“The life of all living things is food and all the world seeks food. Complexion, clarity, good voice, long life, understanding, happiness, satisfaction, growth, strength and intelligence are all established in food.”
— Charaka Samhita (text on Ayurveda)
Does the food you ate today affect your meditation?
Vedanta is one of the world’s most ancient religious philosophies and one of its broadest. Based on the Vedas, the sacred scriptures of India, Vedanta affirms the oneness of existence, the divinity of the soul, and the harmony of religions.
Swami Sarvapriyananda was the featured teacher last week He is the resident minister at the Vedanta Society of New York.
The subject of “Letting go”, of renunciation is universal.
Does it mean one has to put on long black or orange or other various coloured robes and leave family behind? No!
This video is from a Q&A session where someone is asking about becoming a Sannyas or a renunciate and Swami Sarvapriyananda responds by saying that it is about attitude of mind and inner space that lives in compassion and wisdom. Enlightenment is for everybody.
“The relationships we can develop with the natural world can help us to heal our wounds of disconnection.“
— Anna Breytenbach, How To Hear What Nature Is Saying
It is precious to be sitting together after a summer hiatus. Thank you all for our gathering.
Dr. Vasant Lad was the teacher we listened to on Youtube at our last Silent Meditation gathering. He brought Ayurveda to the United States by founding the Ayurvedic Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1984. He continues to write extensively and lecture through educational webinars at liveayurprana.com.
Your true nature is peace. Your true nature is awareness, And awareness is silence.
Dr. Vasant Lad discusses our relationship to silence and how to practice living in awareness without judgement or desire. Once we are able to live moment to moment without noise in our minds, then we have a peaceful mind.
There are many paths of meditation, each unique in their own way. But the simplest? Just being in tune with nature around you. Dr, Vasant Lad unearths the simple tactics that help drive awareness of your surroundings and inspire you to keep your eyes peeled for the tiny and grand intricacies surrounding you.
“Every house has a shadow, every tree has a shadow, and without a shadow there is no light and without light there is no shadow. Every shade has a life. This is all a moment of meditation.”
“If you want peace my child, always seek to have less rather than more.“
— Swami Sarvapriyanda paraphrasing a teaching of Christ
“Every house has a shadow, every tree has a shadow, and without a shadow there is no light and without light there is no shadow…This moment is meditation.“
— Vasant Lad
“Unless you pull the bow, the arrow of thought cannot fly.“
— Vasant Lad (“Strands of Eternity”)
There is a place in everyone that has never been hurt and is always at peace. A woman from Kyiv in the Ukraine has been asked to speak to people experiencing intense suffering and unfair conditions, such as a war hotspot where they have no opportunity to leave. She asks how she can best support these people, even if they do not have an understanding of non-duality. Rupert responds that even in intense situations there is something in the background of our experience that remains unharmed by it. Whatever it is in each of us that is aware of our experience now, is exactly the same as that which was aware of our experience 10 years ago, 20 years ago, and that doesn’t change. So even in the intensity of experience there is a place in yourself, your being, that is free, still, silent, at peace and it lies just behind the content of experience – that is, our thoughts, feelings and perceptions. This place shines in us as the knowledge ‘I am’ and it is always present, always available. In each pause throughout the day go back to this place inside yourself, the silence of being, and touch it again. That is the peace that everyone has been looking for.
“There is a place in the soul where you’ve never been wounded.”
Meister Eckhart
We also watched Francis Lucille on the subject of surrender, trust and the guide-post that is the path of least resistance in doing the right thing. Taking the right action from this space.
Acceptance does not mean it is a Passive space. Action comes. Doing the right thing comes.
The guide post is the path of least resistance – it is experienced with an effortlessness – an ease.
This is the play of Being and Doing – Being Awareness and Doing in our current form of a human
BEING the ocean AND also experiencing the joys and enthusiasm of a dancing wave, clashing, playing, interacting with other waves.
Bowing in deep gratitude for our training together,
“Maybe you can’t go out and serve the whole world, it doesn’t matter. At least walk joyfully. If you walk joyfully on this planet, suddenly you see the whole world looks beautiful. Once the whole world looks beautiful, naturally you will shed a glance, a loving glance upon everything. This is a natural process… You are a blessed being; that’s all it takes.“
— Sadhguru
“I will not cling to he eye; the ear; the nose; the tongue; the body; the mind
— Anathapindikovada Sutta: Advice to A Dying Man
and my consciousness will not be dependent on the eye; the ear; the nose; the tongue; the body; the mind
There shall be no consciousness of mine dependent on anything.“