Ashram Newsletter ~ August 2008
“When someone makes you happy, tell God about that too. Forgetting God in times of happiness and remembering Him only in times of sorrow is not a sign of true devotion.
We should be able to see that He gives us both happiness and sorrow.” - Amma

Homas and Pujas

Brahmachari Shantamrita will be performing the following homas and pujas in Melbourne (see below). Attending the pujas and homas are free, however it is possible to have the puja or homa performed for you or loved ones and have your name/s added to the sankalpa (resolve) of the ceremony whether you attend or not.  For this service there is a charge, the proceeds to go covering the cost of the puja/homa and to support Amma’s humanitarian charities.

Register your personal intention (sankalpa) for a Homa/Puja: Download registration form >

Ganapathy Homa - $65
For positive vibrations in the house, when starting new ventures such as a new job, or generally to remove obstacles in your life.

Maha Ganapathy Homa - $130
If suffering from losses, when starting a new business or investments, when getting married, or to remove obstacles. Also for birthdays.

Karuka Homa - $100
For the health and welfare of children and to develop academic ability. Also relieves stomach problems for elders.

Tila Homa - $190
For departed souls, to be performed 45 days after death or later; for peace of one's ancestors and to receive the blessings of ancestors.

Navagraha Homa - $250
Puja for all individual planets.

Swayamvara Homa - $35
For getting married. This is commonly selected along with Ganapathy or Mahaganapathy.

Puja is ritualistic worship of the Divine performed to keep us in harmony with cosmic forces, thereby removing and overcoming the sorrows of life and bringing spiritual upliftment. Puja or ritual worship of images of God, the Divine Mother or the Guru has a special place in spiritual sadhana.
The puja is a simple expression of our love and devotion, a means of drawing near to the Divine.

Bhagavati Seva - $100
For protection from miseries, fulfilment of wishes and for spiritual benefits. Performed per Kerala tradition, just after sunset to receive the blessings of the Divine Mother.

For registration and payment of the homas and this puja, please refer to http://www.ammaaustralia.org.au/Tour/Amma_Tour_Shantamrita2.htm#australia or click the link below to download the registration form with payment details:

Register your personal intention (sankalpa) for a Homa/Puja: Download registration form >

Ashram News

We are looking forward to the visit of Brahmachari Shantamrita Chaitanya to the Ashram on 14th August.  There will be a full program with a homa and a puja as well as satsangs and other activities to make his visit unforgettable.  He will also initiate Amma’s Australian youth wing, AYUDH.
The regular Ashram meeting is re-scheduled due to Br. Shantamrita's visit to Sunday 3rd of August, 2 pm.

August is a very busy month.  A few days after Br. Shantamrita leaves, about 16 of Amma’s Adelaide devotees will visit with the purpose of doing a weekend intense seva at the Ashram.  We will require some volunteer drivers to pick them up from Carrum station on the evening of Friday 29th August, and again to drive them back on Sunday 31st August.

Also on Sunday 31st August Amma’s catering group will cater for the expected 3,000 people who will visit the Yoga Expo at the Melbourne Showgrounds in Flemington.  We will have a stall for Amma’s bookshop as well as one for the catering.  We are looking for volunteers who can help serve food or at the bookstall for a few hours that day.  Interested people can phone the Ashram on 03 9782 9927 or email ashram@ammaaustralia.org.au

Thanks to the rain that has blessed our environment the Ashram’s garden looks very lush and green.  This has meant that the wanted is flourishing as much as the unwanted.  Weeds have sprung up and are begging to be pulled out.  This is a very satisfying seva but we urgently require more hands to oblige those begging weeds. People do not need to have green fingers to apply. Just a few hours of gardening enthusiasm is all that is needed.  Please contact our garden coordinator Madhumati on 03 8796 3691 or the Ashram on 03 9782 9927. The Ashram also provides an opportunity for a footspa detox session.

Ashram Activities

Seva day at the Ashram

Br. Shantamrita's visit to Amma's Ashram

We are so very fortunate that Amma has sent one of her brahmacharis to Australia. This gives us a wonderful opportunity to spent time with him. Br. Shantamrita Chaitanya was born Brandon Paul Smith, near Stanford University in California.

He began living at Amritapuri (Amma's Ashram), India in 1993. In 1997 at the age of 29 he was initiated by Amma as a Brahmachari (formally becoming a monk and priest) and since then has been engaged in social, educational and spiritual activities throughout India, Japan, USA and Europe.
Shantamrita, meaning "peaceful" and "eternal," is affectionately known by Amma's Japanese followers as Shantaji. (Chaitanya is "consciousness.'')

From 1991 until the autumn of '93, he helped coordinate Amma's Japan tour from Shikoku, after which he left Japan for India, to join her ashram as a lifelong brahmachari. In 1996, at the quest of Amma’s Japanese supporters, he helped establish the Mata Amritanandamayi Center in Tokyo's Sugi.

He will conduct a homa as well as a puja at the Ashram. In a homa, a sacred fire is lit in a square hearth made of bricks (homa kunda), in which many offering are made. This homa kunda symbolizes the mouth of God, and by offering the purified items into it, the worshipper can make direct contact with the Divine. Furthermore, when the offerings are burned in the fire, their solid matter is transformed into a more subtle, powerful, and effective form.   

What is the principle behind puja?

The law of karma says that the sorrows of life are the results of our own sins, committed in the past, in this life or in previous lives. There are certain periods in life when we have to suffer from the results of our sins, when, whatever we do, we may not meet with success. We may face unexpected problems, death of dear and near ones, diseases and accidents.

The aura -- the luminous sheath covering our body where the effects of all our deeds, physical and mental, are recorded as on a video tape -- will be dark during these periods, and the vibrations emanating from us are out of tune with others, arousing aversion in their subconscious mind. We are like a person groping his way in darkness.

The more egocentric, wicked and selfish we become, the darker and darker our aura becomes. The periods when the results of our past actions, favourable or unfavourable, come to fruition are indicated by planetary positions at the time of our birth.

A great deal about the events and influences of life can be predicted through the science of Jyotish (Vedic astrology). The malefic effects due to befall us can be averted, or their effects reduced a great deal, by the grace of a Guru, our sincere prayers, selfless service and performance of specific pujas. The happiness we create in the lives of other people and Nature as a whole, results in brightening of our aura. The body, mind and spirit are purified and harmonised by the concentration, devotion, prayers, mantra and japa performed during the pujas.

If our fate is decided by our own karma, what is the role of the Guru, God and the planets in deciding our destiny?

The Guru is the visible form of God, our own Supreme Self, who out of infinite compassion creates opportunities for us to learn new lessons from karma at every step, and help us on our way to final liberation from the bondage of karma and rebirths.

The planetary positions are indicative of events in store for us. The deities of planets are different facets of God Himself. If our mother is a school teacher, she demands to be treated differently at school and at home. Likewise, God comes to our lives in many forms, including that of a punishing school master at times under the guise of planetary deities like Mars, Saturn and Rahu, to make us learn our lessons the hard way.

At such times the next best thing to having pure devotion and love for God (or Guru) is to propitiate Him in proven ways specified in the scriptures or visualised by Realised Masters. For an earnest spiritual seeker (sadhak) or true devotee, such ritualistic pujas may be of less importance if he takes every event, good or bad, as gifts of God, and is happy and contented with them.

Report on the Interfaith Youth Pilgrimage: Melbourne

Mata Amritanandamayi, Sathya Sai, Chinmaya and the Bramakumari organisations gathered together at RMIT’s Spiritual Centre to share their faiths and ideas about the meaning of peace and how we might achieve it. A couple of ice breakers soon got all the groups to intermingle as we all ran around trying to find people who were wearing the same colour socks or who lived in the same suburb. We then broke off into groups and were given a topic on peace, which we were to discuss and depict in a group drawing. My group got the topic “inner peace”.

We concluded that the key to inner peace was to create harmony between the mind and the heart through practices such as meditation, so that we are not controlled by our ever-changing mind, our destructive ego or our fragile emotions. At the end of our discussions, each group presented their drawings.
           
We then commenced our pilgrimage down Russell St towards Federation Square. There we joined other youth from various religious backgrounds and all were welcomed by traditional Aboriginal eucalyptus smoking pots, symbolizing purity and healing. Everyone gathered around the stage, on which the banners of each religion were represented. As one we all listened with open minds and hearts to the ancient prayers for peace from the Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Muslims and Christians. We sung “You Raise Me Up!” in one loud voice, and we listened to the intentions for love, unity, forgiveness and reconciliation from each faith, shouting out “FOR THE SAKE OF PEACE” at the end of each presentation.

At the end of the ceremony, we each received a eucalyptus leaf, as a token of friendship from the Aboriginals to us, and for the friendship that had been kindled between youth of different ethnic and religious backgrounds. Everyone mingled afterwards, like a massive group of mutual friends. The atmosphere was charged with love, unity and peace. It was like being in Mother’s presence, it was simply beautiful.  

Srimayi 

Conscious Film Night at Fitzroy - Saturday 16th August, 8pm

'DOING TIME, DOING VIPASSANA'

This extraordinary documentary takes viewers into India's largest prison - known as one of the toughest in the world - and shows the dramatic change brought about by the introduction of Vipassana meditation.

This is the story of a strong woman named Kiran Bedi, the former Inspector General of Prisons in new Delhi. It tells how she strove to transform the notorious Tihar Prison, once a hellhole of crime, and turn it into an oasis of peace. it is a story of an ancient meditation technique named Vipassana, which helps people to take control of their lives and channel them towards their own good and the good of others. But most of all it is the story of the prison inmates who underwent profound change, and who realized that incarceration is not the end but possibly the beginning of a new life. Produced and Directed by Ayelet Menahemi and Eilona Ariel in 1997.

This film will be shown on Saturday 16th August at 8.00 pm, after Kirtan – 6.30 – 7.30pm, and Dinner 7.30 – 8.00pm at the Dance of Life Yoga Studio, 250 George Street, Fitzroy.

Suggested donation $15.00. All proceeds to go to Amma’s Ashram. Contact Maheshwari on 0438 832 000  

Melbourne Yoga Expo

The Yoga Expo is an annual event, in Sydney in its 5th year, in Melbourne in its 1st. It attracts many thousands of spiritually minded people who are looking for things to add to their lifestyle.
Good vegetarian food, prepared with love and devotion is one of these things. Amma’s catering devotees have been invited to come and do catering at the Melbourne Yoga Expo, where between 2 and 3 thousand people are expected to attend.

Currently we are asking for volunteers to help with food preparations and serving for a few hours during the event. The Expo starts at 9.00 am and finishes at 5.00 pm.

We have also hired a stall for the bookshop and we need volunteers to man this stall as well.  Underneath is a time table form which you can fill in the time you and /or your friends/family would like to help.

Ashram Notices & Regular Events

Each Sunday: Satsang, starting at 10 am with Archana, followed by Bhajans, meditation and Arati at 11.00 am and concluding with Prasad lunch at 1.00 pm.

Monthly Ashram Meeting, Sunday 3rd August General Ashram meeting starting at 2.00pm after Satsang.

Monthly Seva day.  Each first Saturday of the month is set aside as Seva day, starting at 10.00 am and finishing at 4.00 pm

Any Suggestions?
If you have any suggestions for improving the Ashram monthly newsletter please contact us. We would love hear from you! Email: ashram@ammaaustralia.org.au