Yoga. It gives the method, it even gives the reader warnings of the obstacles and pitfalls on the way and tips. In fact, you don’t need anything other than the Yogasutras to be honest to start your sadhana. Nor is he aware of the traditions going on for centuries and millenias of Kriya Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Hatha Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Karma Yoga that have been getting people to the goal of Yoga. There are loads of methods out there to get to the goal, even Patanajli admits there are loads of ways. The only condition you need to satisfy is whatever method you use it should reduce the vrittis in your mind and produce a one-pointed mind. If your method does that, Patanjali would have endorsed it.

The method of SY Yoga is of course highly dubious as we have discussed already. The first part of it consists of making an invisible shield with hand movements around you, then moving your hands up your spine while spinnning them around each other and then tying a knot above your head, 3 times to represent ida, pingala and sushmana. They claim this creates a protective shield around you and prepares your energy channels for the work to be done. Then a guided meditation is done. You move up each chakra and state an affirmation that is related with the chakra(Such as “Mother, forgive me”) It ends up with the crown chakra, where you are suppose to put your attention just a little outside of your head. Then the healing work begins where each SY worker will go around the room working on different individuals. This is done by going around each subject, and then based on the subjective feelings of the worker of which of their fingers is feeling a “vibration” then they look at the SY diagram which tells us each finger is linked a chakra and diagnose which chakra is acting up. Then, the worker spins their hand behind the chakra to activate the chakra again. Then they continue to work on you a bit more finding other chakras which are acting up based on their subjective sensations in their fingers.

This is it. This is the SY practice. You don’t find this practice anywhere else in the Yogic tradition because it is new-age stuff. Anybody who has read a typical new-age book would have read about Chakra meditation, moving up each chakra and stating affirmations and visualizing colours. Making aura shields by making gestures or thinking it into existence is another new-age practice mentioned in new-age books. Trying to heal chakras by making hand gestures around somebody - again is new age garbage.

Shri Mata ji would have picked up chakra meditation at the Osho ashram, where it is taught.

The closest we do find in the Yoga tradition to this practice is Kriya Yoga, but here as you move up each chakra you put your awareness into the chakra very deeply and penetrate it. There are also practices where you chant OM into each chakra. In Laya yoga there is a bija mantra we can chant which works on each chakra.

Other practices SY do are taken from the magical tradition of Hinduism. The tradition of sleeping with a lemon or putting a lemon outside of your house, which you will find many Hindus do, is to ward of negative energy. Another practice is salt water baths for your feet to take away negative energy in your energy body(discard the water in the toilet in the morning) Agnihotra or homa, or fire sacrifices where offerings of food are given into a sacred fire are used to purify the air.

It is not that these practices do not work, because they do to an extent, but they are not original SY practices. They are taken from various sources, twisted, altered, reinterpreted that they lose their original potency, and the SY cult members end up getting sold cheap and substandard Yoga/spirituality - which they then adopt for life.

#214

[QUOTE=Surya Deva;57068]Regarding Seekers claim that ONLY SY is the right way and method. This is to be expected, as all bad cults claim exclusivity. The first thing you are taught when you go to your first few SY sessions is to stay away from others, every other way and method is condemned. [/QUOTE]Dear, please show me some other method that can accelerate my spiritual growth faster than SY and I am ready to leave SY.

So far there is nothing better than SY.

#215

[QUOTE=Surya Deva;57068]Shri Mata ji would have picked up chakra meditation at the Osho ashram, where it is taught.[/QUOTE]Why Shri Mataji’s photo? Danger of Osho.

#216

[quote=surya deva;57066]baba ramdev is not enlightened, but he is a dharmic person and a fine yoga teacher of contemporary times. He has been responsible for reviving the education of yoga, pranamaya, dharna, ayurveda and dharma in general in india today and making it respectable again, because of him millions of indians practice yoga today. His yoga camps are free, they are televised on the hindu spiritual channel aastha and patanjali yoga is being taught for free or for very cheap prices(?1-2) in the uk and you are getting proper yoga. It has become widely respected in the indian community here, even the sikh community. Baba ramdev has also campaigned against corruption, terrorism, capitalism, black money and other such blights on indian society and millions of indians are now aware of them and taking some action against them. Thus baba ramdev’s contributions to india today are massive. God bless the man.

My only criticism of baba ramdev is not to speak too much. He speaks fast, he speaks loud, he speaks a lot and he has an opinion on everything. This is why i know hes not enlightened, but an ordinary person like we are. He is a fine yoga teacher though and has started a huge yoga revolution in india. I would never accept him as my teacher, because i am looking for enlightened people.[/quote]

agreed!

#217

[QUOTE=Seeker33;57073]Dear, please show me some other method that can accelerate my spiritual growth faster than SY and I am ready to leave SY.

So far there is nothing better than SY.[/QUOTE]

I will always recommend the "Kriya" Yoga as it's called from the lineage of

Babaji > Shyamacharan > Yukestwar > Yogananda

and that one only. I.e. The Self Realization Fellowship.

I would not accept any other Kriya lineage. As there is likely to be some corruption that creeps into the teachings the further you get down the line from the original teachers.

Plus, there are many other "kriya yoga outfits" who claim association with the above lineage, and their claims are dubious at best. Many times their association with the above lineage is simply a marketing tactic...

I think it was credited to Jesus in the N.T. who said - "you will know a master by their fruit."

Mukunda was hand picked to spread the system in the west.

It is simple and highly effective.

#218

Surya Deva, I appreciate much the indebt insight into your personal experiences.