stripping the gurus - Brahma Kumaris Info

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Following a prophetic vision, and at the direction of Yukteswar,
Yogananda accepted an invitation to speak at the Congress of
Religious Liberals in Boston, in the autumn of 1920. He remained
in America following that successful debut, establishing Self-
Realization Fellowship (SRF) and its headquarters, now named the
“Mother Center,” in an abandoned former hotel atop Mount Washington
in Los Angeles, in 1925. As a “Church of all Religions,” SRF
attempts to embrace the “underlying truth of all religions,” with
particular emphasis on yoga/Hinduism and Christianity. Membership
numbers are classified, but reasonable guesses range from
25,000 to 100,000 currently active members.
The enterprising young yogi spent the years from 1925 to 1936
lecturing to capacity crowds in halls throughout America, spreading
knowledge of the “holy science” of kriya yoga.
As far as the channels through which one may receive his variant
of that particular set of techniques of meditation, Yogananda
explained in his (1998) Autobiography:
The actual technique should be learned from an authorized
Kriyaban (kriya yogi) of Self-Realization Fellowship (Yogoda
Satsanga Society of India).
Earlier versions of the same book, however, within the three
editions published while Yogananda was still alive, placed far less
restrictions on who may give that initiation:
The actual technique [of kriya yoga] must be learned from a
Kriyaban or kriya yogi (Yogananda, 1946).
More recently, SRF (in Rawlinson, 1997) stated their position
regarding the importance of their particular line of gurus in effecting
the spiritual progress of the disciple:
Some take kriya yoga and become fully satisfied and forget
about the link of masters—they will never reach God.
The reader may then ponder for him- or herself as to what possible
reasons any organization could have for thus restricting, to
itself, the dissemination of the techniques of its founder, after the
latter’s death, when no such restriction was put in place during his
life. SRF’s position, of course, is that every change to Yogananda’s
writings since his passing has been made on the basis of instructions
given by him while he was still alive, and done simply to