Newsletter October 08, 2008

Past Events

1) About seventy to seventy-five devotees attended the Durga Puja worship and Prasad on Sun. Oct 05, followed by a video show of last year Durga worship at Belur Math India; music-hour was attended by about forty devotees. Swami Yogatmananda conducted Sunday Service. The program concluded with singing Sri Sarada Sankirtan, Mahisasura Mardini Stotram, Sarva Mangala and then prasad dinner for everyone. Click here to see photo.

2) On Oct. 02, Swami and two devotees attended the monthly interfaith group session which this time was conducted at Grace Episcopal Church in North Attleboro MA. The mission statement topic continued; also, individuals spoke on what they have received these meetings over the past two years..

Synopsis of Last Week's Classes

Friday - Bhagwad Gita - Oct 03

CH. 3 Verses 3-4: The paths of different aspirants are different, although they all have the same goal. Lord Krishna, who can see the harmful, unconstitutional leaning of Arjuna towards giving up the works and following the path of renunciation/knowledge, replies to Arjuna that these two paths have been preached by me for ages for different types of aspirants.
It is a human psychology that the path of other appears better than one's own. It is natural because we have to actually face the difficulties on our own path and we do not see the problems on the other's path because we are not on it. Since we are not on it, the path, however attractive and trouble-free it may appear, is just not available to us. Maya cheats us by attracting us towards the unavailable 'path' and thus we end up in not following the path available to us; there is absolutely no possibility of following the other path as we are not there. Lord also highlights the fact that merely giving up the work does not free anyone from it, nor does it lead to the goal.

Sunday - The Divine Mother - Swami Yogatmananda - Oct 5
Mother-Child relationship is the most intimate relationship. The mother protects and nourishes her children (in spite of their shortcomings) with tremendous love and compassion and yet educates them with proper discipline. This is the reason why most of us want to see God as mother. Apart from Hinduism, different religions like Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism etc. worship motherhood of God. Lord Buddha's female aspect 'Avalokiteswara', is full of compassion and works with eleven heads and thousand hands to remove miseries of the people. Tantra Scriptures are said to have come from the dialog between Shiva and Parvati. Parvati being a compassionate Mother asks Shiva various questions about spiritual life on behalf of her children (=we all) so that an easier path for God-realization can be shown to an ordinary soul. Kenopanisad tells the story that the divine principle appeared in the form of Goddess Uma to remove the pride of angels and to impart them knowledge.
In Mother Durga, the motherhood of God as remover of all obstacles and giver of blessings, reaches its culmination. Two texts that beautifully describe this are - 'Durga Saptasati' and 'Devi Bhagawatam'. In 'Durga Saptasati', three manifestations of the Mother removing obstacles at three different levels (causal, subtle and gross) of an embodied soul are shown. Only through the grace of Divine Mother the angelic qualities in us unite and defeat our demonic tendencies. This text narrates the story of a dethroned king and a homeless merchant who were terribly afflicted because of the attachment to this ephemeral world. To overcome this suffering, they were told by a sage to propitiate Divine Mother by completely surrendering to her. She alone can make us free from the delusion of this world through her compassion and blessings.

Tuesday - The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Class - Oct 07

Sri Ramakrishna saw the tremendous inner potential of Girish Ghosh, who was earlier a man of many vices. After he started visiting the Master, other devotees saw a marked change in Girish. Ramakrishna was still concerned, however, and remarked that if garlic is kept in a cup, no matter how many times you wash it, the smell remains. The Master was worried that Girish could be a "carrier" so to speak of possible bad impressions or samskaras. Girish heard of the garlic analogy and was a bit indignant. He asked can the odor be removed. The answer was "yes". By putting it in the blazing fire of knowledge, the smell goes away and a new cup emerges. We have to be aware that there are two opposite drags playing for our life. So we must proceed with awareness of our divine nature as well as with beware-ness, i.e. being careful who we associate with, and be alert that our worldly drags do not get aroused due to that association. We have to be confident and careful.
The samskaras or impressions in us are not always on the conscious plane. Patanjali classifies them into four kinds. Some are asleep, some are week, some are overpowered and some are manifest. All types of the bad impressions can be weakened and finally eliminated by right discipline and long practice.
There were nice Q/As regarding the nature of the doer and the protective measures one needs to adopt to avoid the bad impressions getting aroused.