This Sunday morning, Nov. 14th at 11am, Br. Shankara will talk about Nature Is for the Soul!Click here to join us via Zoom and participate in the discussion! More about this talk below.
Also this weekend, the 2nd Saturday monthly Chandi Reading in English will be held online from 9:30-10am ... click hereto join via Zoom.
COVID-19 POLICY UPDATE
Your Center is closed to the public until further notice. There will be no in-person activities for now. And please, no visits to the Center unless you make arrangements in advance. As our priority is to keep our devotees, friends and residents of the Center safe, we may raincheck visit requests until a safer time.
November is a month for study of Karma Yoga, a spiritual path leading to the abandonment of selfishness. As a karma yogi, you practice offering your actions and their results, as well as your perceptions, thoughts, and feelings to the Divine Presence.
“No matter what I may have done, said or thought, in waking, dreaming or dreamless sleep, with my mind, my tongue, my hands or my other members, may all that be an offering to the Divine Presence.” — Chanted by the congregation, in unison, at the end of a puja’s homa fire ceremony
Even before fully knowing this Presence, you hold firmly to the belief that the Presence is within each person or other living being that you interact with or serve. Working and abiding in this spirit, you are increasingly able to release attachment to your activities and their results. This yields the freedom and contentment promised by Karma Yoga.
“Even a little practice of this yoga will save you from the terrible wheel of rebirth and death …” — Sri Krishna, Bhagavad Gita, Ch. 2.
As this talk is given, Nature, Mother, and Prakriti will refer to the same Divine Presence.
Some examples:
“There is a beautiful aphorism in Patanjali: ‘Nature is for the soul, not the soul for nature.’” — from Realizing God, a book by Swami Prabhavananda
Speaking to the Divine Mother, Brahma says: “… you are pleasing, yea more pleasing than all the pleasing things and exceedingly beautiful. … And whatever or wherever a thing exists … whatever power all that possesses is yourself.” — from the Devi Mahatmyam (Glory of the Divine Mother)
Krishna says to Arjuna: “The supreme Brahman in this body is also known as the Witness. It makes all our actions possible, and, as it were, sanctions them, experiencing all our experiences. He who has … known (this Witness) to be other than Prakriti and the gunas, will not be reborn …” — from Bhagavad Gita, Ch. 13
Swami Brahmananda said: “Mother has the key to the knowledge of Brahman. Unless she shows her grace and opens the door, no one can enter the realm of Brahman.”
This Sunday morning, we will weave these and other texts together, and explore how they are an essential foundation for the practice of Karma Yoga.
