Newsletter April 25, 2007

Synopsis of Last Week Classes

Friday - Raja Yoga Class - April 20
Appendix: Svetaswatar Upanisad
The great science and philosophy of realizing our intrinsic/potential divinity as systematically described by Patanjali is in perfect harmony with the Upanisads and the other Vedantic texts. Upanisads are the highest authority of Vedanta.
Spiritual aspirant's mind is looking for the higher things in life; 'where fire is rubbed …' etc. indicate the sacrifice or the spiritual disciplines. Ordinary people are busy looking for the sense-pleasures, finding avenues for more and more worldly entanglements; no attempt to get freedom is seen them. In contrast, a spiritual aspirant has different priorities, different interests. His mind dwells in spiritual practice.
The proper posture is very important as a necessary step; this part of Yoga should neither be neglected nor overemphasized. Sitting in the proper posture, control the senses by the mind, dissolve them in the self. This is the practice of meditation - not just mechanically doing some actions. The spiritual aspirant chooses the unchanging, eternal, infinite, One without a second Brahman as the support, the ferry, to cross the ocean of suffering.

Sunday - Truth and Perception - Swami Yogatmananda - April 22
We perceive the world but there is always a hidden feeling inside that what we perceive is not the whole, exact truth. That is why we want to 'know', 'learn'. This explains the immense effort mankind puts in developing the knowledge of various types. If our perception tallies exactly and completely with the truth, then there would have been no need to 'know' further. The desire to know is the desire to fill the gap between the perception and the truth. We know in the heart of our hearts that our perceptions are not fully correct/complete, because of various irresolvable contradictions involved in them. Sankaracharya, in introduction to his famous commentary on Brahma-Sutras, refers to the most primary, basic mistake that forms the foundation of all our perceptions and thus of our behavior too. This mistake is dividing the reality between subject & object (I & world) and then confusing the subject with the object and the object with the subject. Thus the body, which is seen as any other object, is mistaken to be 'I' - the subject. This basic mistake is the root-cause of our bondage and suffering. Because of this mistake, the intrinsically free, ever blissful, ever perfect Self experiences bondage and suffering. All the Vedanta-scriptures have therefore the sole purpose in view - to remove this mistaken perception and make it match with the truth that Self/Atman is The One homogeneous existence. When our perception matches this truth then all doubts are gone for ever.
Sankaracharya was the proponent of the non-dual (advaita)' school of Vedanta; the other prominent schools are Ramanujacharya's 'qualified non-dualism' and Madhwacharya's 'dualism'. Although there are apparently significant differences in their philosophies, there is underlying harmony and they are complementary to each other as illustrated by Sri Ramakrishna.