Join Swami Veda Bharati

TUESDAY JULY 7, 2009

7:00-9:30 pm

ST. MARON'S CEDARS HALL

(Across the street from the Meditation Center)   The Full Moon Meditation will be at The Center.

We will snack and visit after Swamiji's talk at The Center.  Please bring a snack to share.

If you are unable to make it to Guru Purnima:

Please Join us for a live internet broadcast of Swami Veda Bharati on Guru Purnima.

Tuesday July 7th, 7:00PM US Central Time.

Please download the free Winamp Player from here: http://www.winamp.com/player 

Then go to www.shoutcast.com  and do a search for Bharati Radio.
When the station comes up, click on the listen button.
or
Go to www.swamiveda.com or www.bharatifoundation.org

and click on one of the buttons under Swami Veda Radio in the upper left corner.

Brought to you by The Meditation Center

Go to www.youtube.com/swamiveda for videos of Swami Veda's talks.

WHAT IS GURU PURNIMA?

Guru Purnima is the day in which we pay our reverence to the Guru - it is a day filled with devotion, with love, with piety.

On this day, Indians across the world pay their deepest reverence to both their personal guru, as well as to Sri Maharishi Vyasji.

Vyasji is heralded as the editor of the four vedas, and the author of the 18 puranas, the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita.

Having brought such an immeasurable treasure chest of wisdom to the world, Vyasji is worshipped as the Guru of Gurus. It is he who has brought forth this ocean of divine light to dispel the darkness of humanity. Therefore, on this day we also pay our deepest respects to Sri Vyasji.

Guru Purnima is celebrated on the full moon day of Ashadha and the four month period of Chaturmas (the holy time of year in which the monsoons come and the saints refrain from movement).
After the long, hot, dry months of summer in which innumerable people, animals and crops have perished, the rains come, quenching our thirst and bringing us life. And, in India, when the rains come it is not a mere drizzle which lasts for 10 minutes. Rather, the rains are downpours of heavenly nectar, completely saturating the parched land.

Similarly, on this day, as we find ourselves dying of thirst for knowledge, as we find our hearts and minds have become dry due to ignorance, anger and darkness, the Guru comes, pouring forth upon our lives the rain of wisdom, of love, of light and of life. Just as the flowers which have wilted and yellowed in the never-ending heat of summer, suddenly stand erect and succulent as soon as the rains come, so we, who have become ignorant and "dead" to the divinity within us are immediately born anew due to His grace in our lives.

Yet, just as the soil must allow the rain to penetrate its depths in order to reap the benefits of this life-giving nectar, so we must become porous vessels into which the divine nectar of the Guru can flow.

Guru Purnima is a day of renewing our faith, our shraddha, in He who bestows the light upon our lives. It is a day of reopening our hearts, our souls and our lives to His divine presence and letting it penetrate and saturate every aspect of our being.