January 5, 2025

The new year is here! The new numbers that make up the new year always look a bit odd (until we get used to them), but 2025 has arrived. It’s hard to believe that we are now a quarter the way into the 21st century, but here we are. In this Sunday’s service we continue with part five of our theme “The Science of Religion and our UU Shared Values.” This week we introduce Paramahansa Yogananda’s book “The Science of Religion” and how it relates to our Unitarian Universalist heritage of religious pluralism. We will view a short video clip from the 2014 documentary “Awake: The Life of Yogananda” and discuss the importance of the scientific method in religious formation. Study material for session five is included in this week’s Support Page. 

YouTube Channel content for this week is a “yule log” service in which we explored the good, as well as the not so good things, that occurred in 2024. It is a good practice of “letting go” from the past year and opening to the new as we head into 2025. We hope you can join us for one of the services online or in-person.

Enjoy the week-end and keep warm!

In Ministry,

Dave

Study Material 

(session five)

from the back cover;

The Science of Religion is an elaboration of the historic talk given by Yogananda in Boston in 1920. Since its first publication, the book has been introducing readers to the profound understanding that Yogananda brought to the West from India – a concept that is ancient and yet entirely suited for our modern age – that the purpose of life is to permanently remove suffering and to know oneself as Spirit, “the fountainhead of Bliss.”

from the forward;

On September 19, 1920, The City of Sparta, the first steamer sailing from India to America after the close of the First World War, arrived in Boston’s Chelsea Harbor. Among its disembarking passengers was a “picturesque figure,” as described by The Boston Globe, who “has come to attend a religious conference in Boston and later plans to make a lecturing tour through the country.” Virtually unknown in America upon his arrival, Paramahansa Yogananda would soon become one of the leading ambassadors of yoga in the West.

Three hundred fears earlier, in the fall of 1620, America’s Pilgrim Founders had landed just south of Boston, at Plymouth. Their arrival had resulted in the birth of a new nation, which declared freedom of religion to be an inalienable right of the people. To commemorate the three-hundredth anniversary of their event, the American Unitarian Association had arranged a “Pilgrim Tercentenary Meeting” of the International Congress of Religious Liberals, which was to begin in early October 1920, to discuss from a religious point of view the significance of freedom. It was to this historic conference that the young Swami Yogananda had been invited. He would, speak on the subject of the science of religion, and address humankind’s highest freedom: that which comes from realization of the soul’s eternal, immutable oneness with God.

Among the organizers of the event was Charles Wendte, an American Unitarian minister who had been involved in the establishment of the 1893 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago, and who along with the other Unitarian leaders pioneering this new effort, was successful in drawing religious delegates from other faith traditions from around the world. Wendte and the other Congress organizers called for a building of a foundation for a “League of Religions which shall be the counterpart and ally of the political League of Nations.”

Such a vision had much in common with Paramahansa Yogananda’s own. In his speech before the Congress delegates, the swami would underscore the universal spirituality underlying all religions, and some years later he would call for “a League of Souls and a United World…in which every nation will be a useful part, guided by God through man’s enlightened conscience.” In the publication New Pilgrimages of the Spirit, it was reported: “In fluent English and a forcible delivery Swami Yogananda gave an address of a philosophical character on ’The Science of Religion’…Religion, he maintained, is universal and it is one. We cannot possibly universalize particular customs and conventions, but the common element in religion can be universalized, and we can ask all alike to follow and obey it. As God is one, necessary for all, so religion is one, necessary and universal. It is only the limited human point of view that overlooks the underlying and universal element in the so-called different religions of the world.”

Yogananda’s address, which took place on October 6, 1920, at Unity House near Boston Commons, was one of the most significant events in the history of America’s acceptance and understanding of  India’s science of Yoga, in that it marked the beginning of the work of “the man who more than anyone else has made Yoga available to the West.” The vibrant young Swami from India did not aim to make his hearers convert to Hinduism, nor to any other religion. Instead, he dwelt on the universal science that underlies and unites all religious paths, and said that each individual, regardless of sectarian affiliation, could actually experience God as a living reality in his or her life. His talk struck a deep chord in Boston: Here was what the New England Transcendentalists had sought in their solitude and contemplation a few decades earlier – a freedom beyond social and political liberty, an experience of the Divine not dependent upon creed or dogma.

From the time he landed on American soil, he tirelessly labored to bring India’s highest wisdom and highest techniques of meditation to seekers around the world, laying the foundation for the beginning of a new global civilization based upon the eternal principles of universal spirituality, in which each man and woman has the potential to personally communicate with God and thereby bring a higher and more enlightened consciousness into the civic, national, and international concerns of the human family.

Forward written by the Self Realization Fellowship for the 100th anniversary of Yogananda’s arrival in America and delivery of his lecture, The Science of Religion. 

(organization founded by Paramahansa Yogananda) 

from the introduction;

This book aims to point out the universality and unity of religion…If by religion we understand only practices, particular tenets, dogmas, customs, and conventions, then there may be the grounds for the existence of so many religions. But if religion means primarily God-consciousness, or the realization of God both within and without, and secondarily a body of beliefs, tenets, and dogmas, then, strictly speaking, there is but one religion in the world, for there is but one God…This book gives a psychological definition of religion, not an objective definition based on dogmas or tenets. In other words, it seeks t  make religion a question of our whole inward being and attitude, and not a mere observance of certain rules and precepts.

Additional content related to the topic;

Sri Swami Satchidananda coined the phrase “Truth is One, Paths are Many” and illustrates one of the key components of modern religion.

The purpose of any religion is to educate us about our spiritual unity.

“Truth is One, Paths are Many.” The great sages and saints have experienced the same truth but only expressed it in different ways. It does not matter what name you give to the nameless Spirit. The same light is shining through many different colored lamps. When we look at the outside alone, we will only see differences. But when we go a little deeper, we see the oneness. God gave each of us a different costume, different makeup, a different role, in order to play our part in the world. But behind all these differences we are all one in Spirit. When we forget that and identify ourselves with the superficial differences, we lose sight of the spiritual oneness.

When we argue about what is the right path and whose religion is best, there is something terribly wrong with our approach. Then, we are looking at the superficial side of religion and forgetting to go deep into its foundation. If we did go deep, we would find that all the religions ultimately talk about the same God, the same Truth; but somehow we ignore that common base and continue to fight over the superficial aspects. It is time for us to recognize that there is one truth and many approaches. No religion is superior and no religion is inferior. We are all doing God’s work. We should learn to live together and work toward one goal: to share and care, love and give.

Interfaith dialogue is designed to bring people together so that we can remember the unity behind the diversity.  Sometimes people ask if the interfaith approach is an effort to have all faiths merge into one. That is not the point. Our aim should be to understand the unity and enjoy the variety. Ultimately, we all aim for the same truth while walking on different paths. So, in the name of interfaith understanding, we are not advocating uniformity, but universality.

Swami Satchidananda     (1914-2002)

THIS WEEK’S YOUTUBE SERVICE:

HERE IS THE SERVICE LINK FOR THIS WEEK’S YOUTUBE SERVICE

(Please note it won’t be active until 10AM on Sunday morning)THE LINK WILL GO OUT LATER IN THE DAY

HERE IS THE ZOOM LINK FOR SUNDAY COFFEE HOUR:
Topic: UUHoulton zoom coffee hour & check-inTime: Jan 5, 2025 11:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)       Join Zoom Meetinghttps://us06web.zoom.us/j/87221608739?pwd=V1HcigYLRIuRiNQd433DGJyYUm1QMg.1
Meeting ID: 872 2160 8739Passcode: 516402

Calendar of Events @UUHoulton

Jan 5 Sunday Service:  David Hutchinson

Jan 7 Meditation Group   4PM    (online)

Jan 12 Sunday Service:  Open-Pulpit Service

Jan 18 There is no LGBTQ+ luncheon this month

Jan 18 Houlton Coffeehouse  7-9PM

Jan 19 Sunday Service:  Randi Bradbury & Ira Dyer

Jan 20  MLK Observation in The Cup Cafe   (time to be determined)

Jan 21 Meditation Group  4PM  (online)Jan 26 Sunday Service:  David Hutchinson 

Virtual Offering Plate
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UU Church of Houlton

61 Military Street

The Bruchetts are in Australia for the holidays and one of the photosDon sent was adapted to a cool magazine template…Go Donald!!

Here are photos of Linda’s Christmas cookies cooling in ourwood shed a couple of years ago. I thought the symmetry was interesting and looked most delicious!!

Prayer List
For those working for social justice and societal changePray for peaceful action and democratic process in our nationThe war in Ukraine continuesPrayers for the worsening humanitarian crisis in GazaPrayers for peace in the Middle East as the conflict widens

Prayers for post election AmericaPrayers for those in need or homeless during this Holiday seasonPrayers for those affected by the terrorist event in New OrleansPrayers for those affected by the terrorist event in Las Vegas

The Four Limitless Ones Prayer

May all sentient beings enjoy happiness and the root of happiness.

May we be free from suffering and the root of suffering.

May we not be separated from the great happiness devoid of suffering.

May we dwell in the great equanimity free from anger, aggression and delusion.