Thursday, October 23, 2014

"Awake: The Life of Yogananda" (film)

Wisdom Quarterly; Ananda.org; Yogananda-SRF.org
(MT) "Awake" stars Anupam Kher and is directed by Paola di Florio and Lisa Leeman.

Join the Free Webinar with tips from Paramhansa Yogananda - How to Tap Into an Unlimited Supply of Energy. Sign up here: http://www.anandaonlineclasses.org/mod/resource/view.php?id=5212Paramhansa Yogananda came to America from India to spread the teachings of Hinduism, combining it with Christianity, which was easy because Jesus had been to India and was a mendicant rishi (seer) and yogi, according to Christian Westerner Nicolas Notovitch.

Yogananda founded the Self-Realization Fellowship (the leadership of which was subsequently handed to Sri Daya Mata, an American Mormon woman) and delivered an ancient message to the West eager for spiritual nourishment with his best selling book, Autobiography of a Yogi.
My Life With  Yogananda
(Ananda Los Angeles/AnandaLA.org) Based on the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda, author of Autobiography of a Yogi, and his close, direct disciple Swami Kriyananda.
A Walk with #Babaji: http://www.anandaclaritymagazine.com/2014/09/mahavatar-babaji-kriyananda/
Maha-Avatar Babaji (F)
A scandal and a schism arose around him creating two sects, with an original (Ananda) and redacted (SRF) version of his famous book. Rather than being a celibate saint, Yogananda may have dated and had a son, who would be his rightful legal heir if true. And this has led to a persistent controversy and been a pain to the official organization he left behind. An upstart organization (Ananda.org) led by his direct disciple Swami Kriyananda (James Donald Walters) is fine with telling the truth about a few chapters of his life that official organization is desperate to keep secret as it seems to mar the purity of his reputation.

The Life of Yogananda, an introduction (paramhansayogananda.com)
 
Was he a Hindu saint? He was someone with extraordinary powers, and many of his disciples -- who learn their lessons by an innovative, do-it-yourself mail order program on Kriya Yoga (simple actions to stimulate meditation) and sing amazing chants he wrote in English -- feel he is in contact and helping them from a heaven (the Brahma loka).

The tradition he founded is not syncretic, combining Hinduism (which includes Mahayana Buddhism within it) and Christianity. They are so similar at less superficial levels that they go hand in hand.

Sri Daya Mata (left) and the official organization left behind by Yogananda (SRF)
The Original "Autobiography of a Yogi" by Paramhansa Yogananda's photo.
"Everything else can wait, but your search for God[hood] cannot wait." - Yogananda
A frozen baby mammoth
Nature makes cute things.
The woolly mammoth was one of the last in a line of mammoth species. Its appearance and behavior are among the best studied of any prehistoric animal due to the discovery of frozen carcasses (pictured) in Siberia and Alaska, as well as skeletons, teeth, stomach contents, scat (dung), and depiction from life in prehistoric cave paintings. The animal was only identified as an extinct species of elephant by Georges Cuvier in 1796. Its closest extant relative is the Asian elephant. The woolly mammoth was well adapted to the cold environment during the last ice age, and had long, curved tusks. Its habitat was the mammoth steppe, which stretched across northern Eurasia and North America. The woolly mammoth coexisted with early humans... More

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