Newsletter May 14, 2008

Past Events

SITAR Concert - Sun. May 11
A Sitar concert, attended by approximately ninety-five music enthusiasts, was performed by Srinivas Reddy, accompanied on tabla by Samir Gupta on Sun May 11 from 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM, in the Vedanta chapel, immediately after the Sunday Lecture. Srinivas, a sitarist, guitarist and composer, studies traditional sitar under Pt. Partha Chatterjee. Sameer Gupta has studied percussion since 1985, beginning in Tokyo and is versed in jazz, world and fusion music. He studies Northern classical tabla under master Pandit Anindo Chatterjee. Click here to see photos.

Synopsis of Last Week's Classes

Friday - Bhagavad Gita Class - May 9

Ch. 2 (Verses 59-61):Only for the one who has not reached the Goal and wants to, scriptures become meaningful. The Gita, as a scripture, gives advice that is meaningful to real seekers of enlightenment. To make a spiritual seeker feel the gap between one who, through suppression of desires, abstains from the objects of enjoyment and the enlightened person whose desires are all burned due to knowledge. We can restrain the senses as in fasting, but the mind still has hankering for the sense-enjoyments. It is not suggested here that one should not try to restrain the senses; that must be done, but one should not stop there. The striving for the Ultimate Wisdom must be rigorously kept on, till 'the relish also goes away.' Even a wise, learned and striving person needs to be always on guard. Why? Because when the senses get turbulent due to desires, they become so strong that they drag the mind after them. There's a two fold practice in Vedanta which says: 1. don't do what will hurt you (vairagya). 2. do what will help you (abhyasa). In other words, stop running after worldly desires and rest yourself in thoughts of God.

Sunday - Bhakti Yoga (7): Forms of Worship - Swami Tyagananda - May 11
Our life being trapped between desires and fears has become miserable. How to free ourselves and become happy? The joy in this world and in heaven (as a place of enjoyment) is always fraught with misery. Unalloyed joy and freedom comes only from God. Rarely somebody is capable of worshipping the divine as divine, which is the best form of worship. Majority of the people need some concrete forms of worship to rise progressively. Two prevalent forms of worship of the divine are: through symbols (Pratika) and through images (Pratima).
Worship through Symbols: Although this is very useful in the beginning, at some point we need to outgrow it. Most of the people get stuck with it and their progress is stunted. Book worship is the most prominent form of worship through symbols. Wisdom enshrined in the book nourishes our consciousness. But this may also become harmful if one follows the book blindly. Also different people interpret the same text differently which may confuse the reader.
Worship through images: Swami Vivekananda says that different religious sects have different forms of images and each sect thinks that theirs is the only right one. This is the defect of image worship; yet majority of us have to take recourse to it. Thinking of the divine in human form is constitutionally natural to us because human form is real and recognizable to us. We cannot but think abstract through concrete forms. Seeing God in idols is not idolatry. In fact looking upon others human beings as bodies and not as spirits is the idolatry that we are doing all the times. In image worship, one looks upon image as one of the forms of the divine. It becomes idolatry when one thinks that God is present in that particular image alone. One has to guard oneself against this danger. Spiritual life is a journey from form to formless, name to nameless.

Tuesday - The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Class- May 13

The paths of knowledge and devotion vary according to our constitutions. In the spiritual life, we combine the two roads. The proportions differ according to our makeup. There are five constituents of everything. Existence, knowledge, and bliss - these are from God, the remaining two, name and form come from ignorance. Thus we perceive the soul to be a body. We can understand intellectually that we are not the body; yet it is very difficult to get rid of the ego. Sri Ramakrishna says the only way is through the grace of God. The ego can't chase away the ego. When samadhi comes, the whole world vanishes. The 'ego' that is seen after that in the great world teachers, the Avataras, is of a different nature. It's the ego of Knowledge such as Shankacharaya showed or the ego of devotion as exhibited by Chaitanya. It is like the burnt rope - it still retains the shape, the twining in looks, but it is not really a rope.
Sri Ramakrishna makes it very clear that whatever path we are on, be it knowledge or devotion, discrimination and renunciation are required.