A Breakthrough in an Important Relationship

Posted on July 31, 2010 by  | Add Comment

Our rela­tion­ships with birth fam­ily mem­bers can some­times be our rich­est spir­i­tual chal­lenges. So it is with one of our friends who has been med­i­tat­ing for some years, a young mother.

“My mother really loves my chil­dren, and can’t do enough to make them happy. I’m very lucky to have her help.

“But her polit­i­cal views are dif­fer­ent from mine, and this some­times causes ten­sion between us.

“I’ve been work­ing hard to improve the rela­tion­ship through my spir­i­tual prac­tices — writ­ing the mantram for her, ded­i­cat­ing pas­sages in med­i­ta­tion to her, and remind­ing myself con­stantly of all the good things that we have in common.

“Just recently, I expe­ri­enced a break­through. This time when my mother voiced a polit­i­cal opin­ion, instead of react­ing defen­sively, I felt a sud­den huge wave of love towards her. “You know you’re such a won­der­ful grand­mother – I so appre­ci­ate it,” I said.

“Some­how my whole out­look on the rela­tion­ship has changed.”

Breaking Barriers

Posted on July 29, 2010 by  | Add Comment

The fol­low­ing excerpt is from an arti­cle by Easwaran that appeared in the Autumn 2006 issue of our quar­terly Blue Moun­tain journal:

“Not long ago it was con­sid­ered impos­si­ble for a human being to run a mile in less than four min­utes. The ‘four-minute mile’ was a built-in phys­i­o­log­i­cal lim­i­ta­tion, a kind of invis­i­ble wall that one could approach but never break through. And while every­body believed this, it was true. Peo­ple resigned them­selves to watch­ing the record creep up by hun­dredths of a sec­ond, harder and harder to beat as the magic wall got closer.

“And then some­body who didn’t believe in invis­i­ble walls – a young Eng­lish physi­cian, Roger Ban­nis­ter – ran faster. It was humanly pos­si­ble! Belief in a four-minute bar­rier col­lapsed. It took just six weeks for another run­ner to break Bannister’s record, and today, moth­ers and stu­dents go out on week­ends and run at speeds that experts once decreed beyond human reach. Today some say the real limit is a three-minute mile. But most peo­ple are unwill­ing to set lim­its at all, and records are bro­ken regularly.

“Unques­tioned beliefs are con­stantly shap­ing how we live. Some, like the super­sti­tion of a four-minute mile, don’t mat­ter much in daily life. But oth­ers can be crip­pling when we impose them on our­selves. ‘I can’t do this,’ we say. ‘That’s not human nature.’ Or, more gen­er­ally, ‘That’s not the way life is.’ Or – per­haps most dam­ag­ing of all – ‘Peace just isn’t pos­si­ble in the real world.’ The under­ly­ing text is always the same: ‘There is noth­ing to be done.’ In other words, we still believe in magic walls.

“Yet no one knows the extent of our inher­ent capac­i­ties. No one can set lim­its to what we can accom­plish with the immense power, wis­dom, imag­i­na­tive action, and com­pas­sion hid­den in us all.”

Read the rest of this arti­cle.

Keeping Easwaran in the Bookstores

Posted on July 27, 2010 by  | Read 2 Comments | Add Comment

“I was brows­ing in a book­store for some­thing dif­fer­ent to read. I’d never heard of Easwaran, but I picked up one of his books – and here I am.”

We reg­u­larly hear sto­ries like this from retreatants. This is why keep­ing Easwaran’s books avail­able in the book trade is a prime goal for Nil­giri Press, the pub­lish­ing depart­ment of the Blue Moun­tain Cen­ter of Meditation.

Book­stores are under heavy eco­nomic pres­sure right now, and trade buy­ers watch the sales num­bers very closely. Easwaran’s three Clas­sics of Indian Spir­i­tu­al­ity (The Bha­gavad Gita, The Upan­ishads, and The Dhamma­pada) con­tinue to be the best-selling trans­la­tions in the United States. As a result, more trade buy­ers rec­og­nize Easwaran’s name and are pre­pared to stock some of his other books as well.

From the point of view of Nil­giri Press, The Bha­gavad Gita is our best-selling book by far, account­ing for about one-third of all our sales in the book­stores. Patience, our new book that came out in book­stores in May, is con­tin­u­ing to do well — it’s our best-selling book after the Indian clas­sics and Pas­sage Med­i­ta­tion.

Our e-book sales are increas­ing too. Watch for later posts for more details, and for more news of Easwaran’s books in August.

We are very happy when peo­ple buy books from our own web­site, because the income is impor­tant to keep our press going. But buy­ing our books from any out­let helps our sales. So, whether you pre­fer to buy from us, or to sup­port your local inde­pen­dent book­store, or to buy from Ama­zon, Barnes & Noble, or Bor­ders, you are mak­ing it a lit­tle bit eas­ier for another new reader to dis­cover Easwaran.

Easwaran on The Imitation of Christ: Talk 3

Posted on July 26, 2010 by  | Read Comment | Add Comment

This is the third in a long series of talks Eknath Easwaran gave on The Imi­ta­tion of Christ by Thomas a Kem­pis. This talk dis­cusses Book 1, Chap­ter 4.

For pre­vi­ous talks, see Easwaran on Thomas a Kem­pis, under Categories.

Note that all of the talks in this series are avail­able for down­load from our store. The series is described on this page.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow

A Small Incident

Posted on July 23, 2010 by  | Read 2 Comments | Add Comment

Small, daily efforts to improve our lives may not seem much, but they can make a big dif­fer­ence to those around us. Through those efforts, Easwaran writes in the book Renewal, “Each of us has the capac­ity to become . . . a heal­ing and pro­tect­ing force in the fam­ily, with friends, at work, in the community.”

So it was with one of our friends who has been med­i­tat­ing and read­ing Easwaran for years. Here is his story.

“Some time ago, I moved into a new home. In the front of the gar­den I had to have a propane tank installed. I knew that the tank would look ugly, so I decided to build a wooden frame around it, to sup­port a climb­ing rose that every­one could enjoy.

“I had just fin­ished the frame when my neigh­bor, an elderly gen­tle­man, came home. He got out of his car, looked at the tank, glared at me and said: ‘What are you doing to our neighborhood?’

“I paused. ‘I’m just try­ing to be a good neigh­bor,’ I said, qui­etly. He looked sur­prised and walked over. It was the start of a warm friend­ship between us.

“A few years later, I was again work­ing in the gar­den when an ambu­lance drew up next door. My neigh­bor had suf­fered a seri­ous heart attack. On his way into the ambu­lance, he looked up at me, smiled, and said goodbye.

“He never returned. But I real­ized that, in a mod­est way, I’d helped to make those last years a lit­tle more pleas­ant, a lit­tle hap­pier for him. And it all started with that first small inci­dent, when I man­aged to stay calm.”

Retreat for Seniors in Tomales, California

Posted on July 20, 2010 by  | Add Comment

The later years of life can be the rich­est, in terms of the ben­e­fit we can bring to oth­ers, and the sense of deep ful­fill­ment we can develop. We can over­come the phys­i­cal lim­i­ta­tions imposed on the body by age through spir­i­tual dis­ci­plines that any­one can do.

This retreat, based on Easwaran’s pro­gram for seniors, offers four days of liv­ing a spir­i­tual sched­ule. It includes many optional activ­i­ties, to help you find the right bal­ance for yourself.

Senior Half-Week, August 27 – 31, Toma­les, Cal­i­for­nia

Our retreat house is full, but space is avail­able for com­muters (pro­gram and meals but no lodging).

If you would pre­fer to stay in our retreat house, please check our retreat sched­ule for 2011 for a retreat that is not full.

Stormy Seas

Posted on July 19, 2010 by  | Add Comment

This excerpt is from an arti­cle by Eknath Easwaran that appeared in the Sum­mer 2005 issue of the Blue Moun­tain journal.

Few human beings are born with the abil­ity to weather storm and stress with grace. But every­one can learn. We can’t con­trol the weather out­side, but we can con­trol how we respond. Like the Queen Mary, we can install sta­bi­liz­ers where we need them – not out­side our­selves, of course, but in the mind.

For it is in the mind that the storms of life really blow. What mat­ters is not so much the tur­moil out­side us as the weather within. To a per­son with an agi­tated mind, some­thing as minor as a rude dri­ver can cause enough stress to ruin a day. By con­trast I think of Mahatma Gandhi, who gave him­self away when he con­fessed, “I love storms.” Gandhi began life as a timid child, but he learned to keep his mind so steady that he could face tremen­dous crises with courage, com­pas­sion, wis­dom, and even a sense of humor.

This steadi­ness of mind is one of the most prac­ti­cal of skills. With­out it, no one can face the storm and stress of life with­out break­ing. And life today is storm and stress. We live in the midst of con­flicts – within our­selves, at home, in the com­mu­nity, even nation­ally and inter­na­tion­ally. This is an age of con­flict, which makes it an age of anx­i­ety as well. Noth­ing is more vital than learn­ing to face this tur­moil with clar­ity, con­fi­dence, and grace.

Read the rest of this arti­cle.

Passage Meditation Retreats in August & September

Posted on July 16, 2010 by  | Add Comment

Retreats offer an ideal oppor­tu­nity to explore Easwaran’s method of pas­sage med­i­ta­tion if you are new to it, or to deepen your prac­tice with fresh inspi­ra­tion and spir­i­tual com­pan­ion­ship. Read about our upcom­ing retreats for August and September.

Retreats for Newcomers

Find­ing Strength in Life’s Stormy Seas
We can’t con­trol what life sends us, Easwaran says, but we can choose how we respond. If we calm the mind, we can access the strength, com­pas­sion, and wis­dom within us.

In this new, inter­ac­tive cur­ricu­lum, we invite you to explore Easwaran’s method of pas­sage med­i­ta­tion at one of our retreats, where the com­bi­na­tion of a relaxed, wel­com­ing atmos­phere and rich dis­cus­sions draws peo­ple of a wide range of ages and backgrounds.

Week­end, August 13 – 15, Den­ver, Colorado

One-Day, August 14, Den­ver, Colorado

Week­end, Sep­tem­ber 24 – 26, Chicago, Illinois

One-Day, Sep­tem­ber 25, Chicago, Illinois

One-Day, Sep­tem­ber 25, San Diego, California

Retreats for Return­ing Meditators

Liv­ing in Wis­dom
“Tell me of those who live in wis­dom, ever aware of the Self; How do they talk, how sit, how move about?” –The Bha­gavad Gita

In our new regional retreat cur­ricu­lum we study one of the most glo­ri­ous pas­sages for med­i­ta­tion, “Liv­ing in Wis­dom” (called “The Illu­mined Man” in pre­vi­ous edi­tions of God Makes the Rivers To Flow.)

How can it help us now, in 2010, with all our daily chal­lenges, big and small? Join us to explore how these verses, together with our pas­sage med­i­ta­tion prac­tice, can help us iden­tify and trans­form those areas of our lives where we may feel a lit­tle off-balance and need more strength and stability.

Week­end, August 13 – 15, Den­ver, Colorado

One-Day, August 14, Den­ver, Colorado

Week­end, Sep­tem­ber 24 – 26, Chicago, Illinois

One-Day, Sep­tem­ber 25, Chicago, Illinois

One-Day, Sep­tem­ber 25, San Diego, California

You can also visit the full cal­en­dar for more infor­ma­tion on retreats.

Swimming Against the Current

Posted on July 15, 2010 by  | Add Comment

This excerpt is from an arti­cle by Eknath Easwaran that appeared in the Win­ter 2006 issue of the Blue Moun­tain journal.

In his prayer St. Fran­cis says, “Grant that I may not so much seek to be loved as to love.” This is just the oppo­site of the usual Valentine’s Day mes­sage, which has under­tones very much like King Lear’s con­stant plea: “Do you love me? Do you love me?” The ques­tion I should ask is not whether you love me, but how much I love you. That is the only ques­tion a lover should ask. If I love you with all my heart, I won’t ever have time to ask how much you love me. I will feel cer­tain of your love because I know with cer­tainty that I love you.

To love like this means only one thing: the other person’s wel­fare is more impor­tant to you than your own. If your girlfriend’s wel­fare is more impor­tant to you than your own, you are in love with her. If your boyfriend’s joy is more impor­tant to you than your own, you are in love with him. Other tests are secondary.

It is a skill that we cul­ti­vate by reduc­ing the size of the ego lit­tle by lit­tle, day by day, through the prac­tice of med­i­ta­tion and the other skills in the Eight Point Pro­gram – and by going on cul­ti­vat­ing this skill through­out the day, from morn­ing until evening.

Read the rest of this arti­cle.

Changed Lives for the Better

Posted on July 13, 2010 by  | Add Comment

Easwaran’s work reaches around the globe in many effec­tive ways. Here’s a state­ment from a recent new inter­na­tional mem­ber of our online fel­low­ship group (eSat­sang), as he intro­duced him­self to over 900 world­wide fel­low members.

“I hail from a tiny coastal surf­ing vil­lage and have been mar­ried for 30 years with 3 won­der­ful grown ‘kids.’ I was intro­duced by a law firm part­ner friend to Eknath Easwaran, and it is fair to say it changed my wife’s and my life for the bet­ter. This in turn brought us to the 8 Point Pro­gram and due to my remote place of res­i­dence, I have bought his 3 vol­ume set (The Bha­gavad Gita for Daily Liv­ing) and var­i­ous other texts and lis­tened to many videos. I am now on my third read­ing of the 3 vol­ume set and find each time I learn much more.

“I have done pas­sage med­i­ta­tion for about 4 years — my great­est chal­lenge is full con­cen­tra­tion for the full period — I find my mind still wan­ders (espe­cially when I have a few press­ing things on the go). Every now and again I have a really good ses­sion and love it. I used to be a bit erratic but have not missed a day since 1 Jan 2010. My great­est ben­e­fit is that it does seem to slowly but surely embed the mes­sages (from the pas­sages) in one’s con­scious­ness and one just feels so good after­wards and can cope much bet­ter and is a bet­ter per­son to oth­ers as a result.”

We couldn’t have said it any better!


  • A few times a week we’ll post some­thing here to show­case the time­less wis­dom of Eknath Easwaran.

    We’ll also post items about the Blue Moun­tain Cen­ter of Med­i­ta­tion – new book announce­ments, retreat sched­ules and updates, news from our fel­low­ship groups.

    And we’ll post items from some of Easwaran’s many friends around the world who have brought his prac­ti­cal wis­dom into their lives.

    We hope you’ll join the con­ver­sa­tion as well.

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