Upcoming Events

Guest Lecture, Sun May 12, 5 pm – 6 pm:
Swami Atmajnanananda will speak on ‘The Horseman Hidden in the Dust’.

Music Concert on Sun May 12, 6:15-7:30pm:
Well-known vocalist of Agra tradition of the Indian Classical Music, Ustad Wasim Ahmed Khan will perform with Pt. Ashis Sengupta on Tabla and Dr Vinay Mishra on Harmonium. Concert Donation $20/person

Sat. May 11, 9:30 am to 7:00 pm: Spiritual Retreat by Swami Atmajnanananda, Vedanta Center, Gr Washington DC
Topic: Parliament of Religions (Christianity and Sikhism)
Prior Reg Required. Reg Fee: $30; (Discounted Fee: $20, if paid by April 28)
Click here for online registration.

Vedanta Society of Connecticut: Sun, May 12, 10 am to noon.
At 100 Cherry Brook Rd, Canton, CT. Worship, prayers and talk by Swami Atmajnanananda on Surrender…, followed by lunch-prasad. All welcome.

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

• Fri-Sun -June 28-30 – Retreat at Vedanta Pittsburgh
• 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
• Sat-Mon Aug 31-Sept 2 Labor Day Retreat at Ridgely

Weekly Schedule (in addition to Daily Schedule given below)

Past Events

Daylong Silent Meditation; Sat, May 04, noon to 8:00 pm
Immediately after the guided meditation & prayer 11am to noon. 10 devotees participated for various lengths of time.

Just Kids: Sun, May 05, 4 to 6 pm.
5 children made neck-laces from beads to offer to their mothers on coming Mother’s Day.

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

Friday, May 3 – Study Class on Svetasvatara Upanisad
Class 29, Verses: Ch 4, # 2-4:
Without putting in effort, our lives are oriented towards the material; we must make our life glued to spirit. If we turn inward, our awareness will gradually shift and our life will change. It may take lifetimes for our minds to give up their attachment to worldly objects. We must have tremendous confidence that we are divine spirit. Forms keep on shifting and changing, but all are substantially the same, ONE Self. The thief and the saint are both manifestations of God; however, the divinity is manifesting differently in each, and they should be worshiped in different ways. We must avoid the inclination to justify our attachments by claiming that, “This, too, is God, so my attachment to it is okay.” We need to ask ourselves: Are we seeing this as God? If we were, we would not be attached. Only by transcending these appearances can that which is unchanging, that which is eternal, that one divine Self be perceived. When we become aware of the unchanging inner reality, our awareness goes beyond time and space. Without an awareness of variety, there cannot be an awareness of time and space. It is change that gives us the notion of time. We must go beyond the changing and varied forms, beyond time and space. This is what is truly meant by “living in the moment.”

Sunday Lecture, May 5  – ‘Who is ‘You’
Peter Travisano lead the opening song Nirvanasaktam, compsed by Sri Shankaracharya.

The Self alone is. What appears as ‘you’ is really the Self. This is stated in Dakshinamurthy Stotram, by Shankaracharya. Moses asked God who He was, and He replied: “I am that I am.” ‘You’ is always changing, while ‘I am” is changeless. What I see as ‘outside’ appears as ‘you’. Appearances on Atman are really Atman, like pots of clay are clay. The universe is as if seen in a mirror, where the object appears to be there, but is here. We try to straighten out the world, but it is here, not out there. The Self becomes ‘you’ when there are changing attributes. The spiritual practice in Vedanta is to separate the Essence from the attributes. What remains is the Self alone. We get attracted to forms, but what looks beautiful turns to ugliness. The source of attraction is really the Self. The waking, dreaming and deep sleep states are different, but the ‘I’ remains in all of them. The attribute of ‘I’ in the dream state is different from the attribute of ‘I’ lying on the bed. We can meditate on taking off the body, like we take off a garment. We do it when we go to sleep. We can say God, Brahman, Shiva, or Vishnu, but the most appropriate name is the Self. When we do spiritual practices, hatred, envy, and jealousy go away, because there is no room for them. We see only ‘I’, because ‘you’ is appearances of ‘I’.

Tuesday, May 07 – Study Class on ‘Sri Ramakrishna and His Divine Play
Sri Ramakrishna as Guru – Pages 453-454
The phenomenal world comprises of names and forms. As the form changes so does the name. If we are attached to a particular form (or name) then we suffer when this form-changes. E.g. we suffer when we move from youth to old age and if we are attached to our form in the youth. Death is simply the next inevitable link in the childhood-youth-old-age chain. Sri Ramakrishna clearly sees our suffering due to our attachments and is propelled by His compassion for us and therefore guides us as a Guru.

We seek happiness in this world but true happiness is very rare. A lot of pain and suffering is hidden behind apparently happy faces. This is because we identify ourselves with various limiting attributes (upadhis). If we get rid of these upadhis, then we are nothing but true happiness as it is our essential nature. Lesser the ego, more the divine manifests in us. Sri Ramakrishna had shunned the ego completely. That is what made Him a great Guru. Only when the Guru is connected to the Divine source, can he be effective in transmitting spirituality. We should not think of Guru as human but think of the divine source underlying the human idea of Guru that makes the divine connection for us. Because of this divine and cosmic connection, Sri Ramakrishna could clearly see every one’s mind, obstacles in their path and could remove these obstacles. According to Patanjali, spiritual practice is an effort to remove the obstacles. The inner divinity then manifests automatically.

God comes in the human form (incarnation) to help manifest the religion in our lives as we predominantly learn from human beings. If we remove God-incarnations, practically nothing is left in religion.