Vedanta Center of Atlanta: March events
Vedanta Center of Atlanta: March events
Times:
10:30am-11am: silent meditation in the Chapel before each Sunday’s talk.
11am-noon: talk and worship in the chapel.
noon-1:30pm: devotees and friends meet in the Monastery for tea, coffee, snacks and a continuation of our spiritual fellowship.
Please join us!
PS: Please be on time. The service starts promptly at 11AM.
Venue: 2331 Brockett Rd, Tucker, GA 30084
Contact: (770) 938-6673 ; http://vedantaatlanta.org, http://vedantaatlanta.org/calendar-of-activities-events/
See Calendar for details about any particular Sunday.
Note: There is silent meditation in the Chapel from 10:30-11am, before each Sunday’s talk. After the talk, devotees and friends meet in the Monastery from noon to 1:30pm, for tea, coffee, snacks and a continuation of our spiritual fellowship.
Spiritual talks and classes are open to the public and free of charge.
March 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.
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 form the terrible wheel of rebirth and death …” — Sri Krishna, Bhagavad Gita, Ch. 2
March 2 @ 9-10am (Sat)
Chandi Hymns in Sanskrit.
March 3 @ 11am (Sun)
The Phenomenon of Sri Ramakrishna
w/ Br. Shankara
On Sunday, March 10th, we will celebrate the birthday of Sri Ramakrishna. There is a direct link between that Great Master’s life and teachings and what you are reading just now. This coming Sunday morning we will talk about that timeless connection.
Here is what Christopher Isherwood writes about Sri Ramakrishna, as he starts his book Ramakrishna and His Disciples:
“This is the story of a phenomenon.
I will begin by calling him simply that, rather than `holy man', `mystic', `saint', or `avatar'; all emotive words with mixed associations which may attract some readers, repel others. A phenomenon is often something extraordinary and mysterious.
Ramakrishna was extraordinary and mysterious; most of all to those who were best fitted to understand him …”
Two people who were best fitted to understand Sri Ramakrishna are Swami Vivekananda, his most famous disciple, and his, wife Sri Sarada Devi.
On Sunday morning we will explore and discuss some of what Swamiji and Holy Mother wrote and said about Ramakrishna. As their knowledge of him is shared, the connection between the Master’s life and your presence in the Center’s Chapel may become clear.
March 9 @ 10-10:30am (Sat)
Chandi Hymns in English.
March 9 @ 10am-2pm (Sat)
Seva Saturday for March.
Let’s have a great turnout again! So much needed work gets done when you show up! We need your commitment to our success! Come and stay as long as you can; a delicious lunch will be served at 12:30pm.
DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME begins @ 2:00am on March 10th
So remember... set your clocks FORWARD an hour on Saturday night, March 9th!
March 10 @ 11am (Sun)
Sri Ramakrishna's Birthday Celebration!
Our pujari for the Master's puja will be Aditya Chaturvedi
Followed by a potluck prasad lunch in the Monastery
Shrine decoration begins at 10am, followed by a short talk and the worship at 11am, then our potluck prasad lunch at 12:30pm. If you are bringing food to offer, please have it here no later than 11am! As always, we need you to volunteer — you can help with puja prep, or serve in the kitchen. Puja assistants, please be here by 9:30am; kitchen people by 10:30am.
March 17 @ 11amTalk: Mind Your OM Business
w/ Br. Shankara
“There is no limit to the power of the human mind,” wrote Swami Vivekananda in his introduction to Raja Yoga, the swami’s translation of and commentary on Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. That infinite power is our birthright, Vivekananda says — yet most of us have very little control of it.
Why is that? According to the teachings of Vedanta, it is because we yield our attention to the overlay of time, space, and causation (maya) that spontaneously arises when the Divine Power becomes manifest.
Maya dissipates our power. It fragments the eternal, the changeless, into an ever-renewing succession of good and bad experiences. Life becomes a house of mirrors — discontinuous, fundamentally illogical, often frightening. Is it any wonder that we grasp at anything that seems to offer some security, or ease our pain?
“There must be some way out of here,” Bob Dylan sang … ”There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief …”*
Don Juan Matus, a Yaqui Indian spiritual master, offered his student Carlos Castaneda a years-long series of lessons on a “way out of here.” He called the technique “stopping the world.” Castaneda chronicled Don Juan’s instructions in his book, “Journey to Ixtlan.”
On Sunday morning we will explore and discuss several chapters of the book, and compare what Don Juan taught with the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, and the sage Patanjali.
*From Dylan’s song, “All Along the Watchtower”
March 24 @ 11am
Talk: Metaphors Be With Us!
w/ Br. Shankara
March 31 @ 11am
Talk: Principles of the Baal Shem Tov
w/ Br. Shankara
“Neither thinking about the day of one's death nor the fear of punishment in hell will arouse a person's heart to serve God. But yearning to cling to the source of life and goodness will do so. And neither fasting nor afflicting oneself will be of any help. But forgetting oneself out of the depth of one's yearning will do so.” — the Baal Shem Tov
This Jewish saint’s mystical wisdom is familiar to us. Sri Ramakrishna also taught that yearning can draw you into an intimate relationship with the Personal God or Goddess (“the source of life and goodness”).
Rabbi Yisrael Baal Shem Tov (1698-1760), which means “master of the good name,” founded the 18th century chassidic movement in Eastern Europe. He helped revolutionize Jewish thought, and gave new hope to an embattled people.
During the late 17th century, European Jewry was still recovering from the pogroms of 1648 and 1649. Those massacres killed tens of thousands of Jews; survivors struggled to rebuild their broken lives and communities.
The transformative power of the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings are still felt today — both by his followers, the chassidim, and by other rabbis and observant Jews, who experience the uplifting effects of the saint’s legacy.
This Sunday morning we will hear and discuss more of the Baal Shem Tov’s principles, relating his wisdom to what we study as Karma Yoga.
