Teaching Vedanta Through Metaphor in The Upper East Side
NEW YORK — Each person views the world through a lens of their own understanding and experience, a Hindu swami told his followers at a February service at the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center of New York.
The teacher, who goes by the name Minister Swami Yuktatmananda, likened each person’s worldview to a pair of sunglasses. “If you look upon the human mind as a pair of sunglasses,” said the faith leader, “someone is wearing a set of black sunglasses, someone blue, someone green. So we see the sun as a black sun, green, blue, et cetera.”
This idea that we all view the world through different lenses, but are still staring at the same object, Yuktatmananda said, is the first principle of the stems of Vedanta: “The ultimate reality,” he said, was singular, no matter your approach to looking at it.
Vedanta is a branch of Hindu philosophy and religion that evolved out of the ideas of the Vedas, ancient Hindu scriptures considered to be some of the oldest religious texts in the world. While the philosophy has existed for millenia, the scriptures were explained by Ramakrishna Paramahansa to his disciple, Vivekananda, who brought his interpretation to the United States and other parts of the West in the late nineteenth century.
The Ramakrishna-Vivekananda center was established in 1933 as a Manhattan branch of a global movement centered around spreading the two men’s teachings. Years after the two namesakes passed away, their teachings lived on inside 17 East 94th Street.
“Today we are going to focus on four essential principles,” said Yuktatmananda. “These are the foundational principles of Vedenta.”
Yuktatmananda himself has been a practicing monk in India and the Himalayas since the 1980s. For nearly two decades, he has been leading students of Vedanta in Manhattan as the Minister and Spiritual Leader of the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center of New York.
Around 20 congregants, mostly older men and women, were scattered in the pews of the downstairs prayer room on Sunday. Yuktatmananda, dressed in a loose, saffron robe wrapped around his waist, stood at the podium. The swami spoke into the microphone, his voice projecting across the wide, windowless room.
“Each soul is divine,” said Yuktatmananda, outlining the second principle of Vedanta. He critiqued modern culture’s focus on materialism, and how it blinds people from embracing their spiritual potential. “He looks for lasting happiness from objects in the world, which keeps on receding from him,” he said. “There can be no bliss in the finite,” he added.
Behind Yuktatmananda was a marble bust of Ramakrishna, surrounded by vases of flowers. Above the statue were three giant, black and white photos of Ramakrishna, his wife, Sri Sarada Devi Vivekananda, and Vivekananda, all meditating, looking down at the temple’s students from high above.
Metaphors of fish and birds led Yuktatmananda to the third principle of Vedanta: “The Oneness of Existence.” Like the animal kingdom, everything in the world had its place, both good and bad, and they were all part of the natural order of life.
Finally, Yuktatmananda arrived at the fourth principle: the harmony of religions. He explained that there was only one true divine, and that different religions used different rituals, mythology, and philosophy to try to reach different interpretations of the same divine. Therefore all religions were accepted under Vedanta.
“On a circle there are an infinite number of points, but the center is one,” he concluded, explaining his faith’s universalist, pluralistic worldview.
He stressed the importance of not just tolerating, but accepting and embracing other faiths, and also not emphasizing superiority of one faith over another. “The Chrisitan is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Chirstian become a Hindu, but each must preserve his own spirituality,” he said, paraphrasing Vivakanada’s 1893 lecture at the Parliament of Religions.
After the sermon, Yuktatmananda led his congregants in prayer, which included praise to Allah, the name Muslims use for God, and Adonai, the name for God used by Jews. To Yuktatmananda and followers of the system of Vedanta, there was nothing blasphemous about a Hindu temple praying to the gods of other faiths.
“Religions are not contradictory; they are complementary,” said Yuktatmananda. While faiths may differ in terms of their practical dimension, Vedanta asserts that “they are different pathways to the same goal.”
In Soho, a Puja Fit for Modern Times
NEW YORK – In a pastel room in downtown Manhattan, Hindu worshippers took turns Friday evening throwing a handful of rose petals onto the statue of a god.
Ganesha, the Hindu god of prosperity, appeared regal sitting on a throne in a baby blue shrine at the center of the temple. His head, shaped like an elephant, was adorned with a gold crown, while a gold arch ran over his body, like a halo. Earlier in the evening, a priest in a white, billowy robe laid apples, bananas and grapes in front of Ganesha’s throne, and a volunteer hung a garland of purple, red and white flowers around the deity’s neck. The smell of thick incense lingered in the air.
Midway through the ceremony, the priest handed a bowl of rose petals out to worshippers, who sat cross-legged on checkered blue-and-white carpets in front of the statue. One by one, worshippers approached the shrine to shower Ganesha with the petals, eventually burying the deity in a pool of deep red. Then they took turns circling the shrine on the checkered floor.
“Ganesh is one of the gods I most resonated with, just like, by his stories and his principles,” said Laetishea Chatterjee, 18, a freshman at the New School, after attending Friday night’s service.
Chatterjee says she has been attending the downtown Hindu temple, or mandir, about once a month since moving to Manhattan in September for her studies. While she was raised atheist in Bangalore, India, and later in Boston, Massachusetts, Chatterjee explained that attending puja at the Broome Street Ganesha Temple connects her to her family’s Hindu cultural roots.
“When I come here, and it is Ganesha puja, I just feel more connected to what’s happening than when it’s some other god,” she said.
Puja is a ritual in Hinduism that involves giving offerings of fruits, flowers and prayers to a physical manifestation of a deity.
The puja at the Ganesha temple in Soho, located at the corner of Broome Street and Crosby Street above a champagne bar, takes place on Mondays,Tuesdays and Fridays. About a dozen people attended on a recent Friday evening.
“When you do offerings and chant mantra, you’re giving the deity energy and asking for blessings in return, so the deity then blesses you in life,” explained Jaya Jaya Mara, 44, an author and TEDx speaker on spirituality who was volunteering at the temple Friday night.
“Flowers definitely represent beauty and abundance and prosperity,” she said. “Because the deity has been given life, you have to honor and appease all of the senses like you would a living being,” she later added.
Earlier in the ceremony, the priest poured a carton of Trader Joe’s organic milk into a brass pitcher, then he poured the milk over a plate in front of Ganesha as a token of love and affection. The priest also rang a bell and lit fragrant incense in front of the statue, while engaging the worshippers in call-and-response style mantras honoring the god in Sanskrit.
As worshippers walked around the shrine, a volunteer captured the procession for an Instagram livestream audience via an iPhone set up onto a tripod.
Vedant Sharma, 24, a law student at New York University who recently moved from New Delhi, said that Hindu worshippers circle the shrine to worship Ganesha from all different angles.
“It’s about surrendering yourself to the divine,” said Sharma, speaking over the phone.
Sharma had Broadway tickets to see Hamilton on Friday, so he could only catch the beginning portion of the puja ceremony in person. But the livestream, later uploaded onto the temple’s official Instagram page, provided worshippers like Sharma the opportunity to fit the ceremony into their busy New York lifestyles.
“Things settle into your daily schedule,” Sharma said. “It just brings me peace,” he added.
Dharma Wisdom: Lessons From Zen Mountain Monastery
SHANDAKEN, N.Y. — On a recent Sunday morning at the Zen Mountain Monastery — nestled in the Catskill Mountains — more than a hundred worshippers gather for a service of chanting and meditation. Light floods through the windows of the lofted wooden room, illuminating the space. After two hours of chanting liturgy and sitting in Zazen meditation, the congregation stretches and shakes out their limbs before settling back down on their zabutons — cushioned mats. Some are crossed-legged, while others sit on their feet; all are turned towards the altar, prepared to receive the spiritual teaching known as the Dharma talk.
A man in a white robe — indicating his status as a senior student — walks down the aisle and approaches the altar. He performs a series of ritual bows, walks clockwise around his mat, and sits with his legs crossed. Then, a Buddhist priest walks down the aisle with a small lectern draped with a blue cloth and places it before him. The man unfolds the cloth to reveal a small notebook and reaches for a lavalier mic stowed beneath his mat. He clips the mic to his lapel, takes a deep breath, and presses his palms together, offering a gassho — a bow with hands in a prayer position — as an offering to the congregation and a sign that he's ready to begin his teaching.
A Buddhist priest in the corner of the room taps the rim of a large singing bowl three times, and the congregation begins to chant the names of the four bodhisattvas — enlightened beings who vowed to remain in the world to guide others, embodying central virtues such as compassion and wisdom that practitioners hope to cultivate.
In Buddhism, a Dharma talk is public discourse, given by a teacher or senior student, with the intention of providing practical wisdom about the practice. It is casual, with a conversational style, and has witticisms sprinkled throughout. It seems to balance the delight and discomfort of the practice perfectly, holding space for suffering while allowing joy to float to the surface.
On most Sundays at Zen Mountain, the Dharma talk is given by Sansho — the abbot of the Monastery — but he wasn't feeling well and asked Gikon — the man in the white robe — to fill in. Gikon opened by acknowledging his fear and anxiety, calling out his perfectionism and admitting that part of him didn't want to be giving this talk at all.
“The Buddhist teachings are often talked about like they're a raft,” Gikon said, “but for me, they are more like a life preserver.” He went on to give a testimony of his journey with the practice, starting with the first Buddhist teaching he read while in graduate school for social work. He learned that the ways we try to make sense of our lives are flawed. All of the great achievements that we value — philosophy, psychology, literature, art — take place just on the surface level of the mind and are therefore shallow pursuits. That was not what Gikon wanted to hear. At that point in his life, he had devoted himself to higher education — winning philosophy awards and studying the great poets. He had been in a desperate pursuit of something bigger, some undeniable truth that could give his life meaning. But when he read that first teaching, he realized there was something missing in his life and he turned to Buddhism.
The talk feels like a conversation. The congregation is deeply engaged, quick to laughter and hems and haws — vocal affirmations of a shared experience. Gikon speaks candidly about his fear and his daily struggle to go within. All the ways he used his mind to beat on his mind, in a failed attempt at mindfulness—or maybe control.
He encourages the congregation to sit with their fear, using it as a starting point to go deeper, through all their underlying assumptions, to the root of their suffering — the seed through which the fear was planted. Gikon credits the practice of Zazen — seated meditation — for changing his life and then presses his palms together, in one last gassho, indicating the end of his Dharma talk.
Rhythms of Reverence: Chanting and Meditation at Fire Lotus Temple
NEW YORK — On a recent Sunday morning, amid intermittent rain, worshippers leapt around growing puddles on the sidewalk outside Fire Lotus Temple in Brooklyn before entering through the large wooden doors. Located on the corner of Third Avenue and State Street in Park Slope, the temple’s aged brick facade and wooden placards stood out among the surrounding residential buildings. Upon entering the temple, the smell of incense greeted each visitor, inviting them into the sanctuary. One by one, people lined up in the vestibule, waiting to bow at the altar inside the temple to clear and purify their minds before crossing the threshold and entering the sacred space.
The sanctuary was a large room with low ceilings. There were 40 meditation mats, spaced out in even rows on the floor in front of the temple’s altar. Mara Leighton, a Brooklyn native dressed in navy sweats with her long brown hair thrown into a messy bun, entered the sanctuary minutes before the service began. She found a meditation cushion to her liking, and sat cross-legged, closing her eyes, taking a deep breath and settling into her mat.
After an opening procession and a series of bows, a Buddhist priest handed out liturgy books before taking a seat at the front of the room next to two large singing bowls. These bronze bowls—when gently struck or played with a mallet—produce rich, resonant tones that support the chanting by setting the rhythm and creating a meditative atmosphere. Everyone opened their books to page three, "The Heart Sutra." The priest scanned the room, waiting for everyone to settle before picking up a wooden mallet and slowly tracing the rim on the bowl three times. As the third ring started to fade, another priest made his way to a large bronze gong, or kesu, sitting in the back corner of the room. There was a brief pause, and then the priest struck the gong.
BONG.
The sound echoed through the sanctuary, and the head priest stood and chanted, “Maha Prajna Paramita Heart Sutra.” Then a third priest picked up a mallet and started banging a wooden drum carved like a fish holding a pearl in its mouth.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
There was a moment of silence, and then the congregation joined in with “Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, doing deep Prajna Paramita,” spoken in traditional Sanskrit. The loud, rhythmic beats reverberated through the room. Even standing on thick mats, you still could feel the vibrations in your feet. Leighton stood, with her sock feet balancing half on her mat, glancing around the room, doing her best to pronounce the foreign lyrics. The chants got a little louder during the English verses, “Form is exactly emptiness, emptiness exactly form. Sensation, conception, discrimination, awareness are likewise like this.”
The Heart Sutra is the most popular sutra, or sacred teaching, in Mahāyāna Buddhism. Every morning, Buddhists around the world chant this sutra together as a reminder that form is an illusion. The Sutra goes through five skandhas, or the mental factors responsible for the rise of craving and clinging: form, sensations, perception, formations, and consciousness. The lyrics encourage Buddhists to release association with form to connect with a higher realm. But the chanting is not about the lyrics; it’s an invitation to allow the practice to carry them beyond wisdom, towards “wisdom beyond wisdom,” to a far shore of awakening that exists beyond suffering.
The resonant sounds filled the air, pulsing vibrations swirled through the sanctuary. Everyone chanted in unison, “Far beyond deluded thoughts; this is Nirvana.” As they chanted the final words of the Heart Sutra, translated as "Gone, gone, everyone gone to the other shore, awakening, svaha, the perfection of wisdom,” all the voices funneled together in a deep monotoned decrescendo, ending in abrupt silence.
‘Pray With Everything in You’: The Physical Matches the Spiritual at the Pentecostal Anointing Church of God
NEW YORK — On a misty January morning, an unassuming building located southeast of Brooklyn’s Prospect Park rumbles with the sounds of voices, crying out to God. Based solely on the volume, one would never guess the small congregation that makes up the Pentecostal Anointing Church of God.
Inside the building, the aggressive sound is starkly contrasted by a visually calming space. White and blue linen drape the walls, and a blue carpet stretches from the entrance to a small stage at the front of the room. Just under 30 people make up the church community, most of them women and children dressed in white robes with either blue or white head coverings.
At the front of the stage, the congregational leader, who is referred to as Mommy, guides the small crowd in prayer. Mommy leads the church alongside her husband and head pastor, Babajide Balogun, who is referred to as Daddy. Together, they are “parents in the Lord” to this church community.
Two hours and 45 minutes in, this is the second time this service the congregation has stopped to pray like this. At the beginning of the service, as people trickled in, the community engaged in an equally boisterous prayer where they were told to “pray with everything in you,” by a congregant leading the prayer.
Other than Mommy’s voice coming through the microphone, individual voices are difficult to pick out. Nonetheless, everyone is deep in prayer — eyes closed, hands lifted. A few women rock back and forth as they stand; others tremble, their shoulders shaking left to right. As time passes, the energy in the room escalates, with some beginning to yell.
In the Nigerian Pentecostal faith, the act of “praying in the Spirit” can be as physical as it is spiritual. The Bible states in Ephesians 6:18, “Pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and request.” Nigerian Pentecostals believe that through prayer, they access the Living God, who listens to their requests and praises.
Towards the front of the room a woman cries out “hallelujah,” as she falls to the floor. Sister Grace, dressed in a white robe with a white head covering, shakes rhythmically, her hands and knees touching the carpet. Her face is scrunched up, and sweat drips off her temple as she laments loudly. She is the only one in the room that has fallen to her hands and knees.
“You are overcoming that mindset that is not of God,” Mommy says into the microphone. “Hallelujah! Thank you, Jesus.”
Within a few minutes the room slowly quiets down and eyes start opening, marking the end of the service. Sister Grace slowly stands back to her feet and then collapses into the chair behind her, wiping her cheeks.
Reflecting on her experience, Sister Grace said it’s hard to describe the reasoning behind her physical movements. “All I know is I came in feeling burdened from the week,” Sister Grace said. “It was the Lord that gave me energy. He’s really doing a work.”