I'm sorry that I cannot join in these times. My present dharma is revolving around the recovery of my son (although he will never recover from his autistic condition).
I am sure that to neglect this dharma/krama would be worse than neglecting meditation.
The ideal would be to do both, but my energies alas are not the same as 20 years ago.
I am hoping that you and your son will be able to see Amma if and when she goes on another tour of Europe. Having seen her many times I have seen all kinds of people with different challenges come to her retreats. These people all seem to recognize that we all have souls and Amma brings this recognition to everyone present. She represents karma yoga so much more than Yogananda did… her emphasis has always been on service mccoy. In her compassion she recognizes that there is still the largest percentage of the population that have yet to assimilate meditation into their lives. She does have a meditation technique called IAm but it is much less demanding than Kriya Yoga. There are also a couple versions of it, one shorter than the other. I practice the longer version which still is done in less than one half hour.
She always leads every one in a guided meditation before speaking. Besides Bhaktananda I had never felt I was in the presence of a living Master till I met her. Being the embodiment of Divine Mother she is much more demonstrative than for instance Brother Bhaktananda who I believe hid much of his divinity behind the veneer of supporting the Kriya routine and Paramahansa Yogananda’s mission on earth. However when it came to saying what were his convictions even Mother Center did not seem to dissuade him otherwise.
It was quite interesting the unusual things he would suddenly say in a sermon. They appeared to be unrelated to the subject. Yet they answered very important points that people needed to hear. And I would hear that he would for instance would say something about aliens and was asked to not repeat such things in sermons but a month latter he would again say the same thing. He was a bit of a maverick in that sense. Being directed by an inner source rather than the the concern of what other people may think.
