This can be said of today’s readers as well, and it would be well advised to breathe consciously and to have a practical understanding of how to deal with dark emotions before one attempts to digest much of the heavier New Age material such as Blavatsky’s The Secret Doctrine : The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy.
That being said, Ramacharaka’s books are written from a much lighter perspective, and there is a considerable degree of intellectual light to his writings evidencing at least to his own personal good intentions. Ramacharaka covers the span of different areas of Yoga that essentially are derived from the schools of Indian thought on these subjects. For a basic safe new age/occult education in the common terms and concepts that these mystic types study such as explanations of auras, personal magnetism, ancient civilizations, and the levels of the metaphysical self, Ramacharaka offers an easily read systematic overview of the entire subject.
The first book that one should read is Fourteen Lessons in Yogi Philosophy, as it is the introduction to the basic concepts that one will encounter that will allow you to easily understand the basic New Age jargon and epistemology. Much of this book centers around explaining the various levels of the mind and the spirit as understood by New Agers including the aura, the instinctive mind, the emotional mind, and the spiritual mind, as well as the “I am” spirit which is called atman in Indian philosophy and is the seat of the ego. After this book, the Advanced Course in Yogi Philosophy covers deeper concepts and goes into a greater depth than the first book including covering the basics in regards to spiritual evolution and karma/dharma.
These two books give one a sufficient background in the material to understand the basic theological and New Age worldview as well as a great deal about eastern religious mysticism. Beyond these two books, Ramacharaka wrote several subject specific books including Raja Yoga, which is the yoga of mental discipline and mental training. Gnani Yoga essentially covers the yoga of philosophy and reason as well as the Eastern cosmology which would correspond to western philosophy here in the west before modern science. Hatha Yoga: or the Yogi Philosophy of Physical Well-Being is a book that basically outlines what most westerners think of when they think of Yoga, which is physical yoga. Ramacharaka is highly critical of Western physical Yoga in this book and overviews the subject from an Indian perspective. Additional books by him are available, and I have read several of them, all of which I would recommend.
Article comments
1 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Just Chris,
Fix your title. You have "the" spelled wrong. I'll read the review later. Sounds very interesting
2 - Eric Olsen
I'm sure that was me Ruvy, dont' blame Chris.
Fascinating subject and very nice job, Chris - thanks and welcome!
3 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Just Chris,
Not long ago the Dalai Lama popped into town and a friend of mine sent me this, in the e-mail. I found it rather interesting. Especially considering that the Chief Rabbi was inviting the Dalai Lama to head up an international "UN" of religions based here.
Apparently, there is more to the "brotherhood of white men" than meets the eye...
4 - Just Chris
Thanks for the complements. I read these books when I was in my early college years and have learned tons since then. Indeed Ruvy, several of the authors I have read including Stuart Wilde and Trevor Ravencroft have uncovered the connection between the Nazis and Tibetan monks. Especially disturbing is Ravencroft's Spear of Destiny book which goes into how Hitler attempted, in a bid to control the world, to aquire the Spear of Longinus that the roman centurion used to pierce the side of Christ. Apparently he was convinced of its occult power and its dark history. Within several German command bunkers at the end of the war were found Tibetan monks who had commited sucide. Odd no?
I've studied only a small amount about Tibet, but apparently the notions of morally superior persons is part of Lamanism. The worship of the Dali Lami as the living incarnation of God/Buddha is part of this cult/myth and somewhere within those belief systems probably lies the explanation as to why the obviously evil Nazis came looking to Tibet for common cause for their hate filled racism.
I believe it may be something to do with the "Aryan" invasions that overthrew the older cultures of that region in the 2,000-3,000 B.C. range. I learned in my sociology class in college that India's caste system in particular was created the way it was so that the white invaders would remain in the top castes and interbreed amongst themselves always maintaining the power of their bloodline over others. nazis, as you may know, were fascinated by the sacred Indian texts, and the ideological founder of nazism, Karl Haushofer, spent years in India creating the basis for the racist blood ideology. I learned that from a History channel program about the occult links to nazism.
I will be posting more articles on this subject over time as I learn and read more. But truly, it is very interesting that when you go nazi hunting you end up finding some very strange linkages indeed. That brings to mind the old X-Files motto: Trust No One.
5 - Just Chris
Oh btw, thanks Ruvy for the link to that fascinating article. Good stuff. I remember the contreversy surrounding Seven Years In Tibet when it came out. I watched the movie, and I think I read something about the contreversy either on World Net Daily or some other site. Anyway, it is interesting what gets produced in Hollywood and what seems to get promoted. As to the question of whether or not the creators of the movie knew anything about the connection between the movie's chief character and fascism, I'm not sure. It could easily be passed up as part of the Save Tibet craze in Hollywood at the time, not that saving Tibet is a bad thing. But I find it interesting that there wasn't any save Rwanda movies when the massacre of a million people was going in Africa. Just a thought.
6 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Just Chris,
It's not "just a thought." When you think of the major genocides in the previous Christian century, you see that in each cse, it was not "Aryans" who got killed. First the Armenians got hit, then Jews, then Ibo in Nigeria, then Cambodians, black Christians and animists in Sudan, and most recently the Rwandans in Africa.