Upcoming Events

Day-long Meditation, Sat Jun 01, noon to 8 pm. One can meditate as long as one wants, but must come in before noon.

Just Kids: Sun, Jun 02, 4-6pm. Kids in age-group 6-12 are welcome to learn painting, stories, plays.

Spiritual Retreat by SWAMI KRIPAMAYANANDA, Vedanta Society, Toronto, Canada: Sat, June 15, 9:30 am to 7:00 pm on Harmonizing our Faculties.  Prior Reg Required. Reg Fee: $30. ($20 if registered and paid by June 05)
Click here for online registration.

SCHEDULE FOR THE SUMMER PROGRAMS (Jun 28- Sept 02)

• • Fri-Sun -June 28-30 – Retreat at Vedanta Pittsburg
  • Thu, Jul 4- Independence Day Celebration
  • Fri-Sun Jul 5-7 Silent Meditation Retreat
  • Sat Jul 13- ‘M’s Birthday Celebration at Tridib Roy’s Home
  • Sun Jul 14 Guru Poornima
  • Fri-Sun Jul 19-21 Swami goes to Ottawa & Toronto Canada
  • Fri-Sun Jul 26-28 Young Adult Retreat
  • Thu-Sun Aug  1-4 Rochester Retreat
  • Tue-Sat Aug 6-10 Children Summer Camp
  • Sun Aug 11 – Retreat at Tushar-Mukta’s Place NJ
  • Sat Aug 17 – Vedanta Connecticut Retreat
  • Sat Aug  24 – Krishna Festival
  • Sun Aug 25 – Special Service commemorating Vivekanananda’s Lecture at Annisquam Village Church. Annisquam, MA
  • SPECIAL TUESDAY CLASSES: TUE JUL 09 TO AUG 20. TOPIC: Meister Eckhart – The Christian Vedantin
  • Sat-Sun Aug 31-Sept 1 Labor Day Retreat at Ridgely on ‘Hafiz’s Poems of Divine Love’. 

Weekly Schedule (in addition to Daily Schedule given below)

Past Events

The Swami traveled to Wayne, NJ and Queens, NY – Mon, May 27. He gave talks on spiritual ideal and Sri Ramakrishna. Returned the same night

Click here to see photos.

 

Synopses of Past Classes
(All classes given by Swami Yogatmananda, unless otherwise stated)

Friday, May 24 – Study Class on Svetasvatara Upanisad
Class 32 Verses Ch 4, # 8-9
Whatever we study must shine forth in our lives. Our learning should seep into our awareness, change our understanding, and help us move forward in life. If it does not, our ignorance will remain as before, and the proper shift in our lives will not occur. Therefore, prayer is needed to help us overcome the drag towards the names and forms which promise enjoyment but deliver bondage. When we understand and see these drags to be the bondages that they are, we will try to avoid them and will eventually overcome them by awakening our true Self—the unchanging witness of our changing experiences. The study of scriptures, according to Shankaracarya, can be like a big forest in which one gets lost. As spiritual aspirants, we must strive to live our lives according to the scriptures for the purpose of achieving liberation. If we practice discipline and renunciation, we can achieve the goal in life and be satisfied; nothing more is wanted and the craving in life is gone.

Sunday. May 26 – Study of Religious Books
Scriptures come from the spontaneous love of sages, who have intimate knowledge of The Truth. The religious message has to be packaged properly to reach the reader unbroken, undistorted. Awareness turns into thought which turns into language, in the formats of poetry, essay, story, aphorism, philosophy, etc. The aspirant has to open the package, going from language to thought to awareness. When this happens, the aspirant’s awareness and the sage’s awareness are the same. The message is beyond thought and language, yet the sages have to use thought and language to express it. We need training to know what the sages mean. This involves reversing the brain chemistry, which is programmed to go outside and seek pleasures. We must be trained to go within. Such training includes inspiration, reasoning, admonitions (done out of love), cautions (such as saying the path is like walking on the razor’s edge – not to discourage but to keep the aspirant on the alert), and encouragement. Poetry, used for what cannot be put rationally, is presented to the emotions, awakening the faculty of feeling. Religious texts include laws, epics, procedures for worship, commentaries on scriptures, and philosophical texts. The technique of absorbing scriptures needs to be learned from an expert. Compositions of saints put to music transcend language and thought, whereupon we forget our intellectual opposition. We need to remember that the scriptures come from love. Even if they are confusing, we need to keep reading them, because they are the only path to knowledge.

Tuesday, May 28 – Study Class on Sri Ramakrishna and His Divine Play
Sri Ramakrishna As Guru Pg. 455-56
We have to always keep this in mind that this biography of Sri Ramakrishna is of a singularly special type, as it brings about the mental state and intensions of Sri Ramakrishna as the source of the external actions and events. In an Avatara, there is there is no ‘desire’ nor selfishness, which propel the actions of the normal people; hence it is extremely difficult to understand the intensions of the Avatara just by looking at the action.
Sri Ramakrishna tells about how even a seemingly insignificant thing, associated with one’s beloved, even remotely, brings up the feelings of loving adoration for that person, so also the anything connected with the Divine, brings up the feelings of love and reverence. He tells the story of Bibhishana hearing the news that a man has been captured by his army on the coast of Sri Lanka.
The chain manà Rama (who was a man too)àBibhisana’s Chosen Ideal, made him offer respectful worship to that man AS Rama.
He then also told the illuminating story of Chaitanya merging into a state of divine ecstasy, when he heard that the clay of the particular village that they are passing through is used to make the double-drum (khol), that accompanies the singing of the glories of the Lord Krishna!