Newsletter November 18, 2009

Past Events

1) On Saturday Nov. 14th and Sunday 15th, Swami Yogatmananda conducted a retreat on "Reincarnation" at the Vedanta Society of Greater Washington DC, in Silver Spring MD. He returned to Providence Tuesday afternoon.

2) On Monday Nov. 16, two devotees attended the inaugural opening of the chapel at the Women and Infants Hospital, Providence, RI along with other interfaith community leaders and members and chanted two Vedic hymns.

Synopsis of last week's classes

Friday, Nov. 13 - Bhagavad Gita - CH-4 Verses 39-41
Without Sraddha--faith in what the scriptures and teacher have taught-- and an adventurous spirit, the aspirant can make no progress towards the realization of Truth. This adventurous spirit creates the desire to go beyond what one can perceive with the five senses and limited intellect, and the spiritual seeker transcends the sense organs and nervous system during meditation. In addition to having faith and an adventurous spirit, the aspirant must lead a controlled life which is not overrun by the senses. When the ultimate Knowledge is attained, one will experience great peace regardless of what is going on around him. Potential dangers on the spiritual path include giving up on spiritual practice and returning to our old, ignorant ways and being overcome with doubt. Doubt is good and is encouraged to enquire and then understand the truth; but the habit of harboring doubts all the time and making no attempts to resolve them, removes any possibility of progress. Lord says therefore that this doubt must be destroyed by all means.

Sunday, Nov. 15 - Practice of Devotion - Swami Tyagananda
Devotion or love of God is already present within us; practicing devotion means to remove the obstacles so that that love will manifest fully. Three ways by which people try to understand Reality are: 1) Logical way 2) Intuitive way 3) By following the teachings of sages and saints. The highest form of devotion means God is the only goal of life and not the means to acquire worldly things. There are four different ways through which devotion can be practiced:
1) Through actions: Bhagavatam mentions nine different ways of expressing love for God: Listening to the stories of the Lord, Singing His glories, Constantly remembering and saluting Him, Serving Him in His devotees, Ritualistic worship, Doing all work for his sake, Loving intimacy with God, Complete self-surrender. Naradapancharatra defines devotion as doing everything (through thoughts, words and actions) out of love for God.
2) Devotion as a form of Knowledge: Ramanuja, in his commentary on Gita says that devotion fixes memory in God. Bhagavatam describes the devotion as an unbroken flow of mind towards the Supreme Deity, who dwells in the hearts of all.
3) Devotion as a form of Emotion: The attachment for sense objects (which worldly people normally have), when directed towards the Lord becomes devotion.
4) Devotion as a form of Willing: Gopalapurvatapini Upanisad says that devotion means fixing the mind on the Lord and giving up all desires for this world and the next. This requires surrendering oneself to the Lord and having firm conviction that He is always protecting me and guiding me in all situations.

Tuesday, Nov. 17 - The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (Chapter 39)

By our thought-process, we may get a faint idea of the possibility of that samadhi, where the awareness of the changes vanishes into that of the Absolute, Unchanging, All-pervading One, which is referred to here as 'Nitya'. But it is very difficult to get any understanding of 'Lila' - that Unchanging Divine One manifesting in and through all the changes, without undergoing any change in it. For Sri Ramakrishna, this transition between the Nitya and Lila used to take place in a natural way. He saw everything pervaded with Oneness. The awareness of God never vanished for him. The Master was explaining his divine experiences to his disciples and said he went Up to the Nitya and Down to the Lila and again back to Nitya. The words "up" and "down" don't connote superiority or inferiority. Lila is God appearing in so many forms. It is divine play. Prakriti: The 'matter' principle: changes take place only in matter. Purusha: the conscious-ness principle: which never changes In Vedanta, these two terms are not separated like Samkhya Philosophy; Vedanta considers Prakriti to be inseparable Power of the Purusha.

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