Reflections...

That was a highly satisfying weekend. I feel I am happier, learning and growing, especially in a spiritual standpoint. Thanks Swamijis and everyone for all your conscious, sub/unconscious contributions. Reminded me of one of the verses from Adi Shankara Bhagavat Pada's work, Baja Govindham which I would like to quote here:

satsaNgatve nissNgatvaM

nissaNgatve nirmohatvam

nirmohatve nishchalatattvaM

nishcalatattve jiivanmuktiH

Interpretation:

From Satsangh comes non-attachment, from non-attachment comes freedom from delusion, which leads to self-settledness (steadfastness). From self-settledness (steadfastness) comes Jeevan Mukti (liberation in life). (http://www.karnatik.com/c1824.shtml)

in translation

And here, I offer a translation of the song Amritha and I sang, that she so kindly offered a link and lyrics to. (I am certainly not an expert, so do please feel free to suggest corrections.)

The name is unknown,
The place of worship is unknown,
Service, prayer are all unknown to me.
All I know is that
'I' am unknowable.
Without one, there is no other...
no other.

You are our hope, our faith
You are our earth, our sky, o Rama

You are our mother and father
You are our friend and brother
You are our day, our night, our dusk, our dawn,
In the lamp, the sun, the moon, and the stars, o Rama
You alone are our light, o Rama

As I breathe, you come and go
It is to you alone that I relate
In every autumn of this forest of life, o Rama
You alone are the month of honey, o Rama

You are in all, all is in you
You are existence itself, and you are the giver of all
You are the tears in our eyes, o Rama
You are the smile on our lips, o Rama

Our Rama...
Our Giver...

Oneness

I think I can speak for everyone in saying that this song spoke to us in a most special and beautiful way. How gently it reminded us of the divinity in every being and its manifestation in every aspect of creation!

Tum Asha Vishwas Humare...

naam na jaane

dhaam na jaane

jaane na seva puja

jaane bas itna

ajaan hum

ek bina nahi dooja

nahi dooja

tum asha vishwaas hamare

tum dharti aakaash hamare

tum dharti aakaash hamare - rama

taat maat tum

bandhu bhraat ho

divas ratri

sandhya prabhaat ho

deepak surya chandra tarat mein - rama

tum hi jyoti prakaash hamare - rama

tum asha...

saanso mein tum aate jaate

ek tumhi se hain sab naate

jeevan van ke

har patjhad mein - rama

ek tumhi madhumaas hamare - rama

tum asha...

tum hi sab mein

hain tum mein sab

tum hi bhav ho

ho tum hi rab

ashra hamari aankhon mein tum - rama

tum hothon par haas hamare - rama

tum asha...r

ama hamare

data hamare

tum asha...

Attitudes of work

Geet and I felt deeply energized and joyful this weekend. Here are some insights I had that I'd like to record, so when I'm confused, I can refer back to it.

We read Swami Vivekananda's Karma Yoga lectures, and in the group I was in, we read the essay, "Each is good in his own place," where Swamiji goes to great lengths to explain why he says that one's duty is not the other's and why "non-resistance" would be a dangerous ideal to adopt in society, although it is indispensable for our spiritual growth. Of course, Swamiji finally establishes the ultimate ideal of the householder as service with the stunning bird story at the end. I felt that the method being the destination must become a reality if we are to make any real progress.

We brought up a question to Swami Prabuddhananda, the head of the Vedanta Society in San Francisco, on reconciling working for one's personal benefit and the benefit of others. Swamiji's thoughts were deeply inspiring for the group. I am paraphrasing him loosely now: "Whenever you help yourself, even if you don't think of others, it affects others. If you are happy, it does affect others who interact with you and if you're not happy, then too it affects others who interact with you. So, even if you don't explicitly think of service and focus on doing well yourself, you cannot get away from contributing to society. In the beginning, we draw a narrow circle for I and then we expand the circle. The lowest level is doing a job, and we can be sloppy about it. Then, we develop notions of duty, which is a level higher. It binds us to the work and we hold ourselves to a higher ideal to do things we sometimes don't want to do. But duty is not the end. The next level is service with a spirit of love. Here, we enjoy what we do, and use love as the guiding principle for service. But even this is not the end. The ultimate level is when we move to worship - where, work becomes our way toward self-realization and we are in a mode of worship through our work." I think to go toward the highest, the others are stepping stones and not needed once you've jumped to a higher level. But before we go there, the stones are necessary or the jump can be impossible to make. On an individual affecting others, I noticed that by encouraging everyone at the retreat to work only on themselves and extract maximum benefit, we as a group felt so much happier that everyone was beaming and the love just enveloped us.