GOOD MORNING ANNOUNCEMENTS

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1 Vedanta Center of Atlanta November 4, 2018 The Master s Story Part 2 Br. Shankara GOOD MORNING ANNOUNCEMENTS Holy Mother s Helping Hands food and clothing for the less fortunate. We are two months into our Food Drive in cooperation with the Atlanta Food Bank: 500 pounds of food and $1,800 in donations by December 31. Each week s E-news has details and links; flyers that specify what is needed are in the foyer next to the ACFB box. Also, there is a clothes rack on the Monastery sunporch, for warm winter clothing. Nov 10 10am-2pm Seva Saturday for November: Please join us for this service to your spiritual community. Lunch at noon. We will celebrate Thanksgiving Day on Thursday, Nov. 22, from 1:30 to 3:30pm. Our potluck feast will be in the Monastery s Fellowship Hall. Your Center will offer the day s traditional dishes; please bring other food, desserts, and beverages to share. More details on the website & FB, & in Nov s e-news. Swami Atmarupanandaji will visit with us from Friday, Nov. 23 to Sunday, Nov. 25. (Introduce) Saturday Retreat: The Master s Story Part 2 1 of 14 November 4, 2018

2 Morning session Basic Principles of Karma Yoga ; in the afternoon,"streams of Practice in Karma Yoga". On Sunday morning the Swami will speak on "Prabuddha America -- Awakened America". This will be followed by a potluck lunch and reception for the Swami. Swami Sarvadevanandaji will be with us from Thurs December 20th to Saturday the 22nd: There will be program on both Thurs and Friday evenings, after Arati, and a special talk on Saturday morning at 11am. On Friday evening after the Swami s talk, we ll have a potluck supper and reception for him. If any of you want to take initiation mantra diksha from the Swami, please let me know by right away. Initiations may be done on the morning of Fri the 21st, or Sat the 22nd. CHANT SONG WELCOME TOPIC THE MASTER S STORY PART 2 November 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. The Master s Story Part 2 2 of 14 November 4, 2018

3 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 form the terrible wheel of rebirth and death Sri Krishna to Arjuna, Bhagavad Gita, Ch. 2 The life and the society we share has many forms. One of the most persuasive is the system of agreements the complicated story that members of a civilization hold in common. These agreements are just a tiny fraction of a complex web of shared understanding, about what our world is and how it works. Yet, socio-economic theorists like Peter Drucker, historians like Barbara Tuchman, scientists like Rachel Carson, and philosophers such as Charles Eisenstein tell us that our present civilization is in the midst of a major transformation that our story is changing. This morning we will review what these and other thought leaders tell us about why the civilization we have known is dis-integrating, The Master s Story Part 2 3 of 14 November 4, 2018

4 and why the story we have known no longer helps us live together successfully. Then we ll review what the saints of our lineage Sri Ramakrishna, Holy Mother, and Swami Vivekananda told us about the age that is dawning: The Master s Story. These are the basic lessons Sri Ramakrishna left us: When you understand my message, reduce your reading and reasoning, and start practicing. The message is, Find God. That is the only purpose in life. We will explore these and other instructions in the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. First, let s hear from six people whose thinking and writing have had a notable influence on the intellectual thought currents of our society, during the past 50 years: Peter Drucker The late Peter Drucker was a writer, a consultant, and a professor of social science at Claremont Graduate School. The MBA was his innovation. He wrote more than twenty books on social, economic, and political issues. This is from his essay The Age of Social Transformation, published in The Atlantic Monthly, Nov 1994: The Master s Story Part 2 4 of 14 November 4, 2018

5 The megastate in which (the 20th) century indulged has not performed, either in its totalitarian or in its democratic version. It has not delivered on a single one of its promises. And government by countervailing lobbyists is neither particularly effective--in fact, it is paralysis--nor particularly attractive. Yet effective government has never been needed more than in this highly competitive and fastchanging world of ours, in which the dangers created by the pollution of the physical environment are matched only by the dangers of worldwide armaments pollution. And we do not have even the beginnings of political theory or the political institutions needed for effective government in the knowledge-based society of organizations. Barbara Tuchman The late Barbara Tuchman was an American historian and author. She won the Pulitzer Prize twice, and the U.S. National Book Award in History for A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century. That title reflects Tuchman's idea that the death and suffering of the 20th century mirror that of the 14th century. The Master s Story Part 2 5 of 14 November 4, 2018

6 Policy is formed by preconceptions, by long implanted biases. When information is relayed to policy-makers, they respond in terms of what is already inside their heads and consequently make policy less to fit the facts than to fit the notions and intentions formed out of the mental baggage that has accumulated in their minds since childhood The better part of valor is to spend it learning to live with differences, however hostile, unless and until we can find another planet. Joseph Campbell The late Joseph Campbell was an American mythologist who worked in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work covers many aspects of the human experience. Campbell is best known for his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, in which he discusses his theory of the journey of the archetypal hero found in world mythologies. We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us Furthermore, we have not even to risk (this) adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; The Master s Story Part 2 6 of 14 November 4, 2018

7 the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; and where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world. Rachel Carson The late Rachel Carson was an American marine biologist, author, and conservationist whose book Silent Spring and other writings are credited with kickstarting the global environmental movement. Carson s bestseller The Sea Around Us won a U.S. National Book Award, and recognition as a gifted thinker and writer. We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth The Master s Story Part 2 7 of 14 November 4, 2018

8 We still talk in terms of conquest. We still haven't become mature enough to think of ourselves as only a tiny part of a vast and incredible universe. Man's attitude toward nature is today critically important simply because we have now acquired a fateful power to alter and destroy nature. But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself The human race is challenged more than ever before to demonstrate our mastery, not over nature but of ourselves. Will and Ariel Durant The late Will Durant was an American writer, historian, and philosopher. He is best known for The Story of Civilization, 11 volumes written in collaboration with his wife, Ariel Durant (They) conceived of philosophy as (a) total perspective, (and) sought to unify and humanize the great body of historical knowledge, which had fragmented into esoteric specialties A great civilization is not conquered from without, until it has destroyed itself from within. (For example), the essential causes of Rome's decline lay in her people, her morals, her class struggle, her failing trade, her bureaucratic despotism, her stifling taxes, her consuming wars The Master s Story Part 2 8 of 14 November 4, 2018

9 (With regard to societies) does history warrant the conclusion that religion is necessary to morality that a natural ethic is too weak to withstand the savagery that lurks under civilization and emerges in our dreams, crimes and wars?... There is no significant example in history of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion. Charles Eisenstein Charles Eisenstein is a 51-year-old American philosopher and author. His books include The Ascent of Humanity, Sacred Economics, and The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible. He is also a public speaker, and a gift economy advocate. To understand the term gift economy, watch the 12-minute film Sacred Economics on YouTube. You could ask: Why are people attracted to narratives that justify the terrible things that we're doing to the planet? Why are people attracted to narratives of control and fear and hunting down the terrorists, and this uncaring attitude toward nature? These come from what I call the perceptions of separation and the experience of separation, the experience of alienation, The Master s Story Part 2 9 of 14 November 4, 2018

10 the experience of scarcity and anxiety and competition, and a world in which everybody is out for themselves and nobody cares How do we change (that) world? Change the story. The Master s Story is indeed different from the one that is failing us now! Here s what he wants us to understand, and share with him as our worldview, as the story we hold in common: From the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (Sunday, December 16, 1883) the Master said: A person sees a thing one way through reasoning and in an altogether different way when God Himself shows it to him The Divine Mother revealed to me in the Kali Temple that it was she who had become everything. She showed me that everything was full of Consciousness. The image was Consciousness, the altar was Consciousness, the water vessels were Consciousness, the door sill was Consciousness, the marble floor was Consciousness all was Consciousness. After realizing God one sees that is He who is become the universe, living beings, and the 24 cosmic principles. The Master s Story Part 2 10 of 14 November 4, 2018

11 Swami Vivekananda told us this about the Master s story: (Ramakrishna s) life was a thousandfold more than his teaching, a living commentary on the texts of the Upanishads; nay, he was the spirit of the Upanishads living in human form. Nowhere else in this world exists that unique perfection, that wonderful kindness for all that does not stop to justify itself, that intense sympathy for man in bondage. He lived to root out all distinction between man and woman, the rich and the poor, the literate and the illiterate, the (highest and the lowest in human society) He came to bring about the synthesis of the Eastern and Western Civilizations. Indeed, not for many a century past (has) India produced so great, so wonderful a teacher of religious synthesis.... Here are more of the Master s teachings the new story that he wants us to know and live, as interpreted for us by Vivekananda: The Master s Story Part 2 11 of 14 November 4, 2018

12 If in this hell of a world one can bring a little joy and peace even for a day into the heart of a single person, that much alone is true; this I have learnt all else is mere moonshine... If one millionth part of the men and women who live in this world simply sit down and for a few minutes say, You are all God, O ye men and O ye animals and living beings, you are all the manifestations of the one living Deity! the whole world will be changed in half an hour. Instead of throwing tremendous bomb-shells of hatred into every corner, instead of projecting currents of jealousy and of evil thought think that it is all He. He is all that you see and feel. Look upon every man, woman, and every one as God. You cannot help anyone, you can only serve: serve the children of the Lord, serve the Lord Himself, if you have the privilege. If the Lord grants that you can help any one of His children, blessed you are Do it only as a worship. I should see God in the poor, and it is for my salvation that I go and worship them. The poor and the miserable are for our salvation, so that we may serve the Lord Give up the idea that by ruling over others you can do any good to them The Master s Story Part 2 12 of 14 November 4, 2018

13 The new dispensation of the age is the source of great good to the whole world and the inspirer of this dispensation, Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna, is the reformed and remodelled manifestation of all the past great epoch-makers in religion. So, if Sri Ramakrishna is an epoch-maker, where is that epoch. He has come and gone, and in many ways things seem only to be getting worse. Holy Mother s disciple, after WW One, and while India was still a slave to the British Raj: Mother, you said the Master had come to change the world for the better. Yet, look at the horrors we see; things are getting worse, not better! Mother: Yes, my child. But see, when a seed is planted the (outside covering of the seed) must become rotten before the new shoot can arise. We are in that time, during which the husk of the seed the Master planted is, demonstrably, decaying enough for the new shoot the Sat Yuga to emerge. For us, this is a time of great opportunity; the Master is so present, to unchain us and set us free. Here are some more of his lessons, meant to ready us, to revolutionize our minds and our The Master s Story Part 2 13 of 14 November 4, 2018

14 characters, so that we may share in the new story he left for us: When you get my message, reduce your reading and reasoning. Start practicing my instructions. The message is, Find God. That is the only purpose in life. Truth is the austerity of this Age. God alone is real, all else is illusory. The practice of devotion to God, bhakti yoga, is the best method for pursuing knowledge of God, at this time. Practice just a little, someone will come forward to help you. If the circumstances of your life make it unethical or impractical to renounce the world physically, you can do it mentally. Have faith. Put yourself in the care of a trustworthy Divine Being (your Chosen Ideal), and then don t worry much about your life and its adventures and misadventures. Say to the Divine Mother-Father, take my hand, pull me on, draw me near, fill this heart. DISCUSSION AND COMMENTS Regular Closing prayer The Master s Story Part 2 14 of 14 November 4, 2018