Newsletter June 11, 2008

Synopsis of Last Week's Classes

Friday - BHAGAWAD-GITA - June 06

CH-2 (Verses 65-68): Nothing in the world is more possible than realizing the divine as that is our real nature; each of us, in reality, is divine. Bhagavad Gita says we fritter away our energy and that is why we are unsuccessful. We have to plug the holes in the tank not to leak and not waste the energy. Senses are these holes; so first we have to control the sense organs. Attachment and aversion are to be shunned and we should constantly remind ourselves of our journey's goal. Once we're on the path to peace, we don't friction and we experience high efficiency in what we undertake. That is being a Yogi. Dualities don't bother the person established in wisdom and he becomes serene. It takes much practice, and without practice of control, there can be little hope of success in spiritual life. Such a person is ayukta - not given to practice of Yoga. In such a person, the intellect, which is supposed to guide/control the senses, becomes the slave to them. To have a perfect mastery over the organs is being established in wisdom.

Sunday - Bhakti-Yoga (8): Devotion and Surrender - Swami Tyagananda - June 08
This was the last lecture of the series 'Bhakti-Yoga'.
The path of devotion has two parts: preparatory devotion and higher devotion. Sankaracharya defines devotion as single minded, one pointed investigation into one's own nature. So devotion can be to a personal form or it can be impersonal. Swami Vivekananda defines three essential characteristics of true love for God.
1. Love knows no bargaining. A bhakta (devotee) who has cultivated higher devotion does not ask anything from God. S/he loves God for God's sake.
2. Love knows no fear. Fear comes from selfishness. True love is all encompassing and hence fearless.
3. Love knows no rival. A time comes when God becomes the only ideal to be sought, the highest ideal. Such a person performs duties as worship to God.
Other characteristics in which love manifests: Reverence to God, Feeling joy when thinking about God, Feeling intense misery due to absence of the beloved. In earthly love everything belonging to the beloved becomes sacred. Similarly, the entire universe which belongs to God becomes sacred to a devotee. 'To love the whole universe (Vyashti or particularized thing) is possible only by way of loving the Samashti (=God) - the universal - which is, as it were, the one unity in which are to be found millions and millions of smaller unities' - says Swami Vivekananda. The devotee sees everything as God's manifestation and his/her heart becomes eternal fountain of love. This all absorbing love gives rise to self-surrender. Then pain, misery, death are all accepted gladly knowing that they have come from the beloved, God. Swami Vivekananda mentions that, '(this) uncomplaining resignation to the will of God, who is all love, is indeed a worthier acquisition than all the glory of grand and heroic performances.'
Upanisads declare that when the highest unitary experience is attained, all desires are fulfilled at once. We have to start from where we are, making sincere efforts and in the end we will find ourselves transfigured in the light of love.

Tuesday - The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Class- June 10

Why does Sri Ramakrishna pray to the Divine Mother so that Girish does not abuse him? Not for himself but for the sake of Girish; so he will be able to receive Ramakrishna's teachings/blessings. Obviously the prayer was granted as Girish found as if 'someone was pressing his tongue'. He was humbled.
Shiva (the supreme Lord) is Jiva (the embodied soul) free from bondage. Each of us IS divine; so nothing - worships, charities & all that - can make us divine except as helps to wake up to the fact that I am not the body or mind or any of these limiting adjuncts, I AM the ever perfect, ever pure, One without a second Shiva. As the childish ignorance that sticks to the names and forms of the animals in animal-crackers is replaced by the matured vision that they are the same, one stops worrying about them so also one gets over the names & forms in this world and that is 'becoming' Shiva. Sri Ramakrishna tells the devotee (Atul) to do both: duties in the world and cultivate love for the God.. Running away from the duties is not the way at all. Doing the duties is very important. Also, the love should not be for the world but for the God.