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News from Asha
Sunday, August 26, 2001 |
Dear Friends:
Yesterday, Saturday, was the last day of convocation activities and the last day of our efforts. It ended like a lovely piece of music, not with a crash of cymbals, but with a few violins, perhaps a flute, and then a delightful silence.
We thought that at least a few people might be willing to take newspapers and speak to us because they were about to leave the SRF environment and might feel more mentally free to consider another point of view. This proved true.
Also, many of the monastics came for a final reception and we were well placed at the bus stop to greet them both arriving and departing with signs and chanting. A few looked directly at us, most very deliberately looked away. For some reason, a senior monk found himself stranded on the sidewalk across from us for about 15 minutes, waiting for someone to come and pick him up. Elizabeth said that the vibration of his opposition acted as a divine tonic. Their singing became more beautiful, their joy more intense for the whole time he was standing there.
Daya Mata did not come to the Convocation this year. She made a video instead. We never heard anything much about the content of it, except for her final words. Usually she ends her convocation appearances with a pronam and the words, “See you next year.” This time she said, “See you whenever,” an obvious reference to the precarious state of her health.
We have heard from many people about the dissension within the SRF ranks between the “reformists” and the “hard-liners.” At some point, the elderly leaders of SRF will depart for the astral world. It will be interesting to see, then, what, if any, changes are made.
One man who has been a member for 20 years said that from January to June just this year, 2001, 26 monastics left, including, he said, many who had been there a long time. “Especially those,” he said, “with any spunk.”
This man also remarked about a picture in our newspaper of Master sitting in lotus posture on a beach, bare chested, wearing what looks to be little more than a loin cloth. In all his years with SRF he had never seen that picture. He said SRF never releases any picture that show him so robust and so male.
One of the SRFers remarked to an Ananda person about how “Your kriyas don’t work because you don’t have the blessings of the gurus.” You may remember, another SRF person also told us our bangles don’t work for the same reason.
As Vidura was leaving, standing at the curb outside the Biltmore, an SRF woman thought to make one final effort. Clearly summoning all her courage to speak to him, she pleaded with Vidura to search his heart, and meditate, and then he would surely realize that Master “only wants there to be one organization.” Vidura considered reminding her that since his Kriyas don’t work it would be hard for him to meditate that deeply, but wisely decided not to say it. In fact, he could hardly say anything to her. She just wanted to deliver her message and get on her way.
At one of our morning meditations I noticed that Mary Bicknell had one of our signs right next to her. I was very impressed by her dedication, assuming she was infusing it with divine vibrations before taking it out on the street. Toward the end of her meditation I happened to open my eyes and saw that she had it propped edgewise on her lap and was using it as an AUM board!
Aumkar and Andrea walked 7 times around the Bonaventure Hotel as a final gesture before leaving to go home.
All week long, devotees have been coming to the lobby here at the Biltmore to meditate and sit near where Master left his body, right in front of this lovely fountain. Many flowers have accumulated on the edge of the fountain and in the water, which the hotel has been kind enough to leave in place each day.
Finally, one of the bellhops engaged David G. in conversation about it and David explained. The bellhop was very relieved. “I knew it was a nice fountain, but not that nice.” The best he could figure out was that somehow the people were worshipping the water!
One woman came to the Ananda room and told us that our video of Master was a fake. That it isn’t really him! We wonder if SRF is saying that? We had about five people buy products, including the video, and then come back a day or two later and return the products unopened. Did they hear it was a fake? Or did their friends dissuade them from buying anything from us?
One SRF woman took a newspaper, then walked back to her group of friends, who quickly surrounded her. A moment later, she came back and returned the newspaper.
I was talking to a long-time SRF member and was referring to how much antagonism SRF has for Swami Kriyananda, and he said rather casually— reporting, only, not because he himself believed it— that “SRF considers Kriyananda to be the anti-Christ.” We must never underestimate what we are dealing with here.
We heard that one of the speakers— it might have been Uma Mata, but we are not sure— said that Master said that even if Daya Mata makes mistakes he will make everything all right anyway. In other words, no matter what happens, SRF will never do anything wrong!
To us at Ananda, such comments seem so absurd we would expect them to be greeted with laughter. It is very important for us to appreciate that such reasoning is so common in SRF that people no longer notice how transparently self-serving it is. Also, the picture of Master they have received through SRF is quite consistent with such a statement.
During the convocation one of the monks announced that all the classes had been taped and “someday” they would be available to people. Everyone cheered and clapped at the glorious news that “someday” they would have the tapes!
Someone else told us that an elderly SRF nun is the keeper of the images of Yogananda. She has a locked cabinet full of negatives to the pictures. People have tried to explain to her that the technology has changed so much that anybody can scan an image and reproduce it as much as they want. Negatives mean nothing. Still, the nun guards those negatives with holy zeal.
One person who worked for a while in one of the SRF departments talked about how all projects eventually have to go to Mt. Washington for approval. When the decision comes back, one receives the impression that someone up there at Mt. Washington goes into a deep samadhi and hears Master’s voice and that’s how the decision is made. Everyone knows, then, that the fact that the cover should be green, is “Master’s will.”
The problem with this kind of teaching is that, eventually, devotees get so confused!
I began saying to SRF members that my job for many years has been to explain these teachings to people and to help them get established on the spiritual path. Because of that experience, I have seen what helps and what hinders a devotee’s long term development. My great concern is that so much of the way I see SRF teaching I know will not help the devotees as they travel over the years down the highway of Self-realization. People seem to understand it when I put it this way. So many of them that I have talked to seem confused because of the way the Master and the path has been presented to them. They have too much of what Swamiji described in his recent paper: “If faith is not supported by clear reason it can be that blind faith which leads to lack of clarity regarding what the spiritual path is all about.”
One very high strung woman came into the Ananda Room and was so restless she could hardly even concentrate on the two minute video of Master. A few Ananda people were sitting with her watching it and she said, “Why are you all so calm? They are not calm over there,” meaning the Convocation. She stayed for a hour or so and was visibly calmer by the time she left.
We had a lila with Brahmananda that happened quite by accident. When we decided to take the Kriya day off from demonstrating, some people wanted to visit the Lake Shrine, but we didn’t know if it was open to the public. David P. offered to call and find out. Lake Shrine didn’t answer, so he called Mt. Washington. He could have remained anonymous, but instead he told the woman who answered that he was David Praver from Ananda, and our group wanted to visit the Lake Shrine on Friday. Could we do that?
“One moment please,” she said. After a pause, David found he had been connected to Brahmananda who was in a “counseling room” at the Bonaventure. Immediately grasped the possibilities he started chatting with Brahmananda. “How is the Convocation going? Having a good week?”
There was a long pause, then Brahmananda said, “It’s going fine.” “We’ve decided,” David announced magnanimously, “to take tomorrow off and let you have your Kriya ceremony without our presence. Since we have a free day, we’d like to go to the Lake Shrine. Is that possible?” As if we had given them a concession and now they owed us one! Would they set up a pavilion? Would they serve us lemonade?
Another long pause. “I’ll have to check,” Brahmananda said, “I’ll get back to you.”
Then, later in the evening, Durga, Vidura, David and I were coming back from dinner and heading for the “evening shift” at the bus stop outside the Bonaventure. As we came out the hotel door, we saw Brahmananda just about to get into a van of monks, which was parked right next to our line of Ananda people, who were chanting and holding our signs.
Vidura and David made a beeline for him. David stuck out his hand and shook Brahmananda’s hand like an old friend, then asked if he knew yet about our trip to the Lake Shrine.
These three men have met often in the last few months. We’ve been taking Daya Mata’s deposition at Mt. Washington. David and Vidura are part of Ananda’s team; Brahmananda is always there representing SRF. They haven’t shaken hands in a long time. It is not exactly a love fest. David said he doesn’t know why he did it now, it just popped into his head to do it.
Brahmananda said he has been a little busy and hadn’t had time to check, but would call David later. Vidura and David bid him a cordial goodnight, took two steps, which put them right into the Ananda line, which is where they stood, singing a happy good-bye to Brahmananda as the monks’ van as drove away.
Without planning it, we had put SRF in a very difficult position. Because one of the charges Ananda made against SRF at the public hearings on their expansion project was that if they moved Master’s body to Mt. Washington, and access had to be restricted because of the traffic problem, SRF would discriminate against Ananda and deny us entry to the shrines. SRF fiercely protested that they would never do such a thing.
Now we were asking for entry to one of their key shrines at a time when we were not exactly the heroes of the hour as far as SRF was concerned. If they acted on their feelings and said we couldn’t go— even if, in fact, it was closed to everyone but those in the convocation— well, you can see the implications.
As it turned out, Lake Shrine was having a normal day, something we could have found out from the first lady who answered the phone at Mt. Washington. But instead we had this delightful lila.
Tim Clark was suggesting the ultimate threat to get SRF to stop suing us: If SRF drives Ananda out of business, we will all have to join SRF! That might be enough to get them to stop.
SRF now has a question on their Kriya application form asking the potential Kriyaban to list other religious or spiritual groups with which they are affiliated. One young man was denied permission to take Kriya because he listed Ananda and was told he had to make a choice before they would initiate him. He was heartbroken.
Another woman found herself unable to sign the form because of that question. She thought of Master’s ideal of a Church of All Religions and just felt it was such a departure from what he taught that something inside her made her refuse. She ended up spending hours in the Ananda Room. She was riveted during Swamiji’s portion of the video and said later, “He was talking right to me.”
A number of SRF people who came to the Ananda Room spoke of how “disturbing” it was to have us outside the hotel everyday. As one woman said, “I knew you wouldn’t be standing out there if there wasn’t something really going on.”
As Master says, “Truth is not afraid of questions.” A devotee must have the courage to face what is.
Our standing there singing, holding those signs, made it necessary for many SRF devotees to ask the question, “What is true?” They had to break out of the SRF cocoon of, “Trust us, we know what we are doing.”
One man said every time he meditated our presence floated in the back of his mind, demanding that he relate to it. Finally he felt it was Master speaking to him, and came and had a long conversation with me about what is going on.
This is a cosmic struggle. It will take more than a few days to resolve. As Swamiji said after the May 10th hearing, which was the beginning of this new cycle, “It will take a long time, but at least now we have begun.”
Let me close by repeating again Swamiji’s beautiful statement about this week, “There are times when our meditation must be action for God, not peacefulness. This is one of those times.”
In divine friendship and love,
Asha for Ananda-at-the-Convocation
Jai Guru
More stories from Saturday and Sunday’s Convocation from Karen:
• The weather just turned hot today for the first time all week, just as we are wrapping up. It has been cool and delightful all week; the week before we hear it was over 100 on several days. We could never have done what we did all week if it had been like today.
• As people were checking out of the Convocation Sunday, we expected to meet some people who had been afraid to take newspapers earlier in the week. And it was the case. One man came by and said, “I’ve been waiting all week to come out and get one of these.” Another drove by, rolled his window down, and took a paper, quickly stuffing it down by his seat, so it wasn’t visible. Two women did exactly the same thing— took the papers and hid them right away. Another said to just one us posted on a street corner, “I have been a little afraid to approach your group this week, because there was often a large group, but I am glad to finally connect with you. Just what is going on!?” Another member walked by, and with sincerity said, “I hope that you achieved what you came here to do.”
• A German member drove by one of us, rolled down her window, and blasted, “Don’t you know that this work is of God! You will never be victorious against it! It will prevail against everything!” It reminded me of Hitler’s vow that his work would last a thousand years.
• A black man walked by who was not an SRF member. But he seemed interested, so we gave him a newspaper. He walked away and started to read it. Right away, he came back and pointed to the first quote on the cover about the unity of all religions, and said, “Right on brother! I just gave a sermon on this topic! Right on!”
• Several of us were “off-duty”, just returning from dinner, waiting for the light to change at a corner right next to the Bonaventure. Two very energetic teenage boys came up to us and said, “Do you know a good restaurant, not in that hotel,” they said, pointing to the Bonaventure, “that serves MEAT!!” Later we figured out they must have been children of SRF members who had escaped for a evening on their own.
• SRF often reiterates that their lawsuit is about copyrights, and says that Yogananda took every precaution to make it clear that he intended for SRF to “own” his works. Interestingly, Matthew Sloan found an this quote in the original Autobiography, from the first footnote on page 221: “The rishis gave forth treatises on all subjects with such insight that ages have been powerless to outmode them; yet, to the subsequent consternation of historians, the sages made no effort to attach their own dates and personalities to their literary works. They knew their lives were only temporarily important as flashes of the great infinite Life; and that truth is timeless, impossible to trademark, and no private possession of their own.”
—Paramhansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi
original first edition, 1946
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Updated: November 26, 2001
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