| Undue influence of monks/fathers on students of the schools run by them | |
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Autobiography of a Yogi of Paramahamsa Yogananda - 1946 Edition - Chapter 28 "Please tell me, sir," one youth inquired, "if I shall always stay with you in the path of renunciation." "Ah, no," I replied, "you will be forcibly taken away to your home, and later you will marry." Incredulous, he made a vehement protest. "Only if I am dead can I be carried home." But in a few months, his parents arrived to take him away, in spite of his tearful resistance; some years later, he did marry. | Blogger's Observations The parents of the student may not be knowing that the monks/fathers/teachers are exercising undue influence on the students. Fathers-pastors-monks-nuns have no such right to prevail on the children's minds, without the knowledge of their parents. Students should undergo their natural course/sequence of events in their lives. Marriage and Children are natural sequences and consequences, howsoever comfortable or troublesome such marriages may be. However, students should be mature enough before they get married. They will automatically get such maturity in today's environment of unemployment and the difficulties involved in getting financially settled in life. The pastors/monks/mullas (preachers of all religions by whatever name and designation they are called), do not unfortunately have the capabilities or skills to provide true guidance to students. The Gurus would have preferred to marry and settle down, had they the skills and willingness to work hard and contribute in a right manner to the society. |
Further philosophical comments
True renunciation does not lie in marrying or not marrying. Examples: The seven sages of Hinduism are married persons. The two greatest philosophers of renunciation of Hindu mythology -- Siva and Krishna are not unmarried. The key to true renunciation is recognising the 'passing by' nature of delightful and/or depressing events of life and the transient nature of possessions. Sages like Narada who took great pride in being bachelors, had to eat a humble pie in the hands of the illusions of the earthly events and possessions.
Note: I shall not call Sage Narada's falling into the trap of samsaara (this earthly trap of family, events and possessions) as viShNu mAya (the hypnotic character of God). It is the hypnotic nature of this Earth and its contents. The events and objects of this earth were relatively simple for a primitive human to overcome. These are now becoming more and more awesome, bizarre, complex, deluding, eluding, fantastic, grandiloquent, hortative and above all "bandaging and bondaging".
This is because modern gadgets like limousines, jets and helicopters, airconditioners, digital cameras, l.e.d tvs and home projectors, robots and numerous other sense-enslaving, sense-pampering, and sense-titillating stimulii facilitated by scientific discoveries and inventions, are being added to the human minds-whims-and fancies which were already laden with traditional galore of temptations like perfumes, gold, silver, precious stones, silk garments, aphrodisiacs etc. These additional appendages and bandages/bondages are forcing even monks (not to speak of deluded householders) to seek extension of the physical existence of their bodies by employing surgical procedures and organ replacements.
Notes on viShNu mAya The word viShNu need not be taken as an indication of a Hindu God. The word viShNu has another meaning : "spread all over the Universe". Thus viShNu means this Cosmos and Universe. mAya means delusion, illusion and elusion. Our delusion about our existence on this Earth itself is viShnu mAya. viShNu was a God even in North Europe, before the advent of 14c. Christianity. The Christianity called the pre-existing European Gods as 'pagan Gods'. The Christian mode of worship is based on the personal sacrifice of Jesus. The word 'Vishn' was nearer to nature and the phenomenon of Earth rather than 'perceived protection from the blood sacrificed by Jesus'. The pagan festivals of Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden, Finland, North Denmark, Estonia, Old Prussia of Germany have some remnants of the nature and harvest worship, in spite of the oppressions and repressions of Christianity. viShn or viShNu , therefore, is not to be taken as some idol. Even Hindus misunderstand the concept of viShn a some idol God. They do not realise the word 'nature' is synonymous with the word 'God'. |
The concept of celibacy was restricted to the crucial stages of initial learning and studies. Students after attaining some level of maturity have to move on to the next stage of marrying and becoming householders. Thereafter, they do not cease to learn and study. Learning was a continuous process both in pre-marital and post-marital stages of life, even in old days. The spectrum of modern scientific knowledge is so extensive that one life time is not sufficient to learn even one column or row of it. Hence, marriage or sexual satisfaction or probably even procreation cannot be withheld even for students, particularly higher-high-school, college and university students.
Then a question will arise. What should be the role of a Guru or teacher. The teacher is to be just a friend, philosopher and guide of the student, without at the same time imposing himself or his ideas on the learner. The learner should develop and use his faculties. The teacher has just to inform the student and withdraw. The teacher can probably with some self-restraint caution a student, when the student is found to be falling into an irretrievable trap of excess sensuousness and titillations. Parents even, will have to play a similar role. Teacher cannot replace parents and the parents cannot replace teachers. The teacher may have to inform students, when their parents owing to their own orientations and predilections mislead the students. Parents have to correct when teachers misinform. The efforts of the parents and teachers have to be supplementative (al/ary). Sometimes, conflicts between the teachers' precepts and the parents' precepts do arise and confuse the students.
What happened in this instant case? Paramahamsa Yogananda succeeded in misinforming (or inadequately informing or excessively informing) the student. We cannot identify what the parents had done to persuade their son to marry. We cannot declare that the son yielded. This is because the narration of the events in the lives of the student and his parents, is not available. Autobiographies communicate to us only one side of the story. The impulses and instincts of youth-hood might have influenced the student's choice to marry. Unless it was a child-marriage, we need not find fault with the parents if they mildly pressed their son to marry, against his own wishes and the wishes of his spiritual teacher. This is because what is fit for a biological age/stage of life is to be undergone by the liver (one who lives--both in an active voice sense and a passive voice sense) and if a person neglects it owing to false teachings of his guru, he-she will have to regret it later. A person who neglects to marry at 30 may not get a good partner at 60 unless he-she is vulgarly rich. Okay, he-she is vulgarly rich and marries. But can he-she satisfy the urges of the partner? How about physical fitness? This age-conscious attraction and fitment of males and females is embedded in nature for the purpose of biological reproduction.
It will be rather naive to try to immunise or insulate the students from the pulls and temptations of the world, through the instrumentation of constant preachings of the gurus, spiritual or otherwise. History has proved that it was futile. Buddhist monasteries failed. Catholic convents and nunneries failed. Artificial confinements of the nuns and fathers had generated homophiles and paedophiles. The recently passed-away Indian multi-religious preacher Sathya Sai Baba had also been in the dark shadow of being accused of paedophilia and greasing the penises of youthful devotees. It is unimportant whether the accusations are true or not. It is important to recognise that sexual impulses and vibrations arise and continue in humans till decrepit old-age whether the renouncing person is cognisant of them or not. This is because of the role of pheromones. These impulses apply both to the successful preachers and teachers as well as the aspirant beginners.
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