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August 25, 1999
ELECTION 99
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Quietly, messages of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda are offered across the USK A Bhatt While many new temples and religious societies get plenty of media attention, two of the oldest eastern religious societies in America, continue to work quietly, spreading the vision of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Swami Vivekananda. Through the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda centers in more than a dozen American states, these organizations offer meditation courses, vedantic discourses, books on the philosophy of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, and a slew of other activities. The Vivekananda Foundation is a non-profit organization incorporated in 1985 in the state of California. The Foundation initiates and sponsors projects to make the teachings of Vivekananda accessible to the reading and listening public. During the last 11 years, the foundation has supported the Prison Library Project with an annual gift of books, produced audio cassettes of readings from Vivekananda's lectures and his translation of the Raja Yoga, made audio cassettes available to the blind, compiled a book of selections from The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda entitled Living at the Source, donated copies of the six-volume set, Swami Vivekananda in the West, by Marie Louise Burke, and provided copies of Living at the Source to public, college, and university libraries. A free copy of Living at the Source may be requested by public, college, university, and seminary libraries, retreat centers, churches, and temples. Make your request in writing on the letterhead stationery of your institution and send it to the Vivekananda Foundation, PO Box 1351, Alameda, CA 94501, USA. Though it came into existence many decades after Swami Vivekananda's visit to Chicago, the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center of New York attracts hundreds of men and women each year who are seeking more knowledge about the Vedanta. It was incorporated in 1933 as a non-profit religious organization under the laws of New York state. It maintains a temple in New York city and the summer cottage at Thousand Island Park, New York, in which Swami Vivekananda lived and taught in the summer of 1895. Like the other branches in the United States, South America and Europe, the Center is a self-sustaining unit that looks to the Ramakrishna Order for spiritual guidance. Its minister, or Swami, is a monk of the order. The Center bases its teachings on the System of Vedanta, which combines both the religion and philosophy of the Hindus, especially as explained by Sri Ramakrishna), his wife and spiritual companion Mother Sri Sarada Devi and his disciple Swami Vivekananda and demonstrated in their lives. Vedanta teaches that every soul is potentially divine, and that its divinity may be manifested through worship, contemplation, unselfish work, and philosophical discrimination. According to Vedanta, Truth is universal and all humankind and all existence are one. It preaches the unity of the Godhead, or ultimate Reality, and accepts every faith as a valid means for its own followers to realize the Truth. The Center seeks to stimulate the growth of the individual's innate spirituality through lectures, discourses, publications, and individual guidance. The disciplines the Center provides are suited to individual needs and temperaments. It does not deal with the occult or the sensational and offers no easy shortcuts. Centers in the United States: CALIFORNIA
Vedanta Society of Berkeley
Vedanta Society of No California
Vedanta Retreat
Vedanta Society of Sacramento
Santa Barbara Temple
Ramakrishna Monastery
Ramakrishna Monastery
GEORGIA
Eternal Truth
ILLINOIS
Vivekananda Vedanta Society
MASSACHUSETTS
The Ramakrishna-Vedanta Society of Massachusetts
NEW YORK
Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center
Vedanta Society
Vivekananda Retreat, Ridgely
OREGON
Vedanta Society of Portland
RHODE ISLAND
The Vedanta Society of Providence
WASHINGTON
Vedanta Society of Western Washington
WASHINGTON, DC
Vedanta Society of Greater Washington
MICHIGAN
Vivekananda Monastery & Retreat
MISSOURI
Vedanta Society of St Louis
If you would like to post any information about forthcoming events or community happenings, please email the details to bettypais@aol.com
Information and photographs can also be mailed to Betty Pais at 87-52 108th Street, 2nd Floor, Richmond Hill, NY 11418-2229, USA.
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