Easwaran on The Imitation of Christ: Talk 12

Posted on November 29, 2010 by  | Add Comment

This is the twelfth in a long series of talks Eknath Easwaran gave on The Imi­ta­tion of Christ by Thomas a Kem­pis. In this talk, Easwaran reads and dis­cusses Book 1, Chap­ter 22, “Of the Con­sid­er­a­tion of Human Misery.”

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

New Book Review on Amazon: Conquest of Mind

Posted on November 26, 2010 by  | Comments Off

Reviews really help to attract new read­ers to Easwaran, par­tic­u­larly when they are writ­ten from the heart. Our warm thanks go to the kind per­son who recently posted the fol­low­ing review about Con­quest of Mind on Amazon.

“I loved this book and will come back to seek the wis­dom within again and again. It con­tains many use­ful insights, sug­ges­tions and lessons as well as being a prac­ti­cal guide to steady­ing my unsteady mind.

“There isn’t a chap­ter I didn’t like but my favorite is the chap­ter ‘Deter­mi­na­tion.’ I know when I am giv­ing my best and I know when I’m coast­ing or mak­ing excuses. And I know how I feel when I am in that frame of mind. Eknath Easwaran talks about this with com­pas­sion and under­stand­ing. He also inspires me to try harder. This book offers prac­ti­cal ways do that.

“The wis­dom con­tained here offers me ways to become more of whom I want to become and a com­pas­sion­ate look at the obsta­cles I have to face. I highly rec­om­mend this book.”

If you do post a review of one of Easwaran’s books on Ama­zon or on any other web site, could you please let us know? Post a com­ment to this blog, and/or send email to us with “For the Press team” in the address line. We’re always very pleased to hear from you!

Easwaran on the Gita: Living in Wisdom

Posted on November 25, 2010 by  | Add Comment

In the fol­low­ing excerpt, Eknath Easwaran com­ments on chap­ter 2, verse 54 of the Bha­gavad Gita from the book The End of Sor­row:

Verse 54:
Arjuna: Tell me of those who live always in wis­dom, ever aware of the Self, O Krishna; how do they talk, how sit, how move about?

“This ques­tion of Arjuna’s intro­duces the glo­ri­ous eigh­teen stan­zas which, as Gandhi points out, hold the key to the inter­pre­ta­tion of the entire Bha­gavad Gita. Gandhi, a devoted stu­dent of the Gita, was espe­cially drawn to these last eigh­teen verses of the sec­ond chap­ter. I have seen him med­i­tat­ing on them with such intense con­cen­tra­tion. that as I watched, I could see the great stan­zas com­ing to life in a human being.

“When Gandhi said that the Gita describes the war going on within, schol­ars in many coun­tries, includ­ing India, would not take him seri­ously. In reply, Gandhi only asked them to look at these verses and see what ref­er­ence there is to the con­quest of inter­na­tional ene­mies, the con­quest of ene­mies outside.

“In every verse of this pas­sage we have clear proof that the bat­tle referred to is within, between the forces of self­ish­ness and the forces of self­less­ness, between the fero­cious pull of the senses and the serene tran­quil­ity of spir­i­tual wisdom.

“I strongly rec­om­mend these verses to be mem­o­rized for use in med­i­ta­tion because they grad­u­ally can bring about the trans­for­ma­tion of our con­scious­ness. The secret of med­i­ta­tion is that we become what we med­i­tate on, and when every day we use these verses with the utmost con­cen­tra­tion we are capa­ble of, grad­u­ally we will become what they describe as the God-conscious person.

“If I might refer to my own small spir­i­tual endeavor, before tak­ing to med­i­ta­tion I was sub­ject, as most nor­mal peo­ple are, to all kinds of crav­ings and foibles that nat­u­rally led me to make many mis­takes. But due to the spir­i­tual aware­ness ema­nat­ing from these verses, I have been able to sur­mount these obsta­cles. It is because of this small per­sonal expe­ri­ence that I rec­om­mend all of you use these verses in your meditation.”

Read more from chap­ter 2 of The End of Sor­row: The Bha­gavad Gita for Daily Liv­ing, Vol­ume 1: The Illu­mined Man.

Unite Against the Problem

Posted on November 19, 2010 by  | Add Comment

The fol­low­ing excerpt is from the book Patience, by Eknath Easwaran.

“Years ago, I watched the Brazil­ian ath­lete Pele play his last game of soc­cer. He was retir­ing at the peak of his career, one of thebest soc­cer play­ers the world has seen, and in this last game he was play­ing­with the New York Cos­mos against a team for which he had scored his most mem­o­rable goals: San­tos of Brazil.

“For the first half of the game, Pele played his best for the Cos­mos. But the sec­ond half had a bril­liant touch: he joined his oppo­nents and played his best for them. This is what we should do in a dis­agree­ment: play half the time for the other side, half the time for our own. It is not a ques­tion of sac­ri­fic­ing prin­ci­ples; this is the only way to see the whole.

“If we could see the game more clearly – and the results were not so tragic – the spec­ta­cle of a quar­rel would make us laugh. When we played soc­cer in my vil­lage, one of my cousins used to get so excited that he would shoot the ball into his own goal. We used to say, “Never mind the other side; watch out for Mandan.”

“When two peo­ple quar­rel, that’s just what they are doing– scor­ing against their own side. What­ever the dis­agree­ment, we are the home team, the Cos­mos – all of us. Our prob­lems, whether per­sonal, national, or envi­ron­men­tal, are the vis­i­tors. And the mys­tics say sim­ply, “Sup­port your team. There is the oppo­nent, down at the other end of the field. Unite against the prob­lem; don’t go scrap­ping among yourselves.”

“Oth­er­wise, there are no win­ners in this game. Once we divide against our­selves, whether at home or between races or nations, there can only be losers. On the other hand, there is no dis­agree­ment so seri­ous that it can­not be set right if both sides can join hands and work hard for a com­mon solu­tion. It is not at all easy, and the results will not be imme­di­ate. But wher­ever there is hatred, com­plete love can be estab­lished; wher­ever there is con­flict, com­plete unity can be estab­lished. The choice is up to us.”

Read more from the book Patience

Nilgiri Press Gifts for the Holiday Season

Posted on November 18, 2010 by  | Add Comment

If you are look­ing for inspir­ing hol­i­day gifts, we are offer­ing sev­eral recently pub­lished books as pairs, at great value prices. This offer is avail­able only on our web site and only until the end of 2010.

Patience and Renewal for $14.95 (list $19.90)
Patience is a col­lec­tion of short excerpts from Easwaran’s lesser-known books, enriched with mate­r­ial from pre­vi­ously unpub­lished tran­scripts of his talks. Renewal, based on Your Life Is Your Mes­sage, is care­fully abridged to con­vey Easwaran’s insights for read­ers today, includ­ing tales from India, inspi­ra­tion from Gandhi and the world’s saints, engag­ing anec­dotes, and prac­ti­cal sug­ges­tions for read­ers of any faith or philosophy.

God Makes the Rivers to Flow and Words to Live By for $24.95 (list $34.90)
God Makes the Rivers to Flow and Words to Live By are re-coverings of these peren­nial favorites.

Pas­sage Med­i­ta­tion and Time­less Wis­dom for $21.95 (list $29.90)
Con­quest of Mind and Mantram Hand­book for $21.95 (list $29.90)
Pas­sage Med­i­ta­tion, Time­less Wis­dom, Con­quest of Mind, and Mantram Hand­book are all from the Essen­tial Easwaran Library, a series that focuses on the prac­tice of Easwaran’s pas­sage med­i­ta­tion program.

You can read more about the con­tent of all these books on our web site. Any of these pairs would work well for new read­ers of Easwaran, or for long-time read­ers whose copies have become tat­tered with lov­ing use.

Passage for Meditation: Let Me Walk in Beauty

Posted on November 16, 2010 by  | Comments Off

The fol­low­ing pas­sage is a famous prayer by Chief Yel­low Lark, a nineteeth-century med­i­cine man of the Lakota Sioux:

Let Me Walk in Beauty

O Great Spirit,
whose voice I hear in the winds
and whose breath gives life to all the world,
hear me.
I am small and weak.
I need your strength and wisdom.

Let me walk in beauty
and let my eyes ever behold the red and pur­ple sun­set.
Make my hands respect the things you have made
and my ears grow sharp to hear your voice.

Make me wise so that I may under­stand the things
you have taught my peo­ple.
Let me learn the lessons you have hid­den
in every leaf and rock.
I seek strength not to be greater than my brother or sis­ter
but to fight my great­est enemy, myself.
Make me always ready
to come to you with clean hands and straight eyes
So when life fades as the fad­ing sun­set
my spirit may come to you with­out shame.

This pas­sage can be found in God Makes the Rivers to Flow.

Easwaran on The Imitation of Christ: Talk 11

Posted on November 15, 2010 by  | Add Comment

This is the eleventh in a long series of talks Eknath Easwaran gave on The Imi­ta­tion of Christ by Thomas a Kem­pis. In this talk, Easwaran reads and dis­cusses Book 1, Chap­ter 21, “Of Com­punc­tion of Heart.”

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

Light in the Darkness

Posted on November 12, 2010 by  | Add Comment

The fol­low­ing excerpt is from the book Strength in the Storm, by Eknath Easwaran.

“For most peo­ple, I imag­ine, radio has lost its magic. But I remem­ber vividly the awe I felt as a boy in my remote Indian vil­lage when I first heard, as if by magic, a box with knobs and dials pull out of the air a thin voice from thou­sands of miles away: ‘Good evening. This is the BBC . . .’

“Today, of course, the air around us is awash with mes­sages at dif­fer­ent fre­quen­cies. Music, news, chat­ter, adver­tise­ments – we can tune to what­ever we like.

“It is very much the same with the mind. All of us know how sen­si­tive we can be to feel­ings around us. We sense ten­sion when we walk into a room, reg­is­ter the hos­til­ity in a meet­ing, vibrate with the emo­tions of a foot­ball crowd. And in times of cri­sis, when the very air seems full of fear and anger, everybody’s inter­nal radio picks up the mood – and, all too often, passes it on.

“This is a use­ful illus­tra­tion, because it reminds us that the mind can be tuned. We do not have to accept the fear or anger around us; we can tune to a more pos­i­tive chan­nel. And when we do this, we are not the only ones who ben­e­fit. Just as every­one in a café relaxes when loud music is turned off, not tun­ing in to anger cre­ates a zone of calm that helps those nearby calm down too.

“This is eas­i­est to see by neg­a­tive exam­ple. You must have noticed how eas­ily one person’s irri­ta­tion is picked up by oth­ers. We bring it home and pass it around until every­body in the fam­ily falls asleep in it. When­ever we are dis­cour­te­ous, unkind, incon­sid­er­ate, self­ish, we are broad­cast­ing emo­tional states for oth­ers to pick up, even if we do not express our feel­ings in words or action. It’s not the pass­ing event it seems. The sig­nal has been sent, and like sound or light, it goes on spreading.

“Sim­i­larly, when we are kind to some­body, a lit­tle force of kind­ness is released in the field of con­scious­ness around us. If we go on being kind, the force becomes stronger. And when we do this every day, even to peo­ple who are unkind to us, the force becomes potent and reaches far. Even as you read this, such forces are at work within and around you. Kind­ness is work­ing against unkind­ness, and the stronger it is, the far­ther it will reach.”

Read more from Strength in the Storm

New Book Review on Amazon for Patience

Posted on November 10, 2010 by  | Add Comment

Reviews really help to attract new read­ers to Easwaran, par­tic­u­larly when they are writ­ten from the heart. Our warm thanks go to the kind per­son who has just posted the fol­low­ing on Amazon.

“I read through this book quickly and real­ized I had only touched the sur­face. Devel­op­ing patience is so impor­tant for liv­ing life well. I need remind­ing. The book fits per­fectly in my coat pocket and I can pull it out when wait­ing for a friend in a cof­fee shop, or at the bus stop or in the dentist’s wait­ing room or the doctor’s office. The chap­ters are short and the lessons pow­er­ful. Eknath Easwaran offers inspi­ra­tion with touches of humor. I highly rec­om­mend this book.”

If you do post a review of one of Easwaran’s books on Ama­zon or on any other web site, could you please let us know? Post a com­ment to this blog, and/or send email to us with “For the Press team” in the address line. We’re always very pleased to hear from you!

Part 4 of Quietly Changing the World

Posted on November 8, 2010 by  | Add Comment

Part 4 of the Qui­etly Chang­ing the World video series is now avail­able for you to view online.

This new episode tells the story of Easwaran’s time­less devo­tion to his stu­dents as it is embod­ied in his books. You will see and hear about how those books came into being, the world of spir­i­tual pos­si­bil­i­ties they con­vey, and the many lives Easwaran con­tin­ues to touch through them every day.

Part 4 of the Qui­etly Chang­ing the World


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

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