Vedr.: yoga? ... and then back to atheism :o)

[Guest guest]

> > "Atma Yoga is designed to raise the student to the platform of

> > Bhakti, ecstatic devotional service to God...

>

> Really? And the process we have doesn't do that?

 

It does. But if you tell a new person 'follow this process or get

lost', your success will be very low and you'll get either very

advanced or very unadvanced people (like social or psycho cases). In

ISKCON I have seen both. What I usually don't see are people from

mainstream. Those atmayogis, however, look pretty mainstream to me. So

it seems to be a successful way to attract people to come to our

temples, get prasadam, etc. And I don't see any other ISKCON programs

focusing on yoga crowd, to see their comparison.

 

As I said, many people interested in yoga will otherwise end up with

mayavadis, plus having anti-ISKCON views (anticult movement has them

all) based on our perceived 'narrowmindedness'.

 

> You know something,

> I am over being simply "suspicious" of someone telling me that they

> have "created" a process that can "raise the student to the platform

> of bhakti." I'm frankly sick of these self promoting, wannabe gurus.

 

I don't know Atmananda P. so well. Is he such type of person? Anyone

can tell?

 

> For God's sake, can someone just follow the process that our

> previous acharyas have given us and quit preaching their own

> creations?

 

Our acaryas did many unorthodox things. Bhaktivinode Thakur started

his Namahatta (resurrected in ISKCON by Jayapataka Swami on the order

of Srila Prabhupada) to bring people gradually to bhakti since often

they can't adopt the process in full right away.

 

Many spiritual groups 'create' such things. Jewish groups run

immensely popular Kabbalah courses, there are management courses based

on scriptural wisdom, etc. The fact that ISKCON is slow in adopting

such innovations is more of a problem than an advantage.

I've been always inspired by those few devotees with such broad

approach (Sridhar M., Bhaktitirtha M., Priyavrata P. of FFL, etc.)

despite their criticisms.

 

I guess it all depends on one's vision and experiences. We run our

VEDA site as a general Vedic resource, not just ISKCON resource, since

that way we can reach many more people. So far we got practically only

positive feedback. Ok, stopping self-promotion...8)

 

> There's a world of difference between innovative

> preaching and telling someone that what they've created lifts one to

> the platform of bhakti. Sheesh....

 

Then let's see the results after some time.

 

To conclude, I pay my obeisance to anyone who can bring even one

person to bhakti path.

 

Let's talk about atheism.

 

ys Jan