Sri Ramakrishna Sharada Ashrama – Embracing Spiritual Unity and Service
Ours is a group of sincere spiritual seekers following the teaching of Holy Trio – Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa Deva, Holy Mother Sharada Devi and Swami Vivekananda who have come together to establish a spiritual community which will work in organized way of living together for common spiritual pursuits with an attitude of service and expansion. Our initiative is to establish an institution in the USA to provide spiritual, cultural and educational training by those who have dedicated their life for the welfare of society.
All sincere seekers are welcome to partake of this wisdom and attain spiritual fulfilment. The inspiration for this institution is derived from the monks, nuns, and renunciates of Sri Ramakrishna Ashrama (Bailur Math) and the services they are offering to the society in India, to which we have the spiritual affinity. This Ashrama at Bailur, Karkala, Udupi (popularly known as Bailur Math) is not a branch of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission (Belur), but it works on the same principles and closely follows the same ideals and ideology.
Our Mission
Our mission is to establish a Spiritual, Cultural and Educational institution wherein all essential knowledge in the Spiritual field, and training will be provided to the seekers by those who have offered their life exclusively for the welfare of the society.
Way to Achieve Our Mission
Our organization aims to support 5 types of human development – Physical, Intellectual, Moral, Emotional, and Spiritual. This all-encompassing development is essential to achieving absolute fulfillment in life. This institution will work in accordance with the principles specified in the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda – strive for one’s own spiritual evolution while practicing universal love, sacrifice and service to humanity.
Our Vision
Our vision is to establish a place where permanent residents, both monastics and non-monastics, who renounce worldly life can live together as a community bound by the common goals of living a divine life and offering service to society and mankind. We aspire to re-live the life of Sri Ramakrishna’s time where all his monastic and house-holder disciples lived together as an extended family sharing the bond of divine love like a cluster of stars.
Spiritual Community – The Future
Spirituality is the only way to unite the split and divided humanity into one family with bonds of mutual love and respect. This institution aims at cultivating and infusing that spirituality.
Why is the spiritual community (Satsangha) important?
Living together is essential for our spiritual growth for the following reasons:
- It offers us opportunities to transcend our inner enemies (ego, jealousy, likes and dislikes, anger etc.) through dependence on divine grace.
- The Saatvik quality in our personality grows in the company of devotees singing Bhajans, enjoying Lord’s company, and seeing the expression of divine love manifesting in everyday life.
- Our inner awareness (Antar Prajna) slowly gets filled with divine and spiritual consciousness.
- Our heart that usually clings to personal concerns, expands to love the entire humanity and all beings.
- We learn to see the divine in others.
- We develop the ability to transcend the transactional nature of the material world and to be in tune with Mother Nature and become her agent.
Another important help community living provides is the protection it provides from external influences and disturbances to our spiritual sadhana.
Location
The Ashrama is located in San Jose, CA and we have daily vesper service. Everyone is welcome to join.