[QUOTE=Surya Deva;61454]Yogananda was reinterpreting Hinduism to win over Christian converts.
Looks like it worked ;)[/QUOTE]
Yes, he was trying to reinterpretate both Hinduism AND Christianity. He also wrote a commentary on the Bible, but his interpretation is not accepted within Christianity. Basically, it’s neo-Hinduism repackaged for former Christians.
That Amen can be associated with OM is found in Sri Yukteshwhar’s work Kaivalya Darshanam with his own commentary. Sri Yukteshwar was Yogananda’s guru. So as far as I know such associations have been propagated to a large extent by yogis in this Kriya Yoga tradition.
Philippe
[QUOTE=Philippe*;61456]That Amen can be associated with OM is found in Sri Yukteshwhar’s work Kaivalya Darshanam with his own commentary. Sri Yukteshwar was Yogananda’s guru. So as far as I know such associations have been propagated to a large extent by yogis in this Kriya Yoga tradition.
Philippe[/QUOTE]
Yes, but this didn’t started until the 18th century when neo-Hindu reformers like Rammohan Roy had a huge impact on Indian society. In the colonial period, a lot of reformers started to move away from traditional Hindu ideas and started adopting from Islam and Christianity. This is when certain sects emerged who rejected idol worship and started leaning more towards a form of monotheism copied from the abrahamic religions. One such neo-Hindu reformer, named Swami Dayananda actually threw his Hatha Yoga texts in the ganges, because he couldn’t find the chakras after dissecting a human body. In this period it had become a fashion to start rejecting Indian wisdom and to replace it with ideologies from Christianity and Islam in certain circles.
However, will you find such associations prior to Sri Yukteshwar? No, because nobody in India cared about Christianity then. The reason Hindu gurus addressed Christianity later was because they could not avoid it because it was forcing itself upon the people. So they met the Christian challenge in various ways: Swami Dayananda saraswati attacked Christianity; Ram Mohan Roy tried to combine Christianity with Hinduism to make Hinduism more Christian; Yogananda tries to reinterpet Christianity as Hinduism; Swami Vivekananda tried to portray Hinduism as embracing all religions as equally valid and being universally pluralistic and tolerant.
As a 21st century Hindu I don’t have to worry about this politics. I simply say it as it is.
[QUOTE=Surya Deva;61458]However, will you find such associations prior to Sri Yukteshwar? No, because nobody in India cared about Christianity then. The reason Hindu gurus addressed Christianity later was because they could not avoid it because it was forcing itself upon the people. So they met the Christian challenge in various ways: Swami Dayananda saraswati attacked Christianity; Ram Mohan Roy tried to combine Christianity with Hinduism to make Hinduism more Christian; Yogananda tries to reinterpet Christianity as Hinduism; Swami Vivekananda tried to portray Hinduism as embracing all religions as equally valid and being universally pluralistic and tolerant.
As a 21st century Hindu I don’t have to worry about this politics. I simply say it as it is.[/QUOTE]
I do not think so. He wrote that he received a mission from Mahavatar Babaji to explain the unity among religions. That Amen can be considered as a mantra for some Christian mystics would not infuriate me but I would not say that it is equivalent to OM. Personally I do not care a lot about religions per se and their harmony.
Philippe
Actually Amen in its meaning is closer to svaha though it sounds closer to OM.
I do not think so. He wrote that he received a mission from Mahavatar Babaji to explain the unity among religions. That Amen can be considered as a mantra for some Christian mystics would not infuriate me but I would not say that it is equivalent to OM. Personally I do not care a lot about religions per se and their harmony.
Philippe
It’s possible, these reinterpretations were common in the colonial period. It didn’t start from one person in particular. The knowledge some of these people had about Christianity was also very limited. If they had studied Christianity and the Abrahamic religions for 8 years in the middle east, like Sri Rama Ramanuja Acharya did, they would have known it was incompatible with Bharata Dharma.
I think the reasons for these reinterpretations is a combination of Hindu apology and polemics against the Christian threat in colonial India, politics to make Hinduism more acceptable to the West and rhetoric to persuade Western people to Hinduism.
If you read Swami Vivekananda you will find that while he never condemned Christianity openly in the West, he did in India when addressing Indians.
I am not in the situation of people like Swami Yogananda and Swami Vivekananda who lived in a time when they were subjects of colonial rule and could not cross a certain limit. Swami Yogananda and Swami Vivekananda would never have got the positive reception in the West they got, if they condemned Christianity. I am fortunately not living in that time, I am living in the 21st century as a free man with the right to free speech. I am going to be honest about what I really think and not sugar coat it or hide it just so I do not offend people.
It’s really a shame that stating facts about Christian history and practical implication of its theology and world view is deemed offensive. Tell me about living in denial! 
However I happen to sport a more diplomatic attitude because I know how much feeling is deposited in religious matter, so if a person is trying to show how Hinduism line as good alternatives, being incisive in a manner that will be badly perceived is not the best practice. But that’s just me.
Unfortunately feeling, passion, emotion, beliefs, faith and acceptance are part of all religions unlike union of the individual soul and the Supreme Soul.
[QUOTE=ray_killeen;61474]Unfortunately feeling, passion, emotion, beliefs, faith and acceptance are part of all religions [B]unlike union of the individual soul and the Supreme Soul.[/B][/QUOTE]
So if these ideas are not part of religion, what are they part of. Science? :o
[QUOTE=Sarvamaṅgalamaṅgalā;61476]So if these ideas are not part of religion, what are they part of. Science? :o[/QUOTE]
yogic sciences; the discipline by which such union is effected.
You can call it a science in the sense that it is a methodological discipline, but yoga is a religious science, not a secular one. Unless you understand yoga to be nothing more than a method to improve your posture, health, psychology, breath, control of mind/body. Basically that’s what modern yoga deals with and as far as purely secular interpretations of yoga can go.
[QUOTE=Sarvamaṅgalamaṅgalā;61481]You can call it a science in the sense that it is a methodological discipline, but yoga is a religious science, not a secular one. Unless you understand yoga to be nothing more than a method to improve your posture, health, psychology, breath, control of mind/body. Basically that’s what modern yoga deals with and as far as secular interpretations of yoga go.[/QUOTE]
A science for the expansion of consciousness with methodology leading to acute awareness which requires no religion or tradition else the path will be contaminated with preconceived illusions of what one wants to see instead of uncovering Truth.
[QUOTE=ray_killeen;61486]A science for the expansion of consciousness with methodology leading to acute awareness which requires no religion or tradition else the path will be contaminated with preconceived illusions of what one wants to see instead of uncovering Truth.[/QUOTE]
Your preconceived notions are that you want to expand your conciousness and uncover the truth. These are also preconceived notions. You have at least some level of faith that yoga will accomplish any of this. You are also assigning some sort of value to it, otherwise you would not spend your time with this discipline.
Action can also be an article of ones scientific conviction. There is a TV program called Brainiacs where some some mad cap science geeks put the laws of physics to the test in extreme ways that could kill them if the laws went wrong! Fortunately, nobody has yet died because obviously the laws are not wrong.
However, there is obvious a tradition behind this scientific conviction which these Brainiacs have studied enough to understand what they are doing. Likewise, nobody starts an activity to expand their consciousness if they do not have faith in such a thing being possible.
But all faith is bad from my point of view. I am not dedicating so many years of my life to Yoga out of faith, but out of scientific conviction.
But all faith is bad from my point of view. I am not dedicating so many years of my life to Yoga out of faith, but out of scientific conviction.
No, faith is an important element in any religion even in Buddhism and Hinduism. Some neo-Hindus have tried to give pseudo-rational justifications for religious practices. Like the Arya Samajis, you’ll ask them, why do you do agnihotra, they’ll say, it’s to purify the air. Next thing you know, they’ll say they wear their yajnopavita to scratch their backs. Even a yogi needs to have faith, he can’t find validation for kaivalya in any scientific journal. Secular justifications for religious practices can only go so far.
In santana dharma sharadda is important, not what Abrahamics call faith. Shradda is is not the same as faith, it is having firm conviction in something. I have firm conviction in the conclusions of Samkhya just as a scientist has firm conviction in E=mc^2. The predicate of E=mc^2 is that if you travel towards the speed of light, mass will become infinite. Nobody has of course travelled at the speed of light to confirm this predicate, but scientific conviction leads us to conclude this. Similarly, I have not reached samadhi in meditation, but I have scientific conviction in Samkhya to conclude that samadhi is really possible.
Faith is a disease of the mind from my perspective. Santana dharma is not about beliefs, theories and hypothesis - it is about what is real and actual. If you believe something to be true it is because you don’t know it is true. Knowing and believing is what sets Vedic dharma and Abrahamic religion apart.
There are things that cannot be known through science or philosophy and are dealt with in the vedas. Faith is necessary for any religious practicioner including a yogi. A desire to validate everything through (pseudo-)science can be a sign of lack of confidence in the metaphysics of your religion. If you really relied on scientific evidence alone, you would have to be agnostic about many teachings of religion, no matter what religion you follow. That doesn’t mean to reject science, but to admit that science and philosophy have its limitations.
According to his own writings, Babaji selected him to go to the West and show the unity
of Christianity and Hinduism.
He loved his mother country but did not suffer of nationalsim.
He did not confess to anybody on this forum ulterior motives.
His confessed and only motive was his love of God.