Wanting to reform the world without discovering one's true self is like trying to cover the world with leather to avoid the pain of walking on stones and thorns. It is much simpler to wear shoes: From `Happiness and God's Grace' by Ramana Maharshi
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Our weekly classes are held over zoom or at Joan Pisani Community Center:19655 Allendale Avenue, Saratoga CA
NOTE: Our classes are always free, open to ALL and conducted at the Saratoga Community Center*
Your participation in this program implies your agreement with our TERMS and CONDITIONS here http://www.saratogatemple.org/tc.html
RSVP is required to attend these classes - scroll down and RSVP
To be part of the mailing list, please enter your information below via the two forms
*We require a registration fee - see details below
To be part of the mailing list, please enter your information below via the two forms
*We require a registration fee - see details below
Registration Annual Fee:
REGISTRATION FEE FOR SARATOGA LOCATION CLASSES
All the Saratoga classes are conducted for no charge, but we are recommending an annual registration fee
Please make your payment at www.SaratogaTemple.org/donate
: Yoga, Bollywood Fitness, Pranic Healing $45 per person Annual Registration fee to enroll in all these programs
: Youth programs (except Hindi) $45 per person Annual Registration fee to enroll
This registration fee will provide you access to all STE(A)M youth program we launch except Hindi.
: Hindi class $95 per person Annual Registration fee to enroll in this program
Family registration fee (all Saratoga classes): $190 gets you all the classes for every member of the family
All the Saratoga classes are conducted for no charge, but we are recommending an annual registration fee
Please make your payment at www.SaratogaTemple.org/donate
: Yoga, Bollywood Fitness, Pranic Healing $45 per person Annual Registration fee to enroll in all these programs
: Youth programs (except Hindi) $45 per person Annual Registration fee to enroll
This registration fee will provide you access to all STE(A)M youth program we launch except Hindi.
: Hindi class $95 per person Annual Registration fee to enroll in this program
Family registration fee (all Saratoga classes): $190 gets you all the classes for every member of the family
MEET OUR INSTRUCTORS (2012)
A spiritual practice is absolutely key for the spiritual well-being of society and also for our own. This is our way of delivering some of the core tenets of Hinduism to our community, for adults and kids. Check out what Swami Vivekananda's discourse on the growth of man (below). Our weekly classes align with this aspiration for spiritual well-being of our community
GROWTH OF MAN - by Swami Vivekananda
Now, I shall tell you a theory, which I will not argue now, but simply place before you the conclusion. Each man in his childhood runs through the stages through which his race has come up; only the race took thousands of years to do it, while the child takes a few years. The child is first the old savage man—and he crushes a butterfly under his feet. The child is at first like the primitive ancestors of his race. As he grows, he passes through different stages until he reaches the development of his race. Only he does it swiftly and quickly.
Now, take the whole of humanity as a race, or take the whole of the animal creation, man and the lower animals, as one whole. There is an end towards which the whole is moving. Let us call it perfection. Some men and women are born who anticipate the whole progress of mankind. Instead of waiting and being reborn over and over again for ages until the whole human race has attained to that perfection, they, as it were, rush through them in a few short years of their life. And we know that we can hasten these processes, if we be true to ourselves.
If a number of men, without any culture, be left to live upon an island, and are given barely enough food, clothing, and shelter, they will gradually go on and on, evolving higher and higher stages of civilization. We know also that this growth can be hastened by additional means. We help the growth of trees, do we not? Left to nature they would have grown, only they would have taken a longer time; we help them to grow in a shorter time than they would otherwise have taken. We are doing all the time the same thing, hastening the growth of things by artificial means. Why cannot we hasten the growth of man?
We can do that as a race. Why are teachers sent to other countries? Because by these means we can hasten the growth of races. Now, can we not hasten the growth of individuals? We can. Can we put a limit to the hastening? We cannot say how much a man can grow in one life. You have no reason to say that this much a man can do and no more. Circumstances can hasten him wonderfully. Can there be any limit then, till you come to perfection? So, what comes of it?—That a perfect man, that is to say, the type that is to come of this race, perhaps millions of years hence, that man can come today.
And this is what the Yogis say, that all great incarnations and prophets are such men; that they reached perfection in this one life. We have had such men at all periods of the world’s history and at all times. Even this hastening of the growth must be under laws. Suppose we can investigate these laws and understand their secrets and apply them to our own needs; it follows that we grow. We hasten our growth, we hasten our development, and we become perfect, even in this life.
This is the higher part of our life, and the science of the study of mind and its powers has this perfection as its real end. The utility of this science is to bring out the perfect man, and not let him wait and wait for ages, just a plaything in the hands of the physical world, like a log of driftwood carried from wave to wave and tossing about in the ocean. This science wants you to be strong, to take the work in your own hand, instead of leaving it in the hands of nature, and get beyond this little life. It’s a great idea.
Words By Swami Vivekananda
Now, take the whole of humanity as a race, or take the whole of the animal creation, man and the lower animals, as one whole. There is an end towards which the whole is moving. Let us call it perfection. Some men and women are born who anticipate the whole progress of mankind. Instead of waiting and being reborn over and over again for ages until the whole human race has attained to that perfection, they, as it were, rush through them in a few short years of their life. And we know that we can hasten these processes, if we be true to ourselves.
If a number of men, without any culture, be left to live upon an island, and are given barely enough food, clothing, and shelter, they will gradually go on and on, evolving higher and higher stages of civilization. We know also that this growth can be hastened by additional means. We help the growth of trees, do we not? Left to nature they would have grown, only they would have taken a longer time; we help them to grow in a shorter time than they would otherwise have taken. We are doing all the time the same thing, hastening the growth of things by artificial means. Why cannot we hasten the growth of man?
We can do that as a race. Why are teachers sent to other countries? Because by these means we can hasten the growth of races. Now, can we not hasten the growth of individuals? We can. Can we put a limit to the hastening? We cannot say how much a man can grow in one life. You have no reason to say that this much a man can do and no more. Circumstances can hasten him wonderfully. Can there be any limit then, till you come to perfection? So, what comes of it?—That a perfect man, that is to say, the type that is to come of this race, perhaps millions of years hence, that man can come today.
And this is what the Yogis say, that all great incarnations and prophets are such men; that they reached perfection in this one life. We have had such men at all periods of the world’s history and at all times. Even this hastening of the growth must be under laws. Suppose we can investigate these laws and understand their secrets and apply them to our own needs; it follows that we grow. We hasten our growth, we hasten our development, and we become perfect, even in this life.
This is the higher part of our life, and the science of the study of mind and its powers has this perfection as its real end. The utility of this science is to bring out the perfect man, and not let him wait and wait for ages, just a plaything in the hands of the physical world, like a log of driftwood carried from wave to wave and tossing about in the ocean. This science wants you to be strong, to take the work in your own hand, instead of leaving it in the hands of nature, and get beyond this little life. It’s a great idea.
Words By Swami Vivekananda