Vedanta Society of Toronto (Ramakrishna Mission) 120 Emmett Ave. Toronto, ON M6M 2E6 CANADA Tel.: 416-240-7262; Email: [email protected]; Website: www.vedantatoronto.ca Newsletter January 2020 Words to Inspire “Do not spend your energy in talking, but meditate in silence.” --- Swami Vivekananda The Ideal of Service Swamiji was dhyanasiddha (an adept in meditation) wherever they went. Since then the custom of asking from his very birth. So he gave importance to spiritual a monk for medicine is prevailing even now. Ashoka practices like japa-dhyana. But he cautioned and other followers of Buddha established many everybody that selfishness should not swallow us in service centres. Large-scale service work came into the name of spiritual practice. If we live together we vogue since then. shall get liberation together, or we shall drown When the monks of the Ramakrishna Order first together. Swamiji has said, "So long as a single man engaged themselves in service activities like running remains in bondage, I do not desire my own hospitals and schools, helping distressed people liberation". The Master also has said, "I shall have to during calamities like famine, drought, flood, etc., the come again and again for the emancipation of this monks of orthodox monastic orders did not appreciate world". The previous monastic organizations engaged it although they too were benefited by those services. themselves only in preaching Vedanta or various other Their view was that these monks deviated from the ideals they followed. Their activities were confined to ideal of monastic life. Swamiji had sent two of his the sphere of religion. Swamiji gave a broader shape disciples- Swami Kalyanananda and Swami to this work. Being acquainted with the ideal of Sri Nischayananda to Haridwar and Rishikesh to serve Ramakrishna he realized that one cannot have religion the monks, for he had seen that there was none to with an empty stomach. We need food and clothing as serve them. That was why Swamiji engaged these two much as we need religion. Otherwise religious life will disciples for serving the monks as well as helping be impaired. So, service must be rendered to all in distressed and helpless pilgrims so that they would get every sphere of life; only religious preaching will not some relief. We know how that institution slowly grew do. The ideal of this Sangha is that man should have and has become today a huge service centre. For this fulfilment in life. His life should be blessed by the service the orthodox monks used to call them bhangi development of his inherent potentials and he should sadhus (scavenger monks); because they would clean devote his life to help all in that work. even the excreta of the patients. Today those bhangi In Buddha's life we do not find much mention of sadhus are no more looked down upon; on the material service. But in later days the monks of the contrary they are highly respected. In course of time Buddhist Sangha used to roam about with medicines people have come to understand the importance of in their bags and distribute them among ailing people such service. KARMA YOGA ACTIVITIES It is a great opportunity to provide your services to the Vedanta Society of Toronto. Kindly come forward and volunteer time towards maintaining and managing the facilities. If interested in volunteering, kindly contact Abhijit Bhattacharya on 416-569-9401, indicating the Services that you are interested in and days you can be available for volunteering. THANK YOU!! Basics of the Vedanta Follower Swami Sarvadevananda, Minister and spiritual leader of the Vedanta Society of Southern California The basic role of the congregations of the devotees affairs are undergoing great changes. We are finding of Sri Ramakrishna is not just coming together to that every aspect of life has to be conceived in terms perform pujas or attend lectures or classes, but to of the entire humanity. … Herein lies the great transform their minds and hearts, so as to realize responsibility of the Vedanta students. Vedanta God. This is the main ideal of Vedanta. Providing stands above all for universality, oneness, synthesis, selfless service has a great value in this harmony, and infinite affirmation. Vedanta is a transformation and is a great opportunity to apply philosophy and religion of infinite hope. It promises Vedanta in day-to-day life according to the teachings infinite glory to humankind. It invites men and of Swami Vivekananda. Swamiji wrote to his brother women to march forward from one achievement to disciple Swami Akhandananda: “You have read, another, till the very highest is attained. It stands for mātri devo bhava, pitri devo bhava, look upon your the unity of humankind. All true students of Vedanta mother as God, look upon your father as God— but have to feel and realize this fact. They have, above I say, daridra devo bhava, murkha devo bhava, look all, to be all-inclusive and harmonious. By their life upon the poor, the illiterate, the ignorant, the afflicted they have to prove to the timid world the beauty of as God. Know that service to these alone is the the new ideals towards which humanity is reaching. highest religion.” The challenge of Vedanta is tremendous. The weak Swami Vivekananda has established for us the twin may shrink from it, but those who have any strength goal of ātmano mokshārtham, jagat hitāya ca: for in them will take it up and rise to the required one’s own liberation, and for the good of the world. heights. … Let the best … in us come out, let the These two objectives are like two sides of the same Divine in us shine forth! Let the light in us be a coin: they go hand in hand. As we strive for spiritual beacon to the blundering world!” illumination in our life, we should be a source of As Swami Ashokananda tells us, the world today blessing to others. As we strive for the welfare of needs the saving message of Vedanta more than others and grow in unselfishness, we grow closer to ever—the message which declares the Oneness of God, closer to God-realization. Existence, the Divinity of the soul, the acceptance of In 1931, Swami Ashokananda charged the members all religions as valid paths to the Divine, Harmony of the Vedanta Society in San Francisco as follows: and not dissension, Love and not hatred. We are “Do the students of Vedanta realize that they have called upon, as students of Vedanta, to broadcast great responsibility on their shoulders? None can this message far and wide, not only through our deny that humanity is just now passing through a words, but through our deeds, through our very lives. period of great storm and stress, when every ideal is This is a great responsibility which rests on our being remodeled, old ideas are being challenged shoulders. The Vedanta Society is a great source of and accustomed ways of doing things are being strength and stability for us as we carry out this questioned. Economically, politically, culturally, mission. spiritually, in every respect, the human mind and That oppressing stench of worldliness Parables of Sri Ramakrishna Once, a fishwife was a guest in the house of a gardener who raised flowers. She came there with her empty basket, after selling fish in the market, and was asked to sleep in a room where flowers were kept. But, because of the fragrance of the flowers, she couldn't get to sleep for a long time! She was restless and began to fidget about. Her hostess saw her condition and said, "Hello! Why are you tossing from side to side so restlessly?" The fishwife said: "I don't know, friend. Perhaps the smell of the flowers has been disturbing my sleep. Can you give me my fish- basket? Perhaps that will put me to sleep." The basket was brought to her. She sprinkled water on it and set it near her nose. Then she fell sound asleep and snored all night. Swami Turiyananda at the Shanti Ashram The work of Swami Turiyananda at the Shanti nearest doctor was fifty miles away. We had no Ashram was character-building. “Be yourself,” he motor—only a horse and a two-wheeled cart. Neither used to say, “and be strong. Realization is only for was there a motor road nor a car that could cross the the strong, the pure, and the upright. Remember that mountains. But something had to be done without you are the Atman. That gives the greatest strength further delay. The poison was spreading. Then and courage. Be brave; break through the bondage something unexpected happened. In the evening a of Maya. Be like the lion; don’t tremble at anything. gentleman came to our Ashrama on foot. He had Swamiji has taught you that every soul is potentially walked all the way (fifty miles) and at last had found divine. Realize your own divinity, then you will realize the Ashrama. When we asked who he was, he told that all souls are divine. A cloud obscures the sun. us that he was a doctor. He had come from New We say, ‘There is no sun.’ But the sun always shines. York, more than three thousand miles away, and had So the cloud of ignorance makes us believe that we arrived just at this critical moment. He at once made are weak human beings. But the sun of the Atman is some incisions, saying that any delay might prove always shining. Remove the cloud of ignorance, and fatal. He had a few simple medicines with him—— the Atman will reveal itself in your heart.