11am Sunday Talk: The Three Gunas, Part 2,

 with Br. Shankara

No in-person attendance Sunday, 7/24

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, Part 2. 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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As Sri Krishna points out in Bhagavad Gita, though it seems that you are doing things and thinking thoughts, it is in fact the three Gunas. He says that when you gain insight into the operations and functions of the three Gunas (sattwa, rajas, tamas), you will be free of all attachment, and therefore free of suffering.

Listen to how this is written about in “The 9th Step Promises” of Alcoholics Anonymous:

“If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through … We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.”

This is Karma Yoga! Sri Ramakrishna 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 by the Gunas.

This Sunday morning we will define and discuss the Gunas – their source and their effects.