Hooded Stranger

Hi TI, Yes, I would not disagree with you at all that that would be the common classification. But in the most broad sense of Raja Yoga, Kundalini Yoga (without the shaktipat or personal guru etc.) is part of it. Mantra yoga also fits in to Raja Yoga as I define it. There are all sorts of approaches to mantra yoga. There are some that require the mantra to stay sharp, others encourage its become indistinct. Maharishi by no means invented the technique he calls TM. He just branded his teaching of it as TM.

TI, I am losing patience for peeing contests. Particularly ones in which I win far too easily and in so few words of mine. You don't even 'give me a game'. This is my last post before I give you a 'personal ban'. I'll address the substance of your post, giving you credit for making a mistake. Yes, the parts of AYP I covered is Raja Yoga as Sivananda defines it. That is what I said. I did not say that the parts of AYP I covered is Raja Yoga as Sivananda teaches it. Your point "There is no practice in AYP that is like this" is true. Straw man though. No-one saiid that AYP covers all of Raja Yoga that Sivananda covers. HS

Thanks Michael, you are a Good Man. And Dr. Who is a good man too. Not like the racist **** to his right. It is with the help of people like you that we are integrating nicely. P.S. I can get TI vaporized for you if you want.

TI, responding to your post with snippet below. Every forum has its own system and I suppose I'll learn the ropes here. While I hated, detested even, the AYP control of opinions, there was a lot to be said for their strict civility requirements, which TIs post would fail on several grounds. Ultimately, it took a lot of noise and waste of energy out of the threads, and almost certainly made the forum more attractive in the long run and serve its purpose more. TI, I am not sure you deserve to be responded to here. I am not sure your post is not just an attempt at browbeating, a dharma/scholarship peeing contest, and nothing more. I have no time for dharma/scholarship peeing contests. In the future I'll ask you to edit out the browbeating out of your posts before I respond. Later, if that doesn't work, I'll just ignore you. For this one I'll respond. You may be under illusion as to the whole nature of spirituality and its adjunct, spiritual scholarship. Scholarship is just an add-on, a system of handles to help the mind grasp things. The systematic division of Yoga is just that, a classification system designed to help. Other classification systems are valid. It's not like we are here in this spiritual life to be the best scholar in the class, and smack down the others. Definitions of things are particular to a school and context. Being a pedant helps no-one. You don't get to push the definitions of one school and make others wrong with it. You don't get to read a book on Raja Yoga and then think that someone who has a definition or view of Raja Yoga as being somewhat more expansive than what is contained in your book gets to be hit over the head and made wrong and inferior to your knowledge set. I like Sivananda's division of yoga here: http://www.sivananda.org/teachings/fourpaths.html#raja He does four paths and puts Raja Yoga and Hatha Yoga together. That makes a lot of sense to me, but some people put Hatha Yoga separate. You could have great scholarship fights regarding definitions about that if you like. If you like. Everything I saw at AYP with the exception of Self-Enquiry was Raja Yoga as Sivananda defines it. It is true that there is no real 'standard raja yoga'. But you have to read someone's words carefully. You misquote me, taking out the word 'pretty' in my saying that it was pretty standard Raja Yoga. There could be a world of difference between saying it is pretty standard Raja Yoga and that it is standard Raja Yoga. The phrase 'pretty standard' here is meant by me to mean fairly mainstream, fairly common, not strange or unusual or particular, and most importantly, not an innovation by Yogani. No, when I say 'pretty standard Raja Yoga' I don't mean yoga out of the Big Bully Book of Standard Raja Yoga which Makes All Other Scholars Wrong. if that is what you are thinking. That is the only issue of substance I found to be addressed, the question of why I found AYP ( not including self-enquiry) to be pretty standard Raja Yoga. The rest I determine to be mere browbeating, and I have no intention of addressing it. Good luck with that.

Karl, that is amazing if I am hearing you correctly. Am I hearing you that they 'watch' other online forums for dissenters from AYP at AYP moderator's forum? What forum(s) do they watch? I presume Daobums is one of them. Where all the bad kids hang out. That is REALLY culty behavior if I am hearing you correctly, it sounds like what Scientology does. They are always scanning the internet for anti-Scientology stuff. If they are unhappy with what they see, do they visit the forum in question? 'Entryism'? And defend the Master?

Jeff, that is interesting about the 'consolidation'. Do you happen to know what year the 'consolidation' happened?

Thankyou all for your welcomes. Jeff, I have been doing AYP for about 3 years. No, I have not and won't be doing the premium service. TI, you're the only one of us misrepresenting someone here. You seem to have misunderstood me. I did not say you said AYP practices don't work. I implied only that AYP does not work for you, which I am sure you would agree with from your posts. That was not a criticism on my part. I have agreed with all of your concerns about Yogani's personality and the community. Now, please don't be so prickly, and please let's be friends. ----- A question if anyone knows: most of what I saw was pretty standard raja yoga as I said, but there is plenty of Yogani spin and I'm not sure I'd agree with all of that. But here is my question: I did not cover AYP Self Enquiry as I said. Does anyone know how particular that is to him? Is it an innovation of his, or a re-packaging of standard self-enquiry? Well, I can't disagree that it is not important to you. It depends on what you want. I'm approaching this writing here partially in the spirit of investigative journalism. I am writing here as three things: spiritual seeker, and as investigator and journalist. I think AYP community needs some serious investigative journalism. I did read Secrets of Wilder. I'll be explaining what I think that is about. As I'll be explaining probably tomorrow, AYP is an isolated island, informationally. While thousands visit the site per day, ( did I hear 20,000 page views?) and hundreds of thousands of person-hours of work are put in there, there is tremendous unaccountability there, on several levels. And Yogani's 'anonymity' is part of that. It's a community with real human investment and no accountability. This has both social and spiritual implications. Hopefully, I'll be putting up a post tomorrow explaining why.

YOU SAY: please tell us enough so we know you are a real person and not a bot I SAY [in high-pitched Dalek voice]: I .... AM..... A .... REAL .... PERSON ...NOT.... A ....BOT. OK jokes aside. I've been doing yoga and meditation for years and I have been at AYP for a while and I am disillusioned. I have seen Tibetan_Ice and Karl voice similar concerns to mine. Unlike as with Tibetan_Ice, the practices themselves worked fairly well for me. As far as I can see (I never got to self-enquiry) it's pretty standard raja yoga, which is not right for everyone by any means. What bothers me is the community. The control that Yogani has, and the information isolation. AYP is an information island as far as I can see. And Yogani's 'anonymity' doesn't sit right with me either.