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Important Notice about Live Webcast of Study Classes:
We are moving to a Twitter platform for streaming live our Tuesday and Friday classes:
https://twitter.com/vedantaprov

1. To just watch the video, you don’t need any login account.
2. If you want to watch the video full screen, you can click the video player on the twitter page and it will direct you to Periscope web-page (Twitter’s live streaming service). You can go to full screen mode there.
3. To comment or ask a question during the streaming, you can do that on the Periscope page by logging in through your Twitter or Facebook or Google account.

If you have any questions, please write to vedantasociety@gmail.com or just tweet us “@vedantaprov”.
Please do let us know your experience of using this service.

Reminder: Tuesday and Friday classes at 7:30 PM EDT are streamed live on Twitter/Periscope (https://twitter.com/vedantaprov)
Sunday Service at 5:00 PM EDT is streamed live on our Youtube Channel:
(https://www.youtube.com/ channel/ UCFof5116HcBYIpUFvKet1Uw)

Upcoming Events

Lectures by Bishop Paul, Celtic Orthodox Church, VA
Sun Service, Oct 8, 5-6 pm: ‘Black Virgin: The French Mother Kali’
Tue, Oct 10, 7:30-8:30 pm: THEOSIS (Process of Divinizing everything)

Swami Traveling to North Carolina and then to India:
Swami will be travelling to Greenville and for a couple of hours to Durham-Raleigh in NC on Oct 7 & 8. He will be conducting a retreat and will be giving some lectures. Will be back on the night of 8^th and then leave for a 5-week trip to India on Tue, Oct 10.

Hath Yoga Classes with Roshni Darnal– Tuesdays, 5:30 – 6:30pm
Appropriate for all levels.
$10.00 per Class; $40.00 for a two-month session
Click here to see the flyer.

Vedanta Blog and Facebook:
Please consider posting your comments, thoughts, poetry on our BLOG and Facebook page.

Weekly Schedule (in addition to Daily Schedule given below)

Past Events

Durga Puja: A day-long celebration of the worship of the Divine Mother in the form of Durga took place on Saturday Sept 30.
It began in the early morning meditations, Durga-chanting, reading., The worship ritual started at 11am and continued till 1pm. Over 120 took part in it and had the Prasad-lunch. The programs continued with less attendance (50-60) with Videos of worship at Belur Math, devotional singing, Kuchipudi dance.

Sun. Oct 01, Swami and a few devotees travelled to Vedanta Society of Connecticut (100, Cherry Brook Rd, Canton, CT) for their monthly program.
Swami did the worship of Mother Durga, spoke on a part of the book – 700 verses on Mother Durga. There was devotional singing and Prasad-lunch. Swami returned for giving the Sun lecture at Providence Vedanta.

Click here to see photos.

Children’s Program – Sun. Oct. 01 – 4:00-6:00PM
Four children participated.
Activities included the Gayatri Mantra, “Truthfulness” and the story of the goddess who fetched three axes from a river.
The honest man took only his original own iron ax but was rewarded the gold and silver axes too for his honesty. The greedy person lied to the goddess saying the gold and silver axes were also his so the goddess took his iron ax, along with her gold and silver axes and went away.
Pumpkin decorating and acrylic-on-canvas painting projects were completed followed by soup supper and snacks.

Swami at Salve Regina University: Mon Oct 2. Thirty  students attended Swami’s class.

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

Study Class on –  Jnana Yoga – Fri. Sept. 29 
Class #70: Jnana yoga is the method by which one sees clearly; however, our analysis of reality becomes obstructed due to our attachment to our ideas, phenomenal comforts, etc. Intellectually accepting the conclusions of jnana yoga requires courage. But practically implementing what is understood through jnana yoga requires even much more courage. According to jnana yoga, nothing is created as such. The apparent world is a result of the one reality changing its appearance or form as a result of cause and effect. Yet, the effect is simply the cause in another form. Analyzing the apparent world, we get this question: “Wherefrom this variety?” We do not ask the cause for oneness, because unity somehow makes us satisfied. We ask why is there variety? The variety we see undergoes the process of evolution from finer to grosser forms and then the process of involution brings it back again.  What is evolving? What is going through the cycle of manifesting and condensing? Swami Vivekananda gives the answer: God. Why do we have to bring in God into this analysis? God is the unchanging existence but evolution can be traced to intelligence. Indeed, intelligence or consciousness in the Lord of Creation. How do we prove the universe exists? We become conscious of it. It is only this fact that enables us to establish the universe’s existence. Therefore, the consciousness is the origin of it; it subsists in consciousness. Everything comes from consciousness and returns to consciousness.

Sunday Service Talk – ‘Sri Ramakrishna and Divine Mother’ – Oct 01
Sri Ramakrishna is the most intense example of having an experience of God while living in the body. His perception of the world (=Name & form) may not have always been there, but his perception of the divine always remained. Sri Ramakrishna could talk to God like we talk to each other, but his divine experience was immediate, while ours is mediated by senses and mind. With the Divine Mother taking care of him, he had not a care in the world, like a child being taken care of by its mother.

The Divine Mother was Sri Ramakrishna’s only obstacle to realizing the formless God, so he cut Her in two because the reality is not always what it gets represented by. After about six months of being almost completely absorbed in God, the Divine Mother told Sri Ramakrishna to remain in bhavamukha, which means living on the threshold between merging in the divine and living in the world of names and forms. Sri Ramakrishna told Sri Sarada Devi that he saw the Divine Mother in the Kali temple, the mother who had given birth to ‘this body’, and Sri Sarada Devi herself, as one and the same. Sri Ramakrishna worshipped Sri Sarada Devi as the Divine Mother in the Shodashi puja. Sri Ramakrishna asked the Divine Mother to grant him only pure love for Her, while maintaining his awareness of the truth. When someone sent a prostitute to Sri Ramakrishna, he saw only the Divine Mother in her. When he had throat cancer, the Divine Mother reminded him that he was eating through all mouths. When we meditate on Sri Ramakrishna’s connection with the Divine Mother as the fulcrum of his life, let it invoke a similar connection in us.

Study Class on – ‘The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna – Tues. Oct. 03
Pg# 1010: This section of the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna was written by Ashwini Kumar Dutta who visited Sri Ramakrishna many times. In his first visit, he noticed that Sri Ramakrishna did not exhibit external signs of renunciation as He didn’t wear a monk’s dress, didn’t live in a forest but instead lived in a room and had several belongings. External renunciation does not necessarily indicate spiritual growth.

During one of his visits, Keshab Chandra Sen of Brahmo samaj was to visit Sri Ramakrishna. Keshab was eager to experience God. Keshab was well renowned for his lectures on religion. Sri Ramakrishna was not like ordinary saints, giving lectures. He used to spontaneously express his teachings by understanding the person’s state of mind – like seeing things clearly in a glass case. His instructions used to make direct impact. Sri Ramakrishna often used to be in a state of communion with the Divine – He could see God in everything around Him. God was a matter of tangible perception for Him. Ashwini’s doubting mind, like many others’, used to think that Sri Ramakrishna’s divine mood is a pretense. Many people think that God is not real but a mere imagination but they consider the world to be real. This is as absurd as saying that waves are real but the ocean is an imagination.

Sri Ramakrishna taught Keshab that it is not possible for people with worldly attachments to realize God. They may meditate and get temporary bliss. Their situation is like a mongoose whose tail is tied to a brick. Such a mongoose may climb a wall momentarily but needs to come back down soon. Many people say that there is no God after making very little effort.

This brings us to the end of the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna as written by M. While there are many other accounts of Sri Ramakrishna’s life and teachings, what’s special about M’s Gospel is that it was noted down in a cryptic form right as the Master speaking; also, that it has been certified by Holy Mother and Swami Vivekananda as an exact account of events the way they transpired.