Come Celebrate Navaratri with Us, October 4th-13th

Come Join Us for Our Annual Autumnal Equinox Celebration, September 21st, 7-9pm

Come Celebrate Ganesha's Birthday With Us!

Come Celebrate Krishna's Birthday With Us!

Come Celebrate Guru Purnima with Shiva Mandir

GURU PURNIMA CELEBRATION

July 2013

Presented by Shiva Sai Mandir USA and Sai Humanitarian Outreach

The full moon represents enlightenment, the full flowering of consciousness. On the Vedic calendar, Guru Purnima is the Full Moon that falls near the Summer Solstice, the month of greatest light. It is the time when all divine teachers shower blessings on the earth, providing increased energy for our spiritual awakening.

Use this Full Moon time to meditate and cultivate silence, honor your teachers and dedicate your spiritual practice to the service of the world.

You are cordially invited to participate in the following activities:

Guru Purnima Sri Chakra Process to Awaken Brahma Consciousness
This process will show you how to observe and communicate with your Inner Guru, your Brahma Consciousness. It will remove depression, help you fulfill your desires, increase happiness and health. You will develop the ability to work directly with your own Inner Guru. This process includes a daily meditation and mantra. Together we will harness the powerful energies of the Guru Purnima Moon cycle.

This 41-day process will begin on Monday, July 8 (New Moon)
Register before July 8th. Dakshina for this course is $54 (scholarships available).

Sri Chakra Yantra
Mondays, July 8 & 22, 5-7 pm

On the New Moon, July 8, we will learn the yantra and the Sri Chakra mantra. This highly-powerful yantra brings protection to whatever building it's placed in and draws high prosperity. On the Full Moon, July 22, we will emboss the yantra in copper and dedicate it during the Full Moon Puja on Monday, July 22. Dakshina, $108 (scholarships available).

Guru Purnima Celebration
Sunday, July 21, 5-8 pm

Guru Puja, Kirtan and Potluck. At this community-wide celebration, we will honor Gurus from all lineages. Please bring a fruit or a flower and Dakshina. Dakshina (a monetary offering) will activate your intention and participation. You are invited to bring a picture or image of your Guru lineage.

Full Moon Puja

Monday, July 22, 7-9 pm

On this actual Full Moon night, we will enliven the qualities of the moon in our awareness and the environment. As part of this Puja, everyone will receive some blessed sandalwood paste to enhance their meditation practices.

All events take place at Shiva Sai Mandir
1391 S. Pennsylvania St., Denver, CO 80210

RSVP: Shivamandir@gmail.com, 303-722-3658.

A Word to the Wise: Maya

A painting entitled "Maya The World of Illusion" by Kathleen Scarboro. This contemporary painting illustrates parallel dimensions and states of consciousness.

The Vedic Studies Class, "A Word to the Wise," had its seventh meeting on Monday, May 20th at Shiva Sai Mandir Center for Vedic and Yogic Studies. The word we discussed was "Maya." Below follows an introduction to the course so named:

A painting entitled "Maya" by Julia Guthrie. A contemporary interpretation
of Maya Devi, she is swathed in veils depicting the cosmos and elements
of manifest creation, including time. She is beckoning us to move with her through
portals into other dimensions.

Illusion and Reality

What is seen is not the Truth

What is cannot be said

Trust comes not without seeing

Nor understanding without words

The wise comprehends with knowledge

To the ignorant it is but a wonder

Some worship the formless God

Some worship His various forms

In what way He is beyond these attributes

Only the Knower knows

That music cannot be written

How can then be the notes

Says Kabir, awareness alone will overcome illusion

-Kabir

Maya Devi showing her manifest forms,
likely a Nepalese image.

I imagine into being the whole world, moving and unmoving, through the power of my Maya.

Yet that same Maya is not separate from me; this is the highest truth . . .
In me this whole world is woven in all directions, O Mountain.
I am the Lord and the Cosmic Soul; I am myself the Cosmic Body.
I am Brahma, Vishnu, and Rudra, as well as Gauri, Brahmi, and Vaishnavi.
I am the sun and the stars and I am the Lord of the stars.
I am the various aspects of beasts and birds; I am also the outcase and thief.
I am the evil doer and the wicked deed; I am the righteous person and the virtuous deed.
I am certainly female and male, and asexual as well.
And whatever thing, anywhere, you see or hear,
That entire thing I pervade, ever abiding inside it and outside.
There is nothing at all, moving or unmoving, that is devoid of me;
For if it were, it would be a nonentity, like the son of a barren woman.
Just as a single rope may appear variously as a serpent or wreath,So also I may appear in the form of the Lord and the like; there is no doubt in this matter.
The world cannot appear without an underlying basis.
Accordingly, the world comes to be only through my own being and in no other way.

–from the Devi Gita
(from Teachings of the Hindu Mystics, edited by Andrew Harvey, Shambhala, 2001, pp. 49-50)

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We have a discussion going and class material on this subject. Please let us know if you would like to be a part of the class. Materials are available for registered participants. For more information and to register for the class, follow this link: http://www.vedicstudies.org/a-word-to-the-wise.html — at Shiva Mandir Center for Vedic Studies.

Today We Honor All the Mamas and Mama Mama

Today we honor all the mamas and mama mama with some poetry and a recording of the Sri Lalita Sahasranama (1000 Names of Divine Mother). May you and all the Mothers in your life be blessed!

We have a beautiful 

mother
Her hills
are buffaloes
Her buffaloes
hills.

We have a beautiful
mother
Her oceans
are wombs
Her wombs
oceans.

We have a beautiful
mother
Her teeth
the white stones
at the edge
of the water
the summer
grasses
her plentiful
hair.

We have a beautiful
mother
Her green lap
immense
Her brown embrace
eternal
Her blue body
everything we know.

--Alice Walker.