Light of the Vedas

September 2016 ISSUE

www.vedanet.com

Karma Yoga
Devotion
Dharma

&

Our Upcoming Programs in India

We have had a busy year of work and travel so far, Kapha Collective, which will take you from Delhi
with many new creative ventures and look forward through Sikh sites to the beautiful Himalayas of
to another season of fruition and transformation for Himachal Pradesh.
all!
Enjoy this sacred sojourn experiencing the deeper
Self,
understanding one's Karma and the divine play
In May we were guests of honor by the government
of Madhya Pradesh, for the Ujjain Kumbha Mela, the of our own spiritual journey through Delhi,
worlds' largest spiritual gathering. We took time off Kurukshetra, Anandpur Sahib, powerful Shakti
in the summer, with programs in Europe and in our Peethas in Palampur Kangra Valley, Dharamshala
second Yoga Shakti program in Santa Fe in August the abode of HH The Dalai Lama (if HH Dalai Lama
that was well attended. Now we look to the coming is there we will organize a darshan with him),
Golden Temple Amritsar and then to Rishikesh.
year.

2017 Ganga Yoga Shakti

Retreat March 11-16.

Vamadeva has
continued to write
many new articles for
several important
India publications as
well as Hinduism
Today. His new online course on Vedic
Counseling should be
ready around the
beginning of 2017. His
new book on the Yoga
of the Four States
(Waking, Dream, Deep Sleep and ever-wakeful
Turiya) is also nearing completion.

Yogini Shambhavi will be doing more Vedic

astrology consultations in the future, covering all
aspects of life, health, relationship, happiness and
We are happy to announce that our March 2017 spirituality. Please consult her by email if you are
programs in India are open for advanced interested. yoginishambhavi@aol.com.
registration. The highlight is our tenth annual Ma
Ganga Yoga Shakti Retreat, March 11-16 at the From Oct. 13 to Dec. 10, 2016 we will be in India for a
beautiful Glass House above Rishikesh. The retreat wide set of programs in Delhi, Bhopal, Goa,
will feature special teachings on Awakening the Varanasi, Jaipur, Kolkata and Kurukshetra.
Yoga Shakti. We will celebrate the auspicious
Hindu Holi Festival of Colors on the sacred banks of Vamadeva is an organizer for the fourth DharmaMaa Ganga in our own private setting.
Dhamma Conference of Sanchi University of
Buddhist and Indic Studies in Bhopal, Madhya
Holi will occur on March 12 -13. March 12 is a Pradesh. He will be a distinguished speaker at the
powerful mystical Night the Hola Night before Third India Ideas Conclave that includes many
Holi when we light a sacred re. This is a most i m p o r t a n t l e a d e r s f r o m I n d i a ' s n a t i o n a l
powerful time to perform your Mantra Sadhana to government.
gain the Siddhi or goal of your practice. March 13 we
will celebrate Holi with owers and have our Do note our Website, Facebook and Twitter, for
ritualistic Ganga Snana or group dip in the holy more detailed information.
waters of Maa Ganga.
Note ier and registration form.

The 2017 Yoga Tandava

Experience in India March 311
Note ier and registration form.
The Yoga Shakti retreat will be preceded by the third
Yoga Tandava Tour, March 3-11, organized by

Karma Yoga,
Devotion & Dharma
Yogini Shambhavi Devi

Karma Yoga is best

understood as the pursuit of
excellence for the sake of the
Divine. It does not merely
refer to any kind of service
work, even nobly inspired.
In the practice of true
Karma Yoga our every
undertaking requires a
surrender to the Divine at
the highest level of our
being. In our conventional
lives, we usually act only for
personal rewards and
recognition. Our action is
born of self-interest,
directly or indirectly,
aiming at money, fame or
power.

wisdom one has to rst

work at dissolving the
separative self. The
ego creates confusion
as it impels us to fulll
its desires. When we
are pursuing the ego's
limited goals, we
cannot access
universal energies or
receive Divine grace.
The constricted egoconsciousness veils
our buddhi or inner
intelligence,
strengthening
subconscious urges
and dependencies on
the outer world.

Veiling the
Truth of Our
Reality

In the pursuit of our selfinterest we get trapped in a

division, conict and
competition with others.
Our separative ego has only
The ego has a narrow
limited knowledge, which
vision that affords us
always has a bias to it, not seeing the whole, taking incomplete and one-sided knowledge. The selfits own desires as paramount. To draw in Divine dominated person lacks integral knowledge and the

ability to objectively see the whole. We can spend

years learning from different sources, cutting and
pasting teachings, borrowing great ideas, and yet
our lives will remain bound by ignorance and
sorrow, if our underlying vision does not move
beyond the separative self.
As spiritual aspirants, we sometimes hide behind a
spiritual veiling, cloaking our deeper fears, anguish,
guilt and animosity with a pretended sanctity in our
outer behavior. We ignore the forces of darkness that
arise within us as anger, jealousy, doubt and
despair, allowing them to invade and poison our
sacred space. Our personal relationships can reect
this disturbance in numerous ways of confusion and
struggle.
Only when we nd repose in our true Self can we
experience true inner peace. Trying to emulate,
impersonate or imitate any outer personality, be it
the partner, teacher or Guru will only obscure our
own inner reality. We must rst be who we are in our
true nature, apart from all external inuences.
Boldly facing our truth at the core level of our being
requires being a 'veera' or brave one, a spiritual
warrior. Only after we have rst healed ourselves of
the weakness of ego reactions can we bring a higher
life and consciousness into the world.

The Yogi and Karma Yoga

A true Yogi or Yogini offers his or her work, from the
smallest tasks to lifelong pursuits as Karma Yoga,
service to the Divine. Cultivating such a pure
awareness is like nurturing a garden. Its owering is
Mother Nature's gift to us, not merely the result of
our own personal efforts. We plant and nurture the
seeds with devotion to experience their eventual
blossoming and fruition. Our highest dharma is to
perform all actions in the best possible manner with
a whole-hearted intention as a gift for all. An act of
selessness, seeking a greater good, allows a person
to better perform, while action motivated by selfinterest keeps us in the ego's realm of incapacity.

Immersing ourselves totally in our work as a Yogi is

an experience of Samadhi, where we merge
ourselves with the Divine. It is a state of unity
consciousness, letting go of our outer self. Holding
this dedicated motivation through everything we do
in our lives is the key to our complete spiritual wellbeing.
We usually view the pursuit of excellence at a
personal level, as a kind of victory, winning or
achievement for ourselves. When we fail in our
personal efforts, we fall into anguish and anger,
forgetting that in truth that we are but a small part of
the universal movement. The pursuit of excellence
at a spiritual level is very different. It is done as a selfexceeding and self-offering, not as a self-assertion.
Sadhana is our primary form of Karma Yoga in
which one needs to cultivate perseverance,
discipline and inspiration. Karma Yoga starts with
taking responsibility for our actions and being
aware of our true nature beyond action. As long as
we choose to blame someone else for who we are, we
lose the capacity to aspire to something higher. We
disempower ourselves and our spiritual efforts,
turning ourselves into the product of what others
have done. Mindlessly performing service or seva
may not take us beyond ignorance either. We must
work out of a higher determination and continue
steadily along our path of moving beyond the mind
to the oneness of the heart.

Spiritual Pursuit of Excellence

The spiritual pursuit of excellence is an offering
from the heart to further the evolution of Divine
Consciousness in the world to bring peace and
harmony to all beings. Sadhana or spiritual practice
is the creative pursuit of a sadhaka, like the work of
an artist, to harmonise ourselves with the higher
forces of the cosmic universe.
The artist with a spiritual inspiration colours the
canvas of life with Love, Light and Bliss. The
ordinary artist in pursuit of fame and recognition
projects personal emotions and motivation, often

We must understand that the cosmic universe is

auspicious and nurturing to be able to access its
blessings. Usually we want the world to revolve
around us, playing to our whims and fancies, as if
our ego was the center of all existence. Yet the key to
our complete well-being is found when we learn to
revolve with the cosmic universe that dwells in our
The Divine does not merely give its grace blindly. deepest awareness.
Grace only ows to those who make the highest
effort in their own being rst. We have to work Taking responsibility for our lives, our actions and
incessantly towards accessing the powers of Light. our thoughts, and understanding the deeper nature
We have to nurture the mind, heart and body as a of existence unfolds the ow of Divine grace that
sacred vessel to hold the unlimited ow of Divine allows us to go beyond our limitations. Karma Yoga
Love. Healing our lower nature and emptying our is the highest art of making our entire lives the most
human vessel of all animosity, resentment, distress beautiful offering to the highest light. But without a
and suffering allows the higher grace to descend profound labor of love and self-transcendence at the
core of our being, we cannot move beyond the
into us.
darkness that is entrenched in our material world.
extending to instablity and anxiety, trying to make
their work into the center of life, rather than a
reection looking for the adulation of others, to to
exceed the self to a higher awareness.

The Flow of Divine Grace

Sadhana is not about one hour in the morning and

the evening; it is about holding to the presence of
Divinity in every moment of our lives, waking or
sleeping. Spiritual sadhana is about the dedicated
effort to exceed ourselves for a higher
consciousness. Our lives must reect an inner search
and striving, in which we continual direct all aspects
of our nature to their highest potential.
Today's seeker looks at the teacher as a performer
who makes us feel good about ourselves, not the
true Guru who teaches the reality of Being.
Entertainment and media events begin most
spiritual gatherings and can set their tone. Silencing
the mind and emotions, on the other hand, requires
an internal struggle to face the deeper truth that
questions everything about who we are and what
we think about reality. But that alone takes us
beyond our limitations. For this reason, the ancient
Rishis portrayed Sadhana as a battle, a sacrice and
a journey to climb a lofty mountain. One must
continue to look upward and not be content to stop
and rest along the way.