Peak Performers

Posted on August 30, 2010 by  | Add Comment

The fol­low­ing excerpt is from an arti­cle by Easwaran that appeared in the Autumn 2005 issue of our quar­terly Blue Moun­tain journal.

“Just as the body needs train­ing to per­form skill­fully, the mind needs train­ing if we are to live skill­fully — if we want to be at our best what­ever comes. Every spir­i­tual tra­di­tion uses this metaphor, but what­ever our reli­gious back­ground – or lack of it – we can’t find a bet­ter coach than the Bud­dha, because his empha­sis is com­pletely on train­ing the mind.

“In fact, this is the keynote of the Buddha’s teach­ing. With­out train­ing the mind, he main­tains, it is not pos­si­ble to reach our full poten­tial as human beings. We may start the day with our eyes set on the high­est goals – to be kind, to be patient, to give our best at home and work or school – but then things hap­pen and we blow up or break down, so that by the end of the day we may come home feel­ing drained or dis­sat­is­fied with how we have performed.

“There is no sur­prise in this, the Bud­dha would say. That’s how peo­ple who teach them­selves to run usu­ally begin – that’s the nature of an untrained mind. When­ever we get anx­ious, irri­tated, or resent­ful, the Bud­dha would say, we are like a run­ner in need of train­ing. Not only do we fall short of giv­ing our best per­for­mance, but we waste a lot of energy and run the risk of get­ting injured: phys­i­cally, emo­tion­ally, men­tally, spiritually.”

Read the rest of this arti­cle.

Desires and Decisions

Posted on August 25, 2010 by  | Add Comment

Easwaran com­ments on the nature of desire in the fol­low­ing excerpt from the book Love Never Faileth:

“I am now going to take up the most valu­able – and prob­a­bly the most mis­un­der­stood – of trea­sures that we have: desire. Desire is the fuel we have been given for this long, ardu­ous jour­ney into the depths of con­scious­ness. What often makes the jour­ney longer and more ardu­ous than it need be, if I may say so, is our ten­dency to frit­ter desire away, in an end­less round of pur­suits which lead us nowhere.

“Spin­oza once pointed out suc­cinctly that desires are not deci­sions. We have very lit­tle choice in them. Yet desire is raw power, of a mag­ni­tude at least as immense as that of nuclear energy. It is absolutely incum­bent upon all of us to work to har­ness this power within us, so that what we do, we decide in freedom.

“Once we see desire for what it really is, inter­est­ingly enough, doing some­thing out of purely per­sonal motives will no longer be pleas­ant. Doing things with the desire to help oth­ers, on the other hand, will give us enor­mous plea­sure. With this under­stand­ing, the whole align­ment of our desires under­goes a transformation.”

Read more from this sec­tion on St. Augus­tine in the book Love Never Faileth by Eknath Easwaran.

Easwaran on The Imitation of Christ: Talk 5

Posted on August 23, 2010 by  | Add Comment

This is the fifth in a long series of talks Eknath Easwaran gave on The Imi­ta­tion of Christ by Thomas a Kem­pis. In this talk, Easwaran dis­cusses Book 1, Chap­ter 12 “Of the Profit of Adver­sity,” and Chap­ter 13 “Of Resist­ing Temptation.”

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

Divine Help Greatly Appreciated

Posted on August 19, 2010 by  | Add Comment

Here’s a response from the Cen­ter to a recent donation:

“Thank you so much for your recent con­tri­bu­tion of $10.00 with your card and mantrams. Unfor­tu­nately, though, our bank won’t accept a check signed “rama” unless that is how you sign your name. Would you like to send us a replace­ment check with your sig­na­ture? We will not cash the “rama” check. We appre­ci­ate the warmth of your inten­tions but our bank has these rules we must abide by. . . . Thanks again, very much!”

Truly, all your dona­tions to the Cen­ter are con­sid­ered divine help, and are greatly appreciated.

Resources for Life

Posted on August 17, 2010 by  | Add Comment

Here’s a won­der­ful intro­duc­tion given by a new mem­ber of our online spir­i­tual fel­low­ship group (eSatsang) — a great resource for peo­ple prac­tic­ing pas­sage meditation:

“I was first intro­duced to Eknath Easwaran through a pro­gram that helps can­cer patients deal with can­cer. As you go deeper and deeper into the pro­gram, you are intro­duced to dif­fer­ent spir­i­tual writers.

“Eknath Easwaran was listed in one of the read­ing lists. I ordered sev­eral books from your Web site and was imme­di­ately impressed with the thoughts and the way they were expressed.

“I tried sev­eral dif­fer­ent types of med­i­ta­tion, but I have always come back to pas­sage med­i­ta­tion and that is what I do. The med­i­ta­tion, the mantram, putting oth­ers first, and spir­i­tual read­ing are all pow­er­ful tools for help­ing me con­quer fear and live each day to the best of my ability.”

Pas­sage med­i­ta­tion and read­ing Easwaran’s books are pow­er­ful resources for fac­ing all of life’s challenges.

More infor­ma­tion on our online fel­low­ship groups

Untying Our Wings

Posted on August 16, 2010 by  | Add Comment

This excerpt from Eknath Easwaran appeared in the Spring 2006 issue of our quar­terly Blue Moun­tain journal.

“All of us have wings, though we do not sus­pect it because they are so tightly tied. We are not meant to stay on the ground and peck at crumbs of per­sonal plea­sure and profit. We are meant to soar – to give our time and love freely to every­one around us. That is the essence of spir­i­tual growth, and the whole pur­pose of med­i­ta­tion and the other skills of spir­i­tual liv­ing is to free our wings and allow us to fly high.

“In India’s mys­ti­cal lit­er­a­ture, the ties that keep us earth­bound are called “knots that stran­gle the heart” because they con­strict our capac­ity to love. There are mil­lions of these ties, but per­haps the eas­i­est to see are what I call per­sonal attach­ments: pos­ses­sions and activ­i­ties we cling to that claim our time and atten­tion at the expense of those around us.

“Many of these attach­ments are mate­r­ial. Most of us have accu­mu­lated things that tie us down one way or another, often because we think they add to our sta­tus or pres­tige. Other attach­ments might be activ­i­ties we enjoy that ben­e­fit no one, includ­ing our­selves. What­ever it is, we can’t imag­ine doing with­out it. That is the hall­mark of an attachment.

“These ties might seem gos­samer, but they add up. They can bind us so tightly that we can scarcely move beyond the lim­ited cir­cle of our per­sonal likes and dis­likes. Imag­ine if your favorite pos­ses­sions were actu­ally attached to you. How dif­fi­cult it would be to drag them around even for a day! Yet the men­tal load we carry is no less bur­den­some. Shed­ding even a lit­tle of that load leaves us feel­ing as light and free as if we really did have wings.”

Read the rest of this article

Guidelines for Daily Living

Posted on August 13, 2010 by  | Add Comment

This excerpt is from an arti­cle by Eknath Easwaran that appeared in the Spring 2007 issue of the Blue Moun­tain journal.

“One of the surest signs of progress in med­i­ta­tion is an increase in the amount of energy that flows into daily life. As you go deeper into con­scious­ness, more resources flow into your life, which means more energy at your disposal.

“This is a wel­come devel­op­ment, but it brings its chal­lenges also. The inter­nal life has to bal­ance with the exter­nal life. That is why I con­stantly empha­size the need for hard, self­less work for every­one who is prac­tic­ing med­i­ta­tion sin­cerely and systematically.”

Read the rest of this arti­cle.

Dealing with Storms

Posted on August 11, 2010 by  | Add Comment

A par­ent who has been using pas­sage med­i­ta­tion for many years shared these com­ments, addressed to other parents:

“Due to the reces­sion, we are expe­ri­enc­ing tur­moil with one of our young adult chil­dren. It’s no one’s fault, but it’s very emo­tional and vul­ner­a­ble to build­ing blame and resentment.

“One-pointed atten­tion has helped me go to sleep say­ing the mantram for the child I am expe­ri­enc­ing the storm with. Since my chil­dren have grown up with the 8 points per­me­at­ing their lives, they are blessed with deeper resources inside them.

“I received a call this morn­ing and I was afraid it would be an angry sit­u­a­tion. But there was a com­plete change. Easwaran has blessed us by giv­ing my child the abil­ity to detach and move for­ward pos­i­tively. I gave thanks for the insight that they were able to have and pointed out it was because we had the 8 points. They agreed and said they needed more train­ing! My child is focus­ing on ‘togeth­er­ness’ with me.

“Par­ents of young chil­dren — keep up the good 8 point work! Even if they don’t med­i­tate or use the mantram, your chil­dren ben­e­fit by see­ing you strug­gle to improve your­self by using these pre­cious tools. Your fam­ily will reap the ben­e­fits of rich rela­tion­ships that no storm can tear apart.”

Easwaran on The Imitation of Christ: Talk 4

Posted on August 9, 2010 by  | Read 2 Comments | Add Comment

This is the fourth in a long series of talks Eknath Easwaran gave on The Imi­ta­tion of Christ by Thomas a Kem­pis. This talk dis­cusses Book 1, Chap­ter 8.

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

Regaining Balance

Posted on August 6, 2010 by  | Add Comment

Our regional retreats this year include an exer­cise where you select points from Easwaran’s pas­sage med­i­ta­tion pro­gram that can help you when you feel a bit off-balance. We wanted to share this account from an earnest med­i­ta­tor, who was able to apply her action plan in the first few hours after leav­ing the retreat:

“We were plan­ning to get to a nearby town in time to have a healthy meal, but we arrived late, and every­where there were long lines.

“Dur­ing the drive, I had been feel­ing an old, famil­iar anx­i­ety – my son was not answer­ing my phone call. I man­aged half-heartedly to repeat the mantram.

“Finally we decided that a fast food chain was the only place left to get some food. But as I walked in, I got a bit sick to my stom­ach, and this just made me feel more anxious.

“Back in the car, I repeated the mantram more fer­vently. Finally, in despair, I started to say the pas­sage “Do Not Look with Fear” silently inside and all of a sud­den, like a wave reced­ing from the shore, the anx­i­ety just WHOOSHED out!

“Wow . . . I couldn’t believe it. Another retreat exper­i­ment gone well. And need­less to say . . . my son is fine.”


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

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

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