11am Sunday Talk: Your Spark of Reverence, with Br. Shankara
No in-person attendance Sunday, 7/10 !!
Covid-19 variant surge in the Atlanta area has resulted in a member of our congregation, who was recently at the Center, testing positive. In an abundance of caution, 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 Your Spark of Reverence. Join us on Zoom at 11:00am, and participate in the discussion!
.
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
Your Spark of Reverence
In the first act of Hamlet, the Prince laments, “How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!”
Perhaps you feel that way, at times. During such a period of discontent — if you are fortunate —something outside your normal way of life will seize and hold your attention.
For one woman, it was a car speeding through a crosswalk, which missed her by less than 6 inches. For another, it was standing in a forest of giant redwood trees, lost in wonder at their age, their majesty and splendor.
The first was barely spared from death, the second offered a new sense of life. For both, it was a life-changing moment, the effects of which lasted for weeks. During that time, their gratitude and awe became reverence, and an intense desire to penetrate the mystery of what happened to them. Their strong yearning led them to explanations left to us by the great teachers of religion, and to a life of spiritual practice.
“Awe is the feeling of being overwhelmed by a reality greater than yourself and greater than what you encounter in ordinary life.
A curtain is drawn back and (you are) overtaken by a trembling awareness that life is astounding in its reality, vastness, complexity, order, surprise.” — Alan Morinis, writer and philosopher
This Sunday morning we will discuss that awe and reverence, and their role in the opening, evolution, and completion of a karma yogi’s life, as it becomes centered in the Divine Presence.