Vedanta Center of Atlanta: February events
Vedanta Center of Atlanta: February events, 2020
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.
Thursdays, 7:30pm: Sanskrit class
Sat Feb 1, 9am: Chandi Hymns (in Sanskrit) - led by Rita Bhandarkar Mathew.
Sun Feb 2, 10:30am: Talk: Perfect Equanimity — a poem by Hafiz - Br. Shankara
“Look how a mirror will reflect
with perfect equanimity
all actions before it.
There is no act in this world
that will ever cause the mirror
to look away.
There is no act in this world
that will ever make the mirror
say, ‘no.’
The mirror, like perfect love,
will just keep giving of itself
to all before it …”
In Chapter 13 of Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krishna speaks of Hafiz’s mirror this way: “The supreme Brahman in this body is also known as the Witness. It makes all our actions possible, and, as it were, sanctions them. It is the Infinite Being, the supreme Atman. He who has experienced Brahman directly and knows it to be other than Prakriti and the gunas, will not be reborn, no matter how he has lived his life.”
You can attain to this realization and state of being, through the practice of meditation. Swami Yatiswarananda, a Vice President of the Ramakrishna Order and Swami Yogeshananda’s guru, said —
“Meditation in the primary stage is like waging a war with the mind. With effort, the restless mind has to be brought under control and placed at the feet of the Lord … Through regular practice, the mind will become steady and meditation will be easier. You will no longer feel any strain even while sitting for long hours in contemplation …”
On Sunday morning we will read and discuss Hafiz’s full poem, line by line. Then, we’ll tie his ecstatic declaration to the teachings of Sri Krishna, Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, and Swami Yatiswarananda.
Sat Feb 8, 9am: Chandi Hymns (in English) - led by Br Shankara
Sat Feb 8, 10am: Seva Saturday
Sun Feb 9, 10:30am: Talk The Fruits of Spiritual Practice w/Raj Chawla
Raj Chawla, a long-time member of the Center’s congregation, will speak abut how he came to Vedanta, his relationship with Swami Yogeshananda, and how his spiritual practice over many years helped him during a recent, serious health crisis.
Sat-Sun Feb 15-16: Swami Nirakarananda will lead Weekend Retreat
Sat Feb 15, 10am: How to Deepen Your Spiritual Life
based on "Five Stanzas on Spiritual Practice” by Adi Shankaracharya
w/ Swami Nirakarananda, in the Chapel
Schedule:
- morning session 10am-12:30pm;
- lunch break from 12:30-2pm;
- afternoon session 2-4:30pm
Sun Feb 16, 10:30am: Life and Achievements of Shankaracharya
w/Swami Nirakarananda
Feb. 23, 10:30 a: Talk: Setting Aside the Mirror w/Br. Shankara
The goal is freedom from limitation (moksha). Our teachers say that all miseries in life are caused by seeing inaccurately. An earnest and persistent jnani may break through this misapprehension (maya) and see only the Divine Presence everywhere, in everything and everyone.
That’s the frame of reference for next Sunday morning’s conversation. Yet, why would you want to hear that talk? Perhaps because, like John Lennon in the song you wil hear, you are questioning, exploring who you are and what you are doing — alive in this world of apparent duality — joy and pain, and all the other experiences offered by Universe.
Perhaps you come here for some explanation, some answers to your questions, a few insights.
Well, here’s a reassuring explanation from Swami Vivekananda: Like everything else in Universe, you are evolving. You began as a disequilibrium, the most subtle and elementary vibration in the fabric of Absolute Reality. Over aeons, you took the subtlest of form and this gave rise to Active Intelligence and a sense of Identity — “I-ness.”
Still far, far, from human birth, your Intelligence formed a Cosmic Mind, which began to name the forms spontaneously appearing in Creative Universe. And finally, ages later, our Solar System and the Earth was born. Some 2 billion years later, single-celled creatures came to life, each one, Vivekananda said, containing the blueprint for evolution to humanity — to you sitting in our Chapel on Sunday morning. And so on and on, forward to superconsciousness and reunion with your source, the Perfect Equilibrium of Brahman. You, and each of us, is part way “there” — who knows how far or where this incredible adventure of human life will lead us.
Let’s talk about that on Sunday morning.
