Newsletter March 06, 2013

 

Newsletter Archives

 

Upcoming Events

On Sunday, March 10, following 5-6PM Sunday Service, two musicians from Congregational Church will sing a couple of western songs; following 7PM Aarati, this being the Mahashivaratri Day, there will be chanting of 108 names to Shiva (Shiva-nama Sankirtanam).

 

Sri Ramakrishna Puja/Worship Day – Sun. Mar. 17
Worship: 11:00 AM-1:00 PM; Prasad-lunch: 1:00-2:00; Video: 2:00-3:30; Music: 4:00-5:00; Symposium: 5:00-6:00; Music & Meditation: 6:00-7:00 PM. All are welcome to any or all of the program.

 

Day-long Retreat – Sat. Mar. 30 : Click here for more details.

 

Weekly Programs (in addition to Daily Programs given below)

Friday, March 08	7:00 PM: Aarati (devotional music) & meditation 7:30 – 8:30 PM: : Bhagavad Gita class, Ch. 17
Saturday, March 09	8:30 – 10:30 AM: Karma yoga/cleaning 11:00am – 12 noon: Guided meditation and singing 7:00PM – 8:00 PM: Aarati (singing two devotional songs, a reading and meditation)
Sunday, March 10	5:00 – 6:00 PM: ‘SHIVA – The Auspicious’ by Swami Yogatmananda; followed by 15 minute singing by two visiting musicians 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM: Soup Supper 7:00 PM – 8:15 PM: Aarati (devotional music), Shiva-nama Sankirtanam and meditation
Tuesday, March 12	7:00 PM: Aarati (devotional music) & meditation 7:30 – 8:30 PM: Study class on The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna - Ch. 45, p. 852

 

Daily Programs

Morning :	5:45 – 6:45 AM: Meditation 6:45 – 7:00 AM: Chanting followed by a short reading from The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
Evening :	7:00 – 7:15 PM: Aarti (devotional music), with a short reading from Swami Chetanananda's book: ‘Mahendra Nath Gupta ‘M’' 7:15 – 8:15 PM: Meditation

 

Past Events

Swami to CA & IL– Wed. Feb. 27 - Tues. Mar. 05
Swami  Yogatmananda visited & delivered talks at various So. CA Vedanta Societies (Hollywood, Santa Barbara, San Diego, etc). He cconducted a weekend retreat to about forty devotees at the San Diego Vedanta Society, (which was available on ‘live-stream’); and visited the Vivekananda Vedanta Society of Chicago, IL before returning to Providence on Tues. Feb 05.

 

Synopses of Last Week's Classes

(All classes given by Swami Yogatmananda, unless otherwise stated.)

 

Video Lecture – March 01, Friday

A video lecture on 'Spiritual Evolution and the Time Factor' by Swami Adiswarananda, (delivered at Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center of New York, on Sunday April 2, 2006) was shown.

 

The Cloud of Unknowing (Part 1) – Bishop Paul, Celtic Orthodox Church – March 03, Sunday

A great mystical flowering took place in fourteenth century Europe. The author of 'The Cloud of Unknowing', who lived then, did not sign his work, because the important thing was service to God, and not personal recognition. The Cloud was written only for people seriously striving for God-realization. The author wrote from experience. The Cloud describes four degrees of Christian life: 1) Ordinary, which describes most people who do not think too much about God, 2) Special, in which grace begins to work, often after a tragedy, and people realize that they are not living up to the spiritual standards they hold, 3) Singular, in which people want to be with God alone, and so they withdraw from the world, and 4) Perfect, which is only rarely achieved by great saints and mystics. The author of the Cloud warns against paying attention to visions and voices, which he believes are often of the devil. If we depend on these things, we end up seeking them instead of God. At one time, the Cloud says, we were one with God, until humanity followed its own will against God’s will. No matter how much we fast, pray, or do austerities, the disorder resulting from the fall will still be there, unless we attain God’s grace. Through grace, we can attain the original innocence. We need to get rid of the false self and our thoughts of our family, and fill the mind with God only. Only then, can we be useful to our family and others. We need to stop paying attention to sin, which is the false self. We will then see that God is the subject, and not an object. Even if we are self-conscious of ourselves loving God, we do not have true union with Him. We still talk of St. Francis of Assisi today, because he forgot himself and thought only of God. The Cloud exhorts us all to make this effort.

 

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna – March 05, Tuesday

The concept of equality of all human beings is very attractive to people – specially in matters of justice. Hence, it is difficult for them to comprehend the concept of Divine Incarnation. Dr. Sarkar, who used to treat Sri Ramakrishna, was also one of them. A person's conception of God totally depends upon his/her mental condition. Dr. Sarkar and Girish got into argumentation over this issue. Master discouraged them both from such useless argumentation. It is like a talk of delirious patient who does not know what he is talking. Master told: " to realize God, one has to go beyond knowledge and ignorance both. That state is called Vijnana."  Relative understanding is always contrasting. To have the real knowledge one has to go beyond the relative understanding and duality. The world is full of duality and relative experiences. One experiences the absolute oneness in the state of Vijnana and knows that the relative existence is also the same as the absolute. There remains no difference between the relative and absolute experience for such a person. Master gave analogy of using one thorn to remove the other pricked in your foot. In the same way we must try to remove ignorance with knowledge and then go beyond both. This exercise will help an aspirant to transcend the duality of 'I' and 'Not I'. In essence, the ignorance and knowledge both are illusory. However, since we feel that we are ignorant we need to use sword of knowledge to overcome the bondage of ignorance.