Newsletter April 29, 2009

Past Events

1) Swami at Universal Unitarian Church, Fairhaven MA - Sun. Apr. 26
Swami delivered a Sunday Sermon on 'Renunciation' to about seventy parishioners at 10:30 AM in the Parish House of the Unitarian Universalist Church located at 102 Green St Fairhaven MA 02719.

2) Birth anniversaries of Sri Sankaracharya and Sri Ramanujacharya - Wed. Apr. 29
Observance consisted of morning food offering in the shrine and evening singing of Nirvanashatakam and readings from 'Thus Spake Sankara' and biography of Sri Ramanujachrya after Aarati.

Synopsis of Last Week's Classes

Friday - Bhagwad Gita - April 24
Ch. 4- Verses 10-11: Why is Lord Krishna dwelling on His divine birth and divine actions? To emphasize that the knowledge imparted through his words is not fraught with human defects or limitations. It is flawless. One can follow it with the full conviction without any doubt that it may be wrong. Many have followed it and have gone beyond 'attachment, fear and anger' by doing so and have realized their divine nature. The ignorance makes us feel that we are little imperfect beings and start craving for the objects around. And get attached to them. This attachment to he impermanent objects enslaves us and leads to fear and anger. 'Austerity of knowledge' purifies us, gets rid of the ignorance and we come to see the truth that we ARE divine.
'Why then Lord does not remove the ignorance of everyone immediately? Why does he make us go through all these suffering?' Next verse answers this question.

Sunday - Meaning of the Words of Sri Ramakrishna - Swami Yogatmananda - April 26
As described in the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, incarnations of God are like a window through which we can peep into the infinity. Words are symbolic representation of thoughts and thoughts, of inner awareness. Consciously or not, our words express our inner awareness. In the book 'Sri Ramakrishna and His Divine Play' Swami Saradananda describes Sri Ramakrishna's awareness on three planes: 1) Samadhi: completely immersed in the infinite reality 2) Bahava-mukha: semi-ecstatic state (like a window whose one side opens in our earthly world and other side into the infinite existence) 3) Fully aware of the world as a manifestation of that infinite existence. Sri Ramakrishna's life has no other purpose than to awaken our inner divinity and hence we need to find out meaning of his words from this angle. Swami Vivekananda understood true import of his words and once said that even ordinary words of Sri Ramakrishna has such a deep meaning that volumes of books can be written to fathom them and to prove this to his friend he expounded on Sri Ramakrishna's parable of 'Elephant Narayana and Mahawat Narayana' for three days and three nights. Once in the state of Bhava-mukha, Sri Ramakrishna said - 'serve people not with the attitude of compassion but as an offering to the veritable manifestations of God'. Later Swami Vivekananda (then Narendranath) explained its significance and how it reconciles the path of devotion and path of knowledge as described in non-dual Vedanta. These words of Sri Ramakrishna later on became the foundation of 'Ramakrishna Math and Mission' the world-wide organization started by Swami Vivekananda.
The key to understand Sri Ramakrishna is purity and with that let us go closer and closer to this 'window to the infinity' to get our inherent imperfection completely removed.

Tuesday - Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna - April 21

Both, Narendra and Girish occupy a very special place among the disciples of Sri Ramakrishna. Sri Ramakrishna is making them debate about whether God can incarnate as a human being or not. As to the question of whether God is finite or infinite, there are always questions and thoughts on both sides. The Divine accommodates all contradictions. As Narendra and Girish debate over whether God can incarnate as a human, a fellow devotee, Ram asks 'what is the point in argument'. The Master said sharply, there is meaning in this. May be, he is seeing that in time to come many will get the illumination through studying this debate. He explained to Narendra that the Lord manifests Himself differently in each of us. We are all the same as divine beings, but as manifestations, all are not equal. This is variety. When variety is seen, one can go toward more variety or toward unity. When you step toward Truth, that is Vidyasakti. Avidysakti is leaning in the direction of ignorance.
There were some fine questions afterwards, which were discussed threadbare. 1. When someone is doing evil, then do we conclude that God is not manifested there at that time? 2. Is the snake perceived mistakenly in place of rope, completely unreal? 3. Is the status of reality same in un-manifested and manifested Brahman? 4. Can the manifested and un-manifested be treated as two-in-one?