Chinmaya-Tej January/February Vol. 24, No.1 Chinmaya mission san Jose PubliCaTion MISSION STATEMENT To provide to individuals, from any background, the wisdom of Vedanta and practical means for spiritual growth and happiness, enabling them to become a positive contributor to the society. Chinmaya Lahari Become the Himalayas In the heart of the Himalayas lies the sanctum of Reality. To discover and contact this sanctum you will have to become the Himalayas. The girth, the height, the width, the mass of the Himalayas are constituted of motionless vibrancy — life hushed in stone — every square inch of it is pulsating with life, and yet itself the sustainer of life; rock and soil tumbling one over the other, rises into the cloud and stands majestic in still inertia! Sit down and become the Himalayas. Be an actionless mass, spreading all over, and completely motionless. Let life and its activities emanate from you, on your surface, and get re-absorbed into you —as the forest in the Himalayas. If you can stay thus for ten minutes, you become the Himalayas! And in your core then is the sanctum of the Self! From the heart of the Himalayas flows the eternal Ganges, gushing perpetually in its sacred water. Realise the centre, this heart, and let activities for the welfare of all others flow out of you into the world all around you. CONTENTS Volume 24, No.1 January/February 2013 From The Editors Desk............................. 2 Status of Building Project ........................... 3 Chinmaya-Tej ................................... 5 Finding the Way ................................. 6 The Tenth Pearl .................................. 9 Siva ......................................... 10 Self-Negation or Self-Expansion ..................... 13 From Sri Aurobindo .............................. 18 A Message .................................... 20 Meditation with Talks on Vedanta .................... 22 Bala Vihar Locations & Choir ....................... 24 Bhakti Rasamrutam .............................. 25 Tapovan Prasad ................................ 26 Scheme of Study for Chinmaya Study Groups ........... 27 BalViHar Magazine - Gita Chanting Classes for Children .... 28 Community Outreach program ...................... 29 Vedanta Study Groups Adult Sessions ................ 30 Satsangs with Br. Prabodh Chaitanya ................. 30 Prabodhji's Classes at Bala Vihar Locations ............. 31 Prabodhji's Classes at Sandeepany .................. 31 Swami Tejomayananada’s Itinerary.................... 32 PAGE1 FROM THE EDITORS DESK Tej, is a bi-monthly publication of Chinmaya Mission San Jose. CMSJ is in the process of getting the necessary permits to build the New Facility. The City of San Jose is studying the building drawings and when they are approved we shall begin the construction of our New Building. We are happy to show you some elevation drawings of the projects. We invite you to visit the site when you can. News and events update via e-newsletter on CMSJ web-site is serving our timely announcements. Please keep us updated with your e-mail addresses and send them to [email protected] If you do not hear from us e-mail or Chinmaya Tej, please forward your address and e-mail to me indicated on this page. Chinmaya Tej is also available for viewing on our website. Chinmaya-Tej will be mailed to all Sponsors and Members of Chinmaya Mission San Jose. Send your subscription marked, Chinmaya-Tej, CMSJ, 1050 Park Ave., San Jose, CA 95126. CHINMAYA TEJ EDITORIAL STAFF EDITOR Uma Jeyarasasingam / [email protected] CO-EDITOR Rohini Joshi ELECTRONIC EDITORIAL ADVISOR Satish Joshi CONTRIBUTORS Subbu, Venkatkrishnan, Swami Tapovan, Swami Chinmayananda, Swami Swahananda, Sri Aurobindo, Swami Tejomayananda DESIGN & LAYOUT four waters media PRINTING PigMint Press, Redway, CA DATA BASE Kapil Vaish MAILING Autozip, Ukiah, CA CONTACT www.chinmaya.org Ph: (650) 969-4389 Fax: (650)428-1795 status new building Hari Om and Salutations to the Chinmaya Family! This is an update on the progress of our New Facility over the last few months: With the old church building demolished, the debris cleared out and weather improving, the construction of our new Ashram is now proceeding in full swing. The following are the key achievements to date: Completed initial grading operations for the first set of retaining walls along the north face and upper slope. Remediated contaminated soil from the site — this is a significant step forward because we did not encounter any other major soil contamination issues! As part of building the foundation, work on laying cement piers is progressing smoothly so far — when this is completed, we would have achieved another significant milestone, that of completing the majority of the underground work. Finally, a month ago, on February 8th, we had a wonderful “Ishti (bricks, precious gems, mantra japas) Sthapana” puja performed by Pt. Ravichandran. On a clear, sunny morning, following a small drizzle, bricks previously consecrated by Pujya Guruji Swami Tejomayananda along with other consecrated items were laid in the ground under the proposed location of the new shrine in the facility. The latest pictures PAGE3 including those from the puja are uploaded for your viewing pleasure at https://plus.google.com/photos/102957925633544515340/ albums/5810906792106576481. In summary, with the Lord's Grace and Pujya Gurudev and Guruji's blessings, the construction phase of our project is progressing as per plan. None of this would have been possible without the wholehearted ongoing support from the entire Chinmaya Mission family. We look forward to your continued support to help us continue to fulfill our financial obligations with the bank. If you would like to make a pledge, please contact Meena Kapadia ([email protected]) or Sanjay Rao ([email protected]). Alternatively, you can donate online by doing the following: 1. Visit our home page at www.chinmaya-sanjose.org 2. Click on New Building Project->Donate->Online 3. Fill out the form and click “Submit” Thanks a lot! CMSJ Board of Directors 4PAGE Chinmaya ~ Tej Thank you for asking about Chinmaya Tej. Pujya Gurudev initiated and launched the CMSJ Newsletter in 1988. Later, finding the CMSJ Newsletter to be, in his words, “like a catalog”, i.e., woefully inadequate for the purposes he had in mind, he gave detailed guidelines to transform it into a formal, informative, useful, and high-quality publication. Thus Chinmaya-Tej was born. The manifold purposes of Tej, as laid out by Gurudev, are as follows: 1. It is the voice of CMSJ. 2. Gurudev wanted CMSJ’s publication to be of high quality and comparable to CMW’s Mananam and other Chinmaya Mission Publications. 3. It is the official publication of CMSJ. When CMSJ was first registered as Non-Profit Organization, there were queries from various government agencies as to whether CMSJ had an official publication, from which they could learn about CMSJ, our history, mission, and values. Tej served that purpose. 4. Tej is CMSJ’s mode of outreach and communication to spiritual seekers beyond those who are able to attend CMSJ’s discourses in person. Extra copies of each issue of Tej are printed so as to be available for new seekers. 5. Gurudev also instructed us to cover Vedanta topics in the Tej. Accordingly, Tej has articles on Vedanta topics for beginners as well as advanced readers. Other Details about Tej: 1. The annual cost to produce 6 issues of Chinmaya Tej is $21,000. It is paid for by CMSJ’s Annual Membership contributions, Bala Vihar revenues, and general donations. 2. Chinmaya Tej is also available online. Hard copies of Chinmaya Tej are distributed only to members of CMSJ who reside in California. PAGE5 Finding the Way While standing near Gomukh, under the high, dazzling snow-covered peaks of the Himalayas, watching nature all around with wonder-struck eyes, there can be no room for worldly thoughts, sorrows, or memories of the past. The mind reaches a state of concentration devoid of all distracting thoughts. It is then steeped in ineffable joy at the sight of the snow, divinely beautiful in its own right, arduous discipline. At Gomukh, one reaches this state without effort. The heavenly bliss that one comes to experience in the midst of natural TranquiliTy Tranquillity is truth; truth is beauty; beauty is bliss; and bliss is divinity — this seems to be the lesson preached by each particle of snow, each stone, each petal, and each blade of grass. It is my thirst for the nectar of tranquillity that drives me to wrestle with the difficulties of travel in these inaccessible regions to reach Gomukh every year. Tranquillity is the innate nature of all; it is a self-existent reality. Therefore, there need be no striving to produce it. Abolish agitation and tranquillity reveals itself. Effort is needed not to generate tranquillity, but to banish agitation. The mass of light, the sun’s disc, is concealed by clouds. The clouds need only move away and immediately the solar disc that appeared to be nonexistent reveals itself. Here there is no question of producing the solar disc and making it shine forth. In the same way, with the cessation of agitation, tranquillity rises forth. Tranquillity is experienced in dreamless sleep by everyone alike. Later, there is waking from that state; that is to say, “I” asserts itself for 6PAGE the first time as agent. Then desire begins to operate. Next, the sense organs like the eye and the ear awaken and operate in regard to their objects. Simultaneously crop up attitudes, affirmative or negative,