3 – Understanding God’s Grace as God’s Grace

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Sri Sarada Devi | The Holy Mother

Vedanta Society, San Francisco

5 episodes

8 months ago

Sri Sarada Devi, the spiritual consort of Sri Ramakrishna, lived from December 22, 1853 to July 20, 1920. Called the Holy Mother by her devotees, she was born in Jayrambati, a village in Bengal. She was both a nun and a mother, the final arbiter of all spiritual matters at Belur Math, yet also the caretaker of her niece. To the many devotees who came to her in India and from abroad, she was their mother. She took care of their physical and spiritual needs as well as taught them spiritual wisdom. She hid her great spiritual attainments and power behind a veil of modesty. To a fortunate few, she sometimes revealed her nature as the Divine Feminine Archetype. For others, they felt their lives blessed by being able to feel her silent presence. To understand her teachings and life, we need to travel a great distance to a land where gods and goddesses live among men and women, where the spiritual realm is more real than the physical world we inhabit, and where mother is worshipped as the supreme divine power through which the entire cosmos moves.
Swami Tattwamayananda, a senior monk of the Ramakrishna Order of India, minister-in-charge of the Vedanta Society of Northern California (founded by Swami Vivekananda, the first Hindu monk to preach in the West, in 1900), an eminent Vedic scholar as well as scholar of European history and language, has shared in five sessions the fruit of a lifetime of meditating on Holy Mother’s teachings. The lectures were held at a private retreat on the Vedanta Society’s Olema retreat property in Marin County from August 31 – September 2, 2019. Swami Tattwamayananda brings his immense scholarship, spiritual insight, and understanding of the spiritual needs of our time, to bring Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi’s teachings to us through biography, history, philosophy, myth, and Sanskrit tradition.
Swami Tattwamayananda, currently the Minister of the Vedanta Society of Northern California, San Francisco, (originally founded by Swami Vivekananda in 1900) served in various centers of the Ramakrishna Order in India as editor, publisher, and teacher of Sanskrit, Advaitic texts such as Sri Shankaracharya's commentaries on the 'Prasthanatraya' (the fundamental Sanskrit texts of Vedanta philosophy), Buddhism and Indian philosophy. He underwent traditional training in Hindu scriptures, Sanskrit, Vedic and Vedantic literature for many years, from his early days. Before coming to the United States in January 2012 he was teaching Sanskrit, Vedantic scriptures and Indian philosophy at the Training center in Belur Math, the institution that trains the monks of the Ramakrishna Order at the headquarters of the Ramakrishna Mission, Kolkata, India. Apart from his traditional education, the Swami has also received modern University education in English literature, psychology, European history, and Western philosophy. He is frequently invited for lectures on Yoga, Vedanta, and traditional Hindu scriptures and for participating in interfaith dialogues.

For more:
Web: www.sfvedanta.org
Livestream: https://livestream.com/sfvedanta
Facebook: www.facebook.com/sfvedanta
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/SFVedanta

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3 – Understanding God’s Grace as God’s Grace | Swami Tattwamayananda

Sri Sarada Devi | The Holy Mother

1 hour 26 minutes

6 years ago

3 – Understanding God’s Grace as God’s Grace | Swami Tattwamayananda

This lecture was delivered on September 1, 2019 as part of the Labor Day Vedanta Retreat held in the Olema Vedanta Retreat.
1 – Spiritual Wisdom and the Power of Selfless Work

-Sri Ramakrishna, Holy Mother, Swami Vivekananda, and Shankaracharya are examples of spiritual teachers who had developed a spiritual faculty capable of penetrating into the true nature of everything. Coupled with the complete awareness of being instruments in God’s hand, they could do tremendous impactful work without any fatigue.

2 – The Ability to do Good without Any Expectation of Reward

-"If you love any human being you will have to suffer for it. He is blessed indeed who can love God alone. There is no suffering in loving God." – Holy Mother

-A person for whom you have done everything, there is at least a 50 percent chance that that person will become your enemy. Help and do your duty, but remember that love is for God alone.

3 – The Wisdom to Look Beyond the Body

-"Everything - husband, wife, or even the body - is only illusory. These are all shackles of illusion. Unless you can free yourself from these bondages, you will never be able to go to the other shore of the world. Even this attachment to the body, the identification of the self with the body must go. What's this body? My dear, it is nothing but three pounds of ashes when it is cremated. Why so much vanity about it? However strong or beautiful this body may be, its culmination is in those three pounds of ashes. And still people are attached to it too much. Glory to God. The happiness of the world is transitory. The less you become attached to the world, the more you enjoy peace of mind. These earthly ties are transitory, today they seem to be the all and all of life but tomorrow they vanish. Your real tie is with God." – Holy Mother

-The story of Chitraketu from the Bhagavata Purana illustrates the fact that life cycle after life cycle, we have temporary associations with different parents and relations. These relations are indeed sacred, but we should not wait for fate to teach us the hard way that these relationships are temporary.

4 – The Real Meaning of Suffering: God in Vedanta

-"You see my son, it is not a fact that you will never face dangers. Difficulties always come but they do not last forever. You will see that they pass away like water under a bridge." – Holy Mother

-Difficulties and happy experiences are both transitory. Vedanta teaches that suffering is not suffering from a spiritual perspective. They are natural, inevitable stages in our spiritual evolution.

-Ananda, the disciple of Buddha, was grief-stricken over the loss of a family member. Buddha asked him to find one single home that had not suffered from death, old age or disease. He could not find one and was then consoled.

-The real cause of suffering is our constant expectation that what is essentially changeable, the empirical world, should be the unchanging. When we take our priority to be the unchanging transcendental reality, we are able to see suffering as part of God’s grace. This unknown factor is what makes life profound and meaningful and is often needed for us to be able to grow in spiritual life.

-This perspective also resolves the major objections of Agnostics and Atheists such as Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens to religion.

-We should recognize God's grace as God's grace. A man asked for 1000 dollars from God. He promised to give 500 dollars if he got it. He found 500 dollars on the street, pocketed it and said, "God, you have already taken your share." We often interpret God's grace in our terms instead of recognizing it as God's grace.

-In a famous Sanskrit verse, God says, "If I want to bless somebody, I will take away all his wealth, I will make his sycophants and flatterers desert...

Sri Sarada Devi | The Holy Mother