Date Posted:11:17 Author: ketch - 3 Jun 2001 Subject: Re: Reply To Ketch In reply to:
Mike Drake - 3 Jun 2001
's message, "Re: Reply To Ketch" on 11:15
Mike, you have certainly given us some interesting discussion on this board.
Concerning the suggestion I made earlier that Sri Yukteswar may simply have been explaining the cycle in the terms of his own age and culture, in the same way that Jesus spoke in terms of the Jewish scriptures and beliefs. This is what Sri Yukteswar actually writes in "The Holy Science".
We learn from Oriental astronomy that moons revolve around their planets, and planets turning on their axes revolve with their moons round the sun; and the sun, with its planets and their moons, takes some star for its dual and revolves round it in about 24,000 years of our earth - a celestial phenomenon which causes the backward movement of the equinoctal points around the zodiac.
This seems to me to suggest that Sri Yukteswar was simply repeating the current (in that culture) theory for the readers benefit. There is no suggestion that it was his own theory. Sri Yukteswars theories are concerned with the astrological effects of the cycle rather than it's cause.
I checked in my editions of Autobiography of a Yogi (I have not checked the online 1946 edition), and could find no reference to the dual star theory. The astrological references in the chapter on Kriya Yoga simply compare the performance of Kriya to the movement of the sun through the signs of the zodiac - suggesting that performance of one kriya is equivalent to one years spiritual evolution. I am not aware of any other references to the dual star theory in Yogananda's writings, and it is certainly not an essential part of his teachings.
Re: Reply To Ketch -- Steven Daedalus, 23:02