Newsletter May 30, 2012

Synopses of Last Week's Classes

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

Bhagavad Gita class – May 25, Friday

Ch 14, verses 7-10

Within each person, the three Gunas are constantly interacting with one another and alternating their dominance within one’s life, at one moment giving rise to serenity, at another moment giving rise to activity, and at another giving rise to indolence. The three Gunas are three strands of bondage: sattva binds one to happiness, to the pleasures arising from the physical, intellectual, or ethical; rajas binds one to action, incessant and self-perpetuating action that does not originate out of freedom but out of bondage; tamas binds one to indolence. In the 8th verse Lord Krishna explains that the bondage of tamas arises when innumerable desires arise but become “bottlenecked” before they can manifest in action. Furthermore, prioritization of desires requires the individual to first establish criteria by which to judge the priority of the desire. The criteria by which one judges the priority of desires is the goal of life. For spiritual aspirants the goal of life is the realization of God. Discrimination, or viveka, enables the aspirant to determine which desires lead towards or away the goal of God realization. Since the tamasic individual, mired in ignorance, is devoid of viveka, the mind is beset by innumerable conflicting desires and no single desire can, therefore, become manifest in action. Thus the tamas-ic individual becomes frustrated, irritable, and is likely to act in a rash manner. Because tamas is marked by inactivity, it sometimes passes for sattva, but actually it is opposite of it.. One may feel that he is predominantly a satvika person, but the upsurge of satvic feelings such as benevolence, calmness, and compassion come to everyone from time to time and then pass away. This fact needs to be kept in mind so that one does not get carried away by a little manifestation of sattva. The preponderance of the various gunas changes suddenly unless one methodically, assiduously, and tenaciously learns to subdue rajas and tamas. Then the sattva that will be a steady. Substantive change in life demands sustained efforts. Change needs to be directed towards the goal of life. To build character requires effort; to spoil it requires no effort. It automatically happens.

Rishi Walt Whitman  - May 27, Sunday

When Swami Vivekananda was visiting Lahore, his host, Prof. Tirtha Rama Goswami (who later became Swami Rama Thirta) requested him to take any book that he would like from his collection as a gift.  Of all the possibilities, he chose Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. Vivekananda was so impressed by the work that he called Whitman the American sannyasin.  Whitman opened a new window for looking at spirituality and the world.  He considered the body and the world as the same, with the soul percolating throughout everything.  Whitman's poetry brings to the forefront the Vedantic idea that Existence is One:  Not one against many, but the One that includes all; that which is transcended is not discarded.  Whitman expresses this in the first, title-less poem in the volume, which starts: "Come, said my soul, Such verses for my Body let us write. (for we are one.)"  Thus his body could be not only a particular body. Everything is the manifestation of one soul, and the universe is one body. The purpose of life is to find that soul.  In another poem, "Eidolon," Whitman writes, "I met a seer passing the hues and objects of the world, The fields of art and learning, pleasure, sense, To glean eidolons."  In this poem, Whitman expresses that we receive so many impressions of forms that appear to be real, but they are just forms.   In a very short poem, titled, "Starting from Paumanok," Whitman expresses that "None has begun to think how divine he himself is, and how certain the future is."  Each of us is Divine.  As Swami Vivekananda told, we don't need to search for God; we just need to see him.  Till we find God, we can't stop the search, but once we find God, we will realize that the search was not necessary.  As Whitman expresses in "Song of Myself," many are misguided in their search for Oneness, thinking that they can attain it through external sense objects, and it is our ignorance that keeps fooling us from realizing the Self.

Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna  - May 29, Tuesday

While reading Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, if we should try to feel the company of the Master, then we can understand him and his message better. The most striking thing about him is extreme egoless-ness. In spite of his bodily troubles, He is spending the whole night with the devotes. He said to some of the devotees that while meditating at midnight one may hear Anahat Dhwani - the unstruck sound. Ordinarily, the sound that we hear is a result of striking of two objects. The only primordial sound is unstruck and is never distorted. One may listen to this unstruck sound when the mind is completely quiet and feels unification with the existence.
Next day morning the Master was talking to a devotee in the Panchavati who had dreamt of Chaitanyadeva. He was overwhelmed with the spiritual emotions after hearing about his dream. Master was told of a devotee who had divine visions even while he was awake. Master commented that Narendra - -later Swami Vivekananda, -- who earlier never believed in forms of Gods and Godesses, also gets those visions. This was a big transformation as initially Narendra used to think that visions are due to mental delirium. But gradually When he understood the Truth, he started believing in the forms too.
'M' was preparing to leave for his home after taking his bath in the Ganges. Master asked the Brahmani - widowed old woman to give him some Prasad. He  offered some prasad of  Lord Jagannath to M before eating anything. It is considered auspicious to eat the offered food first before eating anything else. He told 'M' to go home safely and to attend to his duties. Master was very particular about discharging the secular responsibilities and duties. In true sense there is no such distinction. So we should try to transform our work into worship and beaware that the worship does not become the work.