Yoga and Christianity

Yoga Discussion General Yoga
#61

[quote=Rashmi;14436]dear friends ,

hello,

As we are aware that that lord Jesus was born in Jerusalem and Christianity spread. Lord Buddha born in India, Buddhism spread. Hazrat Mohammed Sahib born in Arab and Islamic religion spread. In the same manner so many religions have come into existence on this earth for the last so many years.

[/quote]

These people were not religion founders. Their followers were those who created religions as organized form.
Also, while I realize, because I am a proclaimed christian (but not the average christian), I can be easily judged as biased, I am convinced that Jesus’s role was uniqie in human history. The hint to that is exactly what you say in the following quote:

I personally believe that jesus was a realised soul his teachings are manipulated becos never a yogi will tell others to Kill and say that only worshippers of jesus will get salvation. A yogi never says he is God, Krishna never said, shiva ,sai baba of shirdi, swami Nityanand etc. All of them said they are humble servants of God. Infact if Jesus is a yogi, he must have conquered all the 5 perceptions , indriyaan and a yogi with ritambhara tatra pragya buddhi.

Yes, the man Jesus did say, although not bluntly, that He is the Son of God, but, those who have seen Him have seen the Father, referring to God.
This is a basic christian belief, one of the pillars of christian faith. That is what really makes Him different of any guru, teacher or avatar. The Gospel of John talks about The Word. The Word is present in the Vedas. Is that too hard to accept that The Word did manifest itself physically, as a human being at a precise time in human history ? Because that’s what the gospel of John states. This is a great mistery.

To think that the Bible is juts distorted truth is offending to all christians. The problem with the Bible is not that it is distorted, but the fact that even christians do not comprehend it. It’s superficial understanding created very unpleasant hystorical events, yes, just the other night I watched a documentary on David Koresh. I was deeply touched by it … and it make me think about human rights and freedom.
[B]Everyone is free to search for the truth, and believe whatever he’s able to, until this belief does not affect the same freedom of others.[/B]

I hope we should stop imperialist attitude and accept the facts as it is. Prior to advent of christanity and islam every body used to follow vedas. However mahabharat war has disastrous effect on the entire earth which was earlier known as bharath. Many aboriginal tribes and cultures were brutally destroyed by Christian missionaries and islamic invaders, if you study these lost cultures you may get more information and insight.

I know you realize that it is one thing to express on’e believes, and another thing to force it on others. Christianity is often seen as agressive, because one of it’s fundamental believes is that it is an universal faith, that Christ has come for all mankind. The real rason for imperialism was never the propagation of faith, but the need for power. Yes, there has been a short sighted catholicism, especially the jesuits where human freedom and dignity was subdued by religious dogma. But this is true for all great religions. Christianity was just more powerful because western culture made progress in science and industry.
So there is a dire need of a revived spirituality what unites waht is common in all religions, what tries to make them shine in a new light, because today’s people need comprehension, and reason. That’s why yoga is so popular and so fitting in many traditions, because it is a scinece axed on the human being, the individual, and it’s strive for truth. This does not mean that we throw out old traditions, but see them as representative to their ages and cultures. None of the great traditions is a sole bearer of the whole truth. Not even hinduism. It might be the deepest, and the widest, and a great treasure for our minds and hearts to learn form, but this does not make other religions useless, or of lesser value.

The old christianity needs a rebirth, and it is happening. Understanding the Christ event is what will really make universal brotherhood, based on spiritual love, possible. In this, organized christain religions are just as far behind as any other. This is what I beleive, and I dare to say it. In my world view the Vedas and hinduism fit perfectly. In yours, christainaity is a fake religion based on distorted facts. (and sadly, this is somewhat true)
I am not speaking on the behalf of the latter. I speak on the behalf of a new “christianity”, what is lit through the light of reason, and comprehension, one, that unites every living tradition in a perfectly fitting new one, a living one. Love instead blind faith. Comprehension instead blind acception. Freedom instead ritualistic rigour. Right actions through right will coming from comprehension, understanding, knowledge, reason. Acting insetad of talking. Giving and acting instead of waiting for miracles. I just use the name christianity because the central figure of this has been called by the greek world Christ. It does not matter. Not the words matter, but what they represent.

#62

Hi Hubert,
My dear friend Hubert you are a fine Christian & you should not need to defend it. All religions have dogmas & spiritual. If Yoga has brought you a deeper spiritual understanding of your religion (Christianity) then it has done a fine job, which in my humble opinion it has. :slight_smile:

In my youth when travelling in India I observed a photo of Christ along with all the Hindu deities in a Hindu Temple ? most touching. Even more touching to see how the devotees would prostrate before Ganesh, Laxshmidevi, Sarsvatidevi & Christ making spiritual connection with all, how wonderful.

Love,
Namaste,
Fin

#63

[QUOTE=Hubert;14449]These people were not religion founders. Their followers were those who created religions as organized form.
Also, while I realize, because I am a proclaimed christian (but not the average christian), I can be easily judged as biased, I am convinced that Jesus's role was uniqie in human history. The hint to that is exactly what you say in the following quote:

Yes, the man Jesus did say, although not bluntly, that He is the Son of God, but, those who have seen Him have seen the Father, referring to God.
This is a basic christian belief, one of the pillars of christian faith. That is what really makes Him different of any guru, teacher or avatar. The Gospel of John talks about The Word. The Word is present in the Vedas. Is that too hard to accept that The Word did manifest itself physically, as a human being at a precise time in human history ? Because that's what the gospel of John states. This is a great mistery.

To think that the Bible is juts distorted truth is offending to all christians. The problem with the Bible is not that it is distorted, but the fact that even christians do not comprehend it. It's superficial understanding created very unpleasant hystorical events, yes, just the other night I watched a documentary on David Koresh. I was deeply touched by it ... and it make me think about human rights and freedom.
Everyone is free to search for the truth, and believe whatever he's able to, until this belief does not affect the same freedom of others.

I know you realize that it is one thing to express on'e believes, and another thing to force it on others. Christianity is often seen as agressive, because one of it's fundamental believes is that it is an universal faith, that Christ has come for all mankind. The real rason for imperialism was never the propagation of faith, but the need for power. Yes, there has been a short sighted catholicism, especially the jesuits where human freedom and dignity was subdued by religious dogma. But this is true for all great religions. Christianity was just more powerful because western culture made progress in science and industry.
So there is a dire need of a revived spirituality what unites waht is common in all religions, what tries to make them shine in a new light, because today's people need comprehension, and reason. That's why yoga is so popular and so fitting in many traditions, because it is a scinece axed on the human being, the individual, and it's strive for truth. This does not mean that we throw out old traditions, but see them as representative to their ages and cultures. None of the great traditions is a sole bearer of the whole truth. Not even hinduism. It might be the deepest, and the widest, and a great treasure for our minds and hearts to learn form, but this does not make other religions useless, or of lesser value.

The old christianity needs a rebirth, and it is happening. Understanding the Christ event is what will really make universal brotherhood, based on spiritual love, possible. In this, organized christain religions are just as far behind as any other. This is what I beleive, and I dare to say it. In my world view the Vedas and hinduism fit perfectly. In yours, christainaity is a fake religion based on distorted facts. (and sadly, this is somewhat true)
I am not speaking on the behalf of the latter. I speak on the behalf of a new "christianity", what is lit through the light of reason, and comprehension, one, that unites every living tradition in a perfectly fitting new one, a living one. Love instead blind faith. Comprehension instead blind acception. Freedom instead ritualistic rigour. Right actions through right will coming from comprehension, understanding, knowledge, reason. Acting insetad of talking. Giving and acting instead of waiting for miracles. I just use the name christianity because the central figure of this has been called by the greek world Christ. It does not matter. Not the words matter, but what they represent.[/QUOTE]

Quote : " to think that the Bible is distorted..."

Well, in 1945 there were discovered the Gnostic Gospels (Nag Hammadi library). It looks like there are other gospels than the four gospels we know in the Bible.

Quote: "the old Christianity needs a rebirth..." That is exactly the point, in my opinion. The old Christians hermits, ascets, practised meditation. I will come to that later on.

#64

Dear friends,
Namaste,

I understand Jesus the way i have read and understood about Great yogis who in this body were beyond time, hatred, violence.

However i beg to differ with all of your accounts, with due regards to sentiments and feelings. Both Islam and chritianity believe in proselytising at any cost, by agression, allurements or deaths. I live in a area in India where conversion on the name of jesus by money, offering medical and educational service is rampant. The people who get converted spit venoms against Krishna, rama, Shiva, they Say krishna is dark so how can he represents light, shiva is mad and what not? Christian missionaries leave no stone unturned to secure few more christians, in the belt of cauvery river there are christian missionaries who wear saffron colour robe and convert people by deception.
At times i wonder whether jesus really taught these things as told and represented in deeds by the christian missionaries?

The other day i went to a vegetable seller who happens to be lady, a devout Hindu, in her shop lay a photograph of temple (Shiva), next in it represented Jesus and then mosque, the photograph duly garlanded.It can never happen in a mosque and christian church or even in the house of a christian. In the second week of November i went to pondicherry and met my friend, who is a hindu.They have kept a christian tutor she never eats at their house, her uncle when offered water refuses to drink. I thought is this what jesus has taught? Infact we offer any body who comes to our house first water and then snacks as atithi is a god (as vedas say).We are told since kid to look after anyone and treat with respect who so ever comes to our house.

I am a hindu, if somebody gives me any offering from temple church or mosque i will eat provided it is veg.However there are christians in offices in india who refuse to attend any mass function on dussera, refuse prasad after puja, however hindus now even celebrate christmas.It may be noted here that all of them are converted. So why this attitude?

Further people should know certain truths about christanity and islam, for their proseletysing activities may refer these sites and verify it on their own-
http://www.hinduwisdom.info/Conversion.htm

Tell me what it shows about Jesus, the concept of My God is better than your God. All such distinctions arise from mind and intellect.When you realise God through Tapasya, sacrifice, truth and hard penance it vanishes.

So i think if Jesus is a yogi he must not have taught all these things. As unrealised souls we commit lot of things which hurts others by speech, acts etc.

Vedas say above all dharma (not religion) manav(human) dharma is the greatest.

God is one his manifestations can be many, thats what wise sages have said.

OM

#65

Dear Rashmi,

I have much respect for your words on Hinduism, but I think you have very little contact with christian westerners and specifically christains who follow some of the mystery paths. Much of what you say is unfortunately based on stereotyping and I see very little value or truth in what you say here, because you do exactly as many christians would, pointing your finger and blaming. If you know the Christ and his teachings so well, don’t point a finger any more. Just as it is virtually impossible for me to comprehend the fullness and richness of Hiduism, because i was not born into the religion, so i think it is for people of other faiths as well. There is a beautiful and mystical side to christainity which is almost incomprehensible and inaccessible if you were not born into the faith and grew up with it. This mystical part of christainity do not proselyte, do not boast and do not above all convert.

All faiths have a duality in them, on the one side you have the everyday, ritualistic and very logical practice of the faith, which is most of the time blind and filled with fear, even in Hinduism as well. And then on the other hand you have the deep and mystical teachings of that faith and it is based on love and light and harmony. This is what Hubert is refering to most probably, the mission of the Christ was much bigger than just a few semantics in the Bible, read behind the semantics and those with eyes to see and ears to hear will get it.

PS: if you come and visit South Africa one day, please, i invite you to pay a visit to my house, I think you will be surprised to see how well all religions are respresented in my house and garden.:wink:

#66

Dear Pandara,

I would like to stay in this earth all type of men/women live they behave as per their evolution and emancipation.

What i have quoted is happening sadly in india ? Do you Know people who happen to be christian not learn classical music becoz hindu Gods are being worshipped. What should i say at such Ignorance. My own journey to Yoga, veda all these facts have taken through one of my illness. I happen to be from north of India, married a keralite, a malyali from south.Visited Churches/temple/mosque etc. I have visited almost all the temples in south, my spouse being from temple city of kerala.

But pandara on the name of jesus lot of things are happening here which are unpleasant and detrimental to native culture. Rarely you will know a hindu who knows what you and other on this forum Knows.Especially hubert his understanding is commendable. My effort was to paint a correct picture. Mostly hindus don’t bother.We go to temple do puja offer flowers and come back. Light Diya at home twice thats it. Nobody in my house (maternal ) do yoga, read veda etc. I can say I happen to handle vast literature while at my job and practice of yoga made me interested to trace its origin and by Gods grace i came in contact with a Yogi.

As a child i always worshipped shiva(may be carried this from past sanskars), no in docrination, never heard Shiva is the only God.But when i learned Shiva is not the God i adjusted b’coz by then lot of things had happened.

Dont take it offensively. But this is happening in India.
God is above all this and we should rise above all.
Greatest Dharma is Manav Dharma.
OM

#67

Christian Meditation.

First, let us remember the terminology: meditation, prayer, and contemplation are basically equivalent.

The first Christians, during the Roman empire, sought to live up to the Scriptures:
“You are to be perfect, as the heavenly Father (Matt 5:48)” or “Christians are called to be saints (Paul, Rom 1:7)”

Christians lived like ordinary citizens, but with a different moral outlookd than the non-Christians.

But there was another phenomenon: the monastic ascets. In Greek “monos” means alone and is the root of the words monk and monastery.Their austere life centered around meditation (prayer). Due to the dangers of the Roman empire (killing Christians) as well as due to many distractions of the decadent Rome, they self-exiled to the wilderness.

There were thousands of them in the Middel East (Syria, Palestine etc…)

to be continued

(d0n’t want to be timed out).

#68

[QUOTE=Pandara;14413]Dear Oak,

You have said a lot to focus the attention on the Catholic church and what it has done etc and I think most of us are well aware of the weaknesses of the Church and religion in general. I am a Liberal Catholic (opposed to Roman Catholic) and our parish here in Pretoria is packed with yogis, theosophists, free masons and other free thinking people. The Liberal Catholic Church encourages its members to seek the Light within and also in the other religions of the world. I present my yoga classes in their hall and some of our priests did yoga when they were younger. Please search wider and don’t focus on the weakness of one as representative of the many.

Here is the link to the LCC in SA, here is info about the Church and its teachings: (apologies to admin, but I don’t know how else to do it.) :slight_smile:

http://www.liberalcatholicsa.co.za/index.html[/QUOTE]

Dear Pandara,

I did NOT focus on the Catholic church. It is beyond my competence to criticize the Catholic church.

The simple fact is that it is the largest Christian church in the world. As such, I found more info about its views. E. g. you can look below at its views on
several subjects:

http://www.ourladyswarriors.org/dissent/index.html

#69

Dear Rashmi,

As you have said it yourself, it is ignorance and ignorance is born from fear. Your country is not unique in what is happening there, this is the sad fact of this world where fear rules the heart of men, they start to do things which is irrational.

Thanks for clearing your post up, I appreciate and understand where you come from. :slight_smile:

Also remember, the positive energy you radiate into your world must have a postive effect on the consciousness of the people around you and ultimately on the whole of india and the whole world. That is the law of energy, it is self-perpetuating.

#70

Hi Oak,

They’re not really or even basically the same or equivalent.

My teacher Sri Durga Devi used to explain it as follow:

[B]Prayer:[/B] Your are conscious in the act and engaging in a dialogue with the Divine with the end result being some sort of expectation.

[B]Contemplation:[/B] You observe/watch and are still consciously participating and the end result is also an expectation.

[B]Meditation:[/B] Not to be confused with meditation techniques, where you are consciously applying a technique to fascilitate meditation. Meditation is not something you do consciously, but it is something that will happen to you. This something will be different for each person according to his/her understanding and spiritual evolution. :wink:

#71

[quote=oak333;14461]Quote : " to think that the Bible is distorted..."

Well, in 1945 there were discovered the Gnostic Gospels (Nag Hammadi library). It looks like there are other gospels than the four gospels we know in the Bible.

[/quote]

I have read those gospels. They are very interesting, mostly gnostic in nature. But they are in no conflict with the four canonized gospels, do not make them obsolete at all ... The New Covenant of the Bible, telling the story and teaching of Jesus and His apostles, is not targeted to the mind, but to the spirit of man. The gnostic libraries, while interesting, do not awake the same awe, respect and marvel what the canonized scriptures do. I am not trying to belittle the latter, but because are more accesible to the general mindset of our time, being more intellectual, they fall because they are just what they say, and not more. A really spiritual text has various levels of understanding, sometimes dicovered only in years by the reader as his soul becomes capable of receiveing higher and higher wisdom.
For example, the Revelations of John (Apocalypse of John) contains great wisdom, but because it's subject, nature is a spiritual world history, it is totally unintelligible to our everyday intellectual consciousness. Thomas Jefferson once stated that he can't see Revelations in any other way than the ramblings of a madman. Yet this is the book, what after explained to me by Rudlof Steiner, made me accept that Christ is a central figure of human history, the His crucifiction was a turningpoint of this history.
The Revelations are that inaccessible because they tell the truth of higher worlds, and we simply lack the tools necessary to inhabit those worlds. Becausae of it, it tells what it needs to tell, in pictures, as a dream. Those familiar with psychoanalysis will no that even in our dreams, not the actual figures, images are important, but what they symbolize, and the relations between them. Some truths are simply unaccesible to a mind what is accustomed to use only sensorial data.

: "the old Christianity needs a rebirth..." That is exactly the point, in my opinion. The old Christians hermits, ascets, practised meditation. I will come to that later on.

When I was using the term old christianity, I was not referring to early christianity. I was referring christianity as a whole, up to the beginning of the XIX century, at least as an outer organized form, canon and scholastic theology.

#72

[quote=Hubert;14412]
When Lars says, cleverness will not lead you to God, he is right. Yet, what do you do after ? Cleverness is needed in this world. Without it there would be no medicine, no engineering, none of the good things we have today. Our lives would be much harder, yet, it is easier now. This grants the time, for example, to live in a big city, and afford the time for study, or yoga practice, for a wide range of people. This make possible Information Technology to be here, and the internet, so we can converse here. These are not free. Someone has worked hard so we have it. Someone was smart, and clever.[/quote]
Dear Hubert
You are right in the technology it is very useful to be clever.
But still the if the scientist tells you :"We have solved the worldwide garbage problem cause we now compress the garbide to 10% of its volume" Would You believe that? In Agriculture they made huge plums plums that look wonderful, but if you eat them they dont taste very good. These plums I would call inteligent plums. If you look at the old varieties of plums, they appear small and not that beautiful from the outside. But if you eat them they taste wonderful sweat. These are the mature plums.
For me Yoga means to become mature as a human being instead of becoming more and more intelligent.
On the psychological level it might be the opposite.
If we go scientifically through our life always looking for thesis, anti thesis and synthesis we might forget to enjoy live, and loose our happiness.
Truth, simplicity and Love they say are the most important things on the path.
All this religious leaders separate their church from other churches with pretty intelligent arguments and this how intelligence can lead us to quarrel with each other instead of being aware of the beautiful oneness of everything that lives in this creation.

All the best
Lars

#73

Intelligence is a tool. Any tool can be used in a way to help emancipation of spiritual beings, or to hinder it.
I am with you in admitting that morality is much more important than physical or intellectual strenght. But why discard intelligence, when we do not discard physical strenght, necessary to have a healthy body ?
You are right, even the most remote and uneducated person can reach for God and and recieve Grace.

And I am with you in admitting that perhaps a lot of people today are too smart (or at least they picture themselves as such). But exactly these people need a reasonable, intellectual aprroach when spoken to, if they are to be rescued from a materialist or strictly senses based life experience.
Let us not underestimate the abilty of human intellect to change a person’s life. When a person comprehends something, understands something on the mind’s level, than that person can put his will in accordance to what he has comprehended. This grants freedom, and the possibility to act freely, without the constraint of dogma, social pressure, or any other outer restriction. Than one becomes, as Nietzsche says in Thus spoke Zarathustra, a self revolving wheel.

#74

[U]A wonderful picture you are giving here.[/U]

But unfortunately many people are running around the foot of the mountain, like the kids with their walki talkies. Every second one shouts here is the way up and they run towards him. Instead of taking a look upwards to the mountain top and immediately start climbing up , like the mountanears do, most of them find themselfe thinking and discussing very intelligant for the best way and running around the mountain for years without ever reaching the top.

All the best
Lars

#75

Dear Hubert Ji

I dont believe in Psycho analysis! The mind is useful to bring up positive supporting thoughts (affirmations, sankalpa or whatever you may call it, but digging analytically in old problems will fill your consciousness with it instead of dissolving any problem. When you have negative thoughts meditate immediately on the opposite writes Patanjali to me it sounds the same like the modern Hypno therapy.
Thinking scientifically the mind is always jogging between past, present and future . How can one reach citta vritti nirodha - the stilling of the mind than.
Lars

#76

no wonder Buddha is laughing

#77

Christian Meditation continued

The Christian ascetics of the early AD centuries borrowed techniques and attitudes from
contemporary non-Christain sources, like stoicism, Platon’s theories, Hellenic and Roman thought.

They advanced in spiritual life by experimentation, developing their way of meditation.
There is scriptural evidence that Jesus Christ and his disciples meditated. Even the Gnostic communities included meditation practice. Even the Jewish Essenians practiced meditation.

But there was a difference between institutional church, which did not emphasize meditation, and the ascets, who emphasized meditation.

The life of the ascets was interpreted as a series of prayerful actions. In this sense,
meditation was practiced as a form of prayer-attunement with God. Prayer and meditation were commingling.

Even the breathing practices and bodily postures of the ascets were deeemed as prayer.

to be cont’d
(do not want to be timed out)

#78

[QUOTE=Hubert;14489]I have read those gospels. They are very interesting, mostly gnostic in nature. But they are in no conflict with the four canonized gospels, do not make them obsolete at all … The New Covenant of the Bible, telling the story and teaching of Jesus and His apostles, is not targeted to the mind, but to the spirit of man. The gnostic libraries, while interesting, do not awake the same awe, respect and marvel what the canonized scriptures do. I am not trying to belittle the latter, but because are more accesible to the general mindset of our time, being more intellectual, they fall because they are just what they say, and not more. A really spiritual text has various levels of understanding, sometimes dicovered only in years by the reader as his soul becomes capable of receiveing higher and higher wisdom.
For example, the Revelations of John (Apocalypse of John) contains great wisdom, but because it’s subject, nature is a spiritual world history, it is totally unintelligible to our everyday intellectual consciousness. Thomas Jefferson once stated that he can’t see Revelations in any other way than the ramblings of a madman. Yet this is the book, what after explained to me by Rudlof Steiner, made me accept that Christ is a central figure of human history, the His crucifiction was a turningpoint of this history.
The Revelations are that inaccessible because they tell the truth of higher worlds, and we simply lack the tools necessary to inhabit those worlds. Becausae of it, it tells what it needs to tell, in pictures, as a dream. Those familiar with psychoanalysis will no that even in our dreams, not the actual figures, images are important, but what they symbolize, and the relations between them. Some truths are simply unaccesible to a mind what is accustomed to use only sensorial data.

When I was using the term old christianity, I was not referring to early christianity. I was referring christianity as a whole, up to the beginning of the XIX century, at least as an outer organized form, canon and scholastic theology.[/QUOTE]

Quote:

“A really spiritual text has different levels of understanding”

Yes, I think this is a very deep observation.

In the old Egypt, the initiates expressed themselves in three ways:

  1. the simple, clear way
  2. symbolic and figuratively
  3. sacred and hieroglific

The same word had three meanings: proper, figurative, transcendent.

Heraclit defined it by: which speaks, which means, and which hides.

The Genesis of Moses was written in Egyptian hieroglifs, with three meanings.

#79

[quote=Lars Rimb?ck;14496]Dear Hubert Ji

I dont believe in Psycho analysis! The mind is useful to bring up positive supporting thoughts (affirmations, sankalpa or whatever you may call it, but digging analytically in old problems will fill your consciousness with it instead of dissolving any problem. When you have negative thoughts meditate immediately on the opposite writes Patanjali to me it sounds the same like the modern Hypno therapy.
Thinking scientifically the mind is always jogging between past, present and future . How can one reach citta vritti nirodha - the stilling of the mind than.
Lars[/quote]

Psychoanalysis works, sometimes. The name is fancy, but it does not matter. It works because it manages to turn people’s objective, unabiased attention (through the presence of the psychanalyst) to themself. When someone does that, it does not matter what you call the tehnique, it will work, because when consciousness is focused on any object be it interanl or external, realization soon follows. I am talkin about the realization of the nature of that particular problem, and not Realization as it is often meant on this forum.
The value of pshycoanalysis is exactly that it is a somewhat childish try to understand human pshyce, accesible to western mainstream consciousness. The “discoveries” of pshycoanaysis, as the existance of subconsciousness, collective unconscious, anima and animus awere long before known by yoga masters. But this does not make it useless at all. There are stages in people;s spiritual evolution. The value of clumsy theories and sometimes short sighted scientific tries to define and understand human pshyche, is exactly the freedom of any terminology, any method, any dogma. You won’t like to hear this, but yoga philosophy and method is juts as restrictive as any other. It needs to be. There can be no written or organized schooling system without some rules, and rules are what make it restrictive. Most yogis are far behind in their personal development, but through their intellect they have grasped some truths of the sytsem, and as children with a newly found toy, they triumphantly express them as the only possible way. I know thos from personal expereince, I have been there done that, my earlier posts are proof to that.

I like the radical nature of teachings like: Sensual pleasure is the enemy of Brahma Jnana (knowledge of God) by Sri Swami Sivananda, or the sometimes radical words of Christ like, if you do not hate your family, parents, wife, children and even your own soul, you will not enter the Kingdom of God.
It is true, and if one does not admit it, than it just means that one did not arrive yet to the pratyahra phase of ones journey, but it is a blunt truth. This kind of presentation one might make to one’s enemies, because it causes a negative reaction of rejection.
What you say about the stilling of the mind, means just what the above quotes say, is actually means, throwing your whole life away. Not externally, because that is foolish, you become a fanatic ready to charge skyscrapers, or manipulate good willed people to their doom too.
All these formulations state the same truth in various forms, but it is an absolute truth. If one’s only concern is only one’s own path, it is a great truth to know. When one’s concern is the other person, who might reject it in this absolute form, then an easier approavh is needed. When I talk here, I do not talk tyo people whom I know to be advanced yogis, like you or other members, but I train myself for thos who are not, and whom I am to meet in the future. I talk for the casual yogi, who is not really interested by spirituality, and I use the language of intellect because that way I might pave their way abit. If there is only one perosn who will feel compelled to give some thought to what I say, to read it, comprehend it, fight it, argue it, than I feel that my efforts were not in vane.

#80

By reasonig, arguing, stating things in ways it is not accustomed to, is a great way to compel others to decalcify the rigidity of their brains, working through conditioned patterns what are not even realized. I dare to state it as I know exactly how many such obstacles I have faced already, and It would be a naive thing to say that there are none left.
You bring the subject of Hypnosis as an example of how positive things will make our lives better through self suggestion. It’s worth is just that. A false truth of self suggestion, what provides temporarly relief. It is easy to fall to this temptation escepcially for people sucpetiblke to it. Saying I am Light, I am Atman, I am Peace, easily generates a tranquil state, a thoughtless one, a state out of one’s ordinary self. That is not yet enlightement, or realization, it is a sidetrack. God (or the Self, or as I like to name it, Christ) is not that easy to realized (except a few people, but that is unrelevant, I am talking about us, average people). Because any spiritual experience is a subjective one (at least in the beginning, where I am) my knowledge of where other posters are, is based solely on what they post.
Negative things are not to be forced down to the cellar as it happens in case of autosuggestion, but surfaced, faced, realized, accetped and lived with. They steal psychic energy, and are obstacles in Self realization. Eventually they will disappear, but only if confronted.