MORE ABOUT US

Our Practices

Chant, Serve, and Love

Our practices are how we live our lives and collaborate with others.

Chant:

  • Chanting the Holy Names and glories of the Supreme Being.
  • Cultivating understanding of the Supreme Being through discourse and reflection.

Serve:

  • Adhering to the instructions of Sri Guru, the realised souls, and the revealed scriptures.
  • Making our every thought, word, and deed an act of dedication to the Supreme.
  • Assisting and caring for fellow servants of the Supreme.
  • Engaging in responsible service activities within a spiritual community.

Love:

  • Wholeheartedly striving to satisfy Sri Guru, the devotees, and the Supreme Being, making their happiness our happiness.
  • Inspiring others to realise and act according to their true nature as loving servants of the Supreme.
  • Treating everyone we meet with loving kindness.

Our Principles

Sincerity, Surrender, and Sacrifice

Our principles define our culture, govern our decision-making, and give us a means to assess our progress on the path.

Sincerity:

  • Internal purity
  • Desire for the highest good for both ourselves and all other living beings
  • Enquiry into absolute truth
  • Enthusiasm for spiritual practice
  • Integrity in all circumstances
  • Discipline throughout daily life
  • Non-imitation
  • Aspiration for the highest ideal
  • Hankering for the highest attainment

Surrender:

  • Faith that service to the Supreme is the fulfilment of life
  • Embracing the Supreme Being as our beloved guardian for whom we exist
  • Cultivating the positive: consciously developing our vision, appreciation, and adjustment to the ever-new grace of the Supreme
  • Letting go of the negative: misconceptions, egotism, possessiveness, worldly interests, attachments, expectations, etc.

Sacrifice:

  • Self-giving: humbly offering ourselves as an instrument for service
  • Serving Sri Guru, the devotees, and the Supreme without any selfish interest

Our Aspirations

Compassion, Authenticity, and Progress

Our aspirations are the focus we maintain within our conduct, relationships, and endeavours to serve.

We aspire to be:

Compassionate:

  • Perceptive: to realise that the spiritual well-being of others is naturally interwoven with our own.
  • Well-intended: to desire the spiritual well-being of others irrespective of their worldly condition.
  • Forgiving: to forgive others regardless of their actions and intentions.
  • Respectful: to appreciate traditions, communities, institutions, practices, and individuals for their respective contributions to the absolute whole.
  • Generous: to share with others the grace, understanding, resources, and opportunities we have received along the spiritual path.
  • Loving: to satisfy others with empathy, affection, and service.

Authentic:

  • Resolute: dedicated to spiritual practice with the conviction that it is our sole duty and prospect.
  • Authoritative: aware of and adherent in all fields of life to the instructions of Sri Guru, the realised souls, and the revealed scriptures.
  • Reasonable: understanding the purpose for which we are meant to do all that we do.
  • Heartfelt: discerning and adhering to our conscience in all our decisions and actions.
  • Personal: sharing with others our personal experience, understanding, convictions, and queries in spiritual life.
  • Patient: being ready to work through the emotions and challenges we encounter in our relationships and service whenever need be for the betterment of everyone involved.

Progressive:

  • Uncompromising: being true to the spirit; remaining dedicated to the finest understanding of truth that we have developed under all circumstances.
  • Radical: foregoing anything that shows itself to be contrary to the pursuit of our ideals.
  • Dynamic: embracing anything that shows itself to be conducive to advanced cultivation of our ideals.
  • Relevant: tackling the recurrent issues, challenges, and pitfalls individuals and groups encounter on the spiritual path.
  • Systematic: understanding and presenting  revealed truth in a comprehensive and ordered manner.
  • Clear: making spiritual principles and practice as intelligible and actionable as possible.
  • Poised: ensuring every form and expression we make is laden with spiritual substance.
  • Concise: efficiently expressing a maximum of substance using a minimum of form.
  • Insightful: recognising what is truly meaningful and leaving aside all that is inessential.
  • Cutting edge: refining our expression of the ancient yet innovative, ever-present yet ever-new absolute truth in the midst of an ever-changing social environment.
  • Vigorous: earnestly embracing, learning from, and proceeding through all tests on the spiritual path.
  • Sweet: focusing on the eternal, serene, and sublime truth and joy that is the mainstay of spiritual life.

Our Objectives

Personal development and Distribution

Our objectives guide our personal lives and collective endeavours.

Personal development:

  • Living according to our principles, values, and aspirations.
  • Steadily engaging in our practices.
  • Daily observing our commitments.
  • Regularly meeting with fellow practitioners.

Distribution:

  • Propagating our principles, values, and practices.
  • Sharing personal experience with others.
  • Distributing spiritual resources, such as literature and prasadam.
  • Organising meetings, events, programmes, festivals, and tours.

Our Commitments

Our commitments are our entrance, parameters, and basis for progress on the spiritual path.

  1. To take shelter of Sri Guru, receive initiation from him, and adhere to his instructions throughout life.
  2. To dedicate the whole of our lives to the service of the Supreme and forsake everything unrelated to it.
  3. To engage in service to the Supreme under the guidance of Sri Guru or an exemplary devotee.
  4. To fulfil a daily quota of chanting of the mahamantra.
  5. To abstain in particular from non-vegetarian food, gambling, illicit sex, and intoxication.

More Information

If you haven’t already, read here Who We Are and About Us.