Newsletter April 14, 2010

Past Events

1) On Sun. Apr. 11, Swami Yogatmananda delivered Sunday Satsang from 11:00AM - 12:00 noon on 'A Study of Sleep-Walking' at the Ramakrishna Vedanta Society of MA,Boston.

2) On Sun. Apr. 11, from 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM, a music concert was performed by Debapriya Adhikary (Vocal), Samanwaya Sarkar (Sitar) and Akshay Navaladi (Tabla). Click here for photo.
3) Swami Yogatmananda gave a radio talk on New Talk Radio 1360 AM (Philadelphia and South NJ area) on April 13, 4:00-5:00 PM on 'Food and Spirituality'.

Synopsis of last week's classes

Friday, Apr. 09 - Bhagavad Gita (Ch. 6, Verses 13-15)
In the Gita, Sri Krishna lays out the path of living a meditative life before explaining the specifics of practicing seated meditation. This is because sitting for meditation is only one component of the spiritual life; if we do not have all of the other pieces in place, practicing meditation will not be of much help to us. In last week's class, we heard about the external conditions which should be in place when we meditate. In Verse 14, Sri Krishna explains what the internal state should be like during meditation. We must remove all worries/fears from our mind and feel profound calmness. When we breathe in, we can imagine we are taking in a current of calmness and peace. As we exhale, we should feel like we are pushing out doubts and fears. God should be considered the highest achievement and one must try to put the whole mind in Him. In addition to cultivating a sense of peace and calmness in the mind, we must practice continence (i.e. avoidance of sensory enjoyments). When we seek joy from the external world (food, company of friends, music, sexual relations), we are going outside of ourselves, when joy is actually within us. Becoming adept in meditation may take years of practice, so we should not be discouraged and persevere when it is challenging! Just the mere attempt too is rewarding! Striving thus the Yogi attains the ultimate Peace of merging into the Divine.

Sunday, April 11 - A Study of Sleep-Walking - Swami Yogatmananda
Sleep-walking as described by neuro-science and main-stream psychology is a kind of sleep disorder. It was previously thought as a state akin to dream; but this idea was discarded because physical organs activated by dream cannot perform complex activities (like driving a car or cooking) that people do during sleep-walking. Further research with new neurological tools such as EEG & PET scan revealed that the brain wave pattern associated with sleep-walking is not the same as that of the dream, but it is actually the wave pattern associated with deep sleep. Physical science has no further answer for the phenomena of sleep-walking as it cannot go beyond its self-imposed limitations - the logic and observations based on five sense organs.
According to Vedanta and Yoga philosophy, body and mind are separate entities (similar to hardware and software in computer science) that cover the Atman or the Self, which is our true nature - infinite, blissful, immortal. Since body is not 'I' but a vehicle like a car being used by a particular 'I' or a person, it is quite possible that it can be loaned to or shared with another person. Sleep-walking can thus be explained as sharing of the physical body according to the needs and conveniences of the persons involved. This argument can be further strengthened with the fact that in all the three states of our ordinary experience - waking, sleep and dream, the subject (the perceiver) remains the same; the same 'I' goes to sleep, sees dream and wakes up. However in case of sleep-walking the person who went to sleep and woke up after there was the episode of sleep-walking, has no memory of it and what happened during that state. That person completely and unequivocally denies that s/he ever left the bed.
The study of sleep-walking is helpful to understand that we are not bodies and hence we have no birth, no death, no old age or no disease. If we meditate on this and live life in accordance with this awareness, our intellectual understanding about our True, Divine nature will be steadfast and will then be transformed into tangible experience of infinite bliss and freedom, that we all seek.

Tuesday, Apr. 13 - The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna

The words of Sri Ramakrishna are like nectar. When we drink of it, we become immortal by going beyond our mistaken thinking that we are the bodies and understand that we are in essence the immortal all-pervading Divine. Ramakrishna, through his words, shows us the folly of this identifying ourselves as body and mind. The only motivation for his words is compassion: he sees the suffering of people due to ignorance and so he speaks to bring illumination to them. When we know the world is unreal, how and why should we aspire for anything from it? The Master shows that it is wrong to think that first let me earn enough (?) money and then practice spiritual discipline.
The subject of money was brought up to Vivekananda. He said: "Have you ever seen money making a person"? It is the person making money. If the idea is strong enough, the money will follow. There were examples of good people in the world. There's a difference between a good person and a spiritual person. A spiritual person knows the world as illusion. We live in the world, there is no escaping that, but that doesn't mean we have to live a wordily life. We can be in this world but not of it through discernment, detachment, and practicing of spiritual exercises.

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