11am Sunday Talk: The Three Gunas — A Samkhya Primer,

 with Br. Shankara

No in-person attendance Sunday, 7/17

Due to the current rise in Covid-19 variant infections in the Atlanta area, we are asking that you not come to the Center in the morning, but to please join us on Zoom for the Sunday talk and discussion at 11am. 

Join us via Zoom by clicking here.

This Sunday at 11am, Br. Shankara will give a talk entitled The Three Gunas — A Samkhya Primer. Join us on Zoom at 11:00am, and participate in the discussion!
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July 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.

In many Ramakrishna Mission centers, this prayer is chanted by the congregation, in unison, at the end of a puja’s homa fire ceremony:

“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.” 

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

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Karma means action or work. As Sri Krishna points out in Bhagavad Gita, you will continue to act as long as you’re alive. Your very bones will make you do it, he says. Why? Because, though it seems that you are doing things, and thinking thoughts, it is in fact the three Gunas. 

Krishna also says that when you gain insight into the operations and functions of the three Gunas (sattwa, rajas, and tamas), you will be free of all attachment, and therefore free of suffering. 

Sri Ramakrishna taught that Maya causes you to believe you are the doer, when in truth it is the Gunas, which are under God’s control, that act. 

The Master said, “God alone is the Doer. Everything happens by His will,” He insisted that the actions you take and the thoughts you think are not your own; they are in fact God’s thoughts and actions, expressed through the operations of the Gunas.

This Sunday morning we will define and discuss the Gunas – their source, their effects, and why they have such a mesmerizing grip on our attention.