We cordially invite you to our annual Memorial Day Weekend Retreat at the Vedanta Retreat in Olema. After a hiatus, due to the pandemic, we are very pleased to announce that there will be a two-day program, on Sunday, May 26, and Monday, May 27. 

As usual, our main program, which has been an interfaith program for over forty years, will be on Monday, Memorial Day, May 27. It will begin at 10:00 a.m. with an invocation, chanting, and meditation. Our guest speaker, among others, will be Professor Michael Nagler of the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation, who will speak on “The Relevance of Vedanta for America Today.”                            

Swami Tattwamayananda, the minister in charge of our Society, will also speak, and his topic will be “From Religion to Spirituality.”

The talks will be followed by a complimentary lunch. In the afternoon, there will be a Q&A session in which the audience may directly engage the speakers in spiritual discussion, which will be followed by takeout refreshments at 4 p.m. 

Michael Nagler  is professor emeritus of Classics and Comparative Literature at UC, Berkeley. Prof. Nagler cofounded the Peace and Conflict Studies Program (PACS) in which he taught the very popular  nonviolence course that was webcast in its entirety as well as PACS 90: “Meditation” and a sophomore seminar called “Why Are We Here? Great Writing on the Meaning of Life.” He is the author of The  Search for a Nonviolent Future, which received a 2002 American Book Award, as well as Our Spiritual Crisis: Recovering Human Wisdom in a Time of Violence, and The Upanishads with Eknath Easwaran, and other books as well as many articles on peace and spirituality. He was the recipient of the Jamnalal Bajaj International Award for “Promoting Gandhian Values Outside India” in 2007.  He is a student of Sri Eknath Easwaran, founder of the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation, and has lived at the Center’s ashram in Marin County since 1970.

Swami Tattwamayananda is the minister in charge of the Vedanta Society of Northern California, San Francisco. A monk of the Ramakrishna Order of India and a former teacher at the Order’s monastic Probationers’ Training Center in India, Swami Tattwamayananda is a scholar in Sanskrit, Vedic studies, and Indian philosophy. In addition to Sanskrit and Indian philosophy he has taught Hindu, Vedantic, and Buddhist scriptures, as well as having served as editor and writer in various capacities in the Order.

There is no charge for the program which will include lunch and takeout refreshments. The Vedanta Retreat is located in the small town of Olema in west Marin County, 9799 California Hwy 1 — about an hour’s drive from the Golden Gate Bridge.

Please know that the event will be live-streamed, and can be seen at this Link:  this link

SUNDAY, MAY 26, PROGRAM

 

In 1981, Swami Paritushtananda joined the Ramakrishna Order at Allahabad, India. He came to the headquarters at Belur Math, West Bengal, India in 1985 for monastic training. After his training, in 1987, he worked as an assistant to the General Secretary of the Order, who is the administrative head of the Order’s worldwide organizations. During his long twenty-one years’ service at the headquarters office, he worked under five General Secretaries. In 2008 Swami Paritushtananda was appointed as an assistant minister of the Vedanta Society of the New York. He has served as Resident Swami at the Vedanta Society of Kansas City since 2017.

 

We welcome you and your friends and family
to the return of our decades-old celebration
of the best of the interfaith tradition! 

— Please join us —