A Practice for Today: Increasing One-Pointed Attention

Posted on February 27, 2011 by  | Add Comment

Remem­ber the Buddha’s words: “When you are walk­ing, walk; when you are sit­ting, sit. Don’t wobble.”

When you read and eat at the same time part of your mind is on what you are read­ing and part on what you are eat­ing. You are not get­ting the most from either activity.

Remem­ber that even if an activ­ity seems triv­ial, you are train­ing your mind.

- Eknath Easwaran

One-pointed atten­tion means giv­ing full con­cen­tra­tion to the mat­ter at hand. Click here for basic instruc­tions on one-pointed attention.

Easwaran in UK Sunday Newspaper

Posted on February 24, 2011 by  | Add Comment

We’ve just received a clip­ping from a major UK news­pa­per, the Observer, sent by friends who spot­ted a ref­er­ence to Easwaran. It’s in an inter­view with the Indian actor, Om Puri, in which Mr. Puri describes Easwaran in a short sec­tion on spirituality.

Eknath Easwaran in the Observer

The arti­cle is illus­trated with a beau­ti­ful pho­to­graph of Easwaran smil­ing and wear­ing a gar­de­nia pinned to his jacket. (For Easwaran, the gar­de­nia was a sign of cel­e­bra­tion, so some­thing good must have hap­pened at the BMCM on the day that photo was taken!)

Mr. Puri says of Easwaran: “He was a spir­i­tual teacher who lived in Amer­ica but came from the south of India. When he first arrived in the US, and came out of the air­port and saw all the traf­fic zoom­ing past, his reac­tion was: ‘Why is every­one rush­ing?’ he told him­self he wouldn’t give in to this rhythm of life.”

There’s another nice con­nec­tion between this actor and Easwaran. Om Puri had a cameo role in Richard Attenborough’s movie, Gandhi, a film that Easwaran very much appre­ci­ated and watched many times.

Easwaran on The Imitation of Christ: Talk 18

Posted on February 21, 2011 by  | Read Comment | Add Comment

This is the 18th 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 2, Chap­ter 1, “Of the Inward Life.”

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

Free Passage Meditation Seminar: February 26 in Los Gatos, California

Posted on February 20, 2011 by  | Add Comment

A free sem­i­nar in Los Gatos, Cal­i­for­nia on Sat­ur­day, Feb­ru­ary 26th, 2011 is being pre­sented to pro­vide an intro­duc­tion to the prac­tice and ben­e­fits of Eknath Easwaran’s eight-point pro­gram of pas­sage meditation.

All are wel­come: there are no pre­req­ui­sites, no prepa­ra­tion is needed, and you can just show up on the day of the sem­i­nar – no reg­is­tra­tion is necessary.

The sem­i­nar will be led by expe­ri­enced pas­sage med­i­ta­tors, and held in a relaxed, peace­ful, and wel­com­ing atmos­phere in Los Gatos. You will hear how ordi­nary peo­ple in dif­fer­ent con­texts are prac­tic­ing pas­sage med­i­ta­tion in their daily lives, and how it is help­ing them in their rela­tion­ships, home, and workplace.

Easwaran called his pro­gram a “come as you are party” – peo­ple of all ages, faith tra­di­tions, lifestyles, and back­grounds join together in an atmos­phere of warm, kind, and respect­ful learn­ing to bring out their high­est self. This is a per­fect first step for any­one who is con­sid­er­ing attend­ing a pas­sage med­i­ta­tion retreat, start­ing their own prac­tice, or is sim­ply curi­ous about what pas­sage med­i­ta­tion is like.

At the sem­i­nar, you will find out about free web resources that you can access at home. If you decide to explore pas­sage med­i­ta­tion fur­ther, your next step might be to enroll in an intro­duc­tory one-day or week­end retreat.

If you would like to attend, please arrive promptly at 10:30 a.m. on Feb­ru­ary 26th, 2011. There is no need to enroll or RSVP.

Free pas­sage med­i­ta­tion sem­i­nar in Los Gatos (direc­tions here)
Date: Sat­ur­day, Feb­ru­ary 26, 2011
Time: 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Loca­tion: Los Gatos United Methodist Church,
111 Church Street,
Los Gatos, CA 95030

Passage for Meditation: The Way of Love

Posted on February 16, 2011 by  | Add Comment

This pas­sage is from Chap­ter 12 of the Bha­gavad Gita, trans­lated by Eknath Easwaran. The Bha­gavad Gita (“Song of the Lord”), is India’s best-known scrip­ture, a mas­ter­piece of world poetry on which count­less mys­tics have drawn for daily prac­ti­cal guid­ance. The Gita is a dia­logue between Sri Krishna, an incar­na­tion of the Lord, and his friend and dis­ci­ple Arjuna, a war­rior prince who rep­re­sents any­one try­ing to live a spir­i­tual life in the midst of worldly activ­ity and conflict.

The Way of Love

Arjuna:
Of those who love you as the Lord of Love,
Ever present in all, and those who seek you
As the name­less, form­less Real­ity,
Which way is sure and swift, love or knowledge?

Sri Krishna: 
For those who set their hearts on me
And wor­ship me with unfail­ing devo­tion and faith,
The way of love leads sure and swift to me.

Those who seek the tran­scen­den­tal Real­ity,
Unman­i­fested, with­out name or form,
Beyond the reach of feel­ing and of thought,
With their senses sub­dued and mind serene
And striv­ing for the good of all beings,
They too will ver­ily come unto me. 

Yet haz­ardous
And slow is the path to the Unre­vealed,
Dif­fi­cult for phys­i­cal man to tread.
But they for whom I am the goal supreme,
Who do all work renounc­ing self for me
And med­i­tate on me with single-hearted devo­tion,
These will I swiftly res­cue
From the fragment’s cycle of birth and death
To full­ness of eter­nal life in me. 

Still your mind in me, still your­self in me,
And with­out doubt you shall be united with me,
Lord of Love, dwelling in your heart.
But if you can­not still your mind in me,
Learn to do so through the prac­tice of med­i­ta­tion.
If you lack the will for such self-discipline,
Engage your­self in self­less ser­vice of all around you,
For self­less ser­vice can lead you at last to me.
If you are unable to do even this,
Sur­ren­der your­self to me in love,
Receiv­ing suc­cess and fail­ure with equal calm­ness
As granted by me. 

Bet­ter indeed is knowl­edge than mechan­i­cal prac­tice.
Bet­ter than knowl­edge is med­i­ta­tion.
But bet­ter still is sur­ren­der in love,
Because there fol­lows imme­di­ate peace. 

That one I love who is inca­pable of ill will,
And returns love for hatred.
Liv­ing beyond the reach of I and mine
And of plea­sure and pain, full of mercy,
Con­tented, self-controlled, firm in faith,
With all their heart and all their mind given to me –
With such peo­ple I am in love. 

Not agi­tat­ing the world or by it agi­tated,
They stand above the sway of ela­tion,
Com­pe­ti­tion, and fear, accept­ing life
Good and bad as it comes. They are pure,
Effi­cient, detached, ready to meet every demand
I make on them as a hum­ble instru­ment of my work. 

They are dear to me who run not after the pleas­ant
Or away from the painful, grieve not
Over the past, lust not today,
But let things come and go as they happen. 

Who serve both friend and foe with equal love,
Not buoyed up by praise or cast down by blame,
Alike in heat and cold, plea­sure and pain,
Free from self­ish attach­ments and self-will,
Ever full, in har­mony every­where,
Firm in faith – such as these are dear to me. 

But dear­est to me are those who seek me
In faith and love as life’s eter­nal goal.
They go beyond death to immortality.

This pas­sage can be found in Time­less Wis­dom.

Everyone Can Learn to Love

Posted on February 14, 2011 by  | Add Comment

The fol­low­ing excerpt is from an arti­cle by Eknath Easwaran which appeared in the Autumn 2008 issue of the Blue Moun­tain journal.

“I once spoke to a group of high school girls at a lun­cheon in Min­neapo­lis. After my talk I answered ques­tions, and the girl who presided asked, ‘You’ve used the word love many times. What does love mean to you?’ I gave her the same answer: ‘When your boyfriend’s wel­fare means more to you than your own, you are in love.’ This girl turned to the rest of the gath­er­ing and said can­didly, ‘Well, I guess none of us has ever been in love.’

“I think that can be said for most peo­ple. But we can learn to be in love. The spir­i­tual life is mar­velously fair: it is open to every­body. No favoritism, no hered­i­tary class. No mat­ter where you start, you can learn every­thing you need to learn, pro­vided you are pre­pared to work at it. So too of love.

“Any one of us may be very self-willed now, but why should we be depressed about it? We can begin the work of erad­i­cat­ing our self-will, and the eas­i­est and most nat­ural way is by putting the wel­fare of those around us first.

“In a sense, it comes down to atten­tion. When we are pre­oc­cu­pied with our­selves – our thoughts, our desires, our pref­er­ences – we can­not help becom­ing insen­si­tive to oth­ers’ needs. We can pay atten­tion only to so much, and all our atten­tion rests on our­selves. When we turn away from our­selves, even if only a lit­tle, we begin to see what is really best for those we love.

“Hugh, for instance, really looks for­ward to watch­ing ‘The Wide World of Sports’ every week­end. He has done it for years. ‘I’ve had a hard week,’ he says, puts up his stockinged feet on the ottoman, and leans back.

“But what about his wife, Elaine? Was her week so easy? He might ask her what she would like to do. Go to the beach? Shop? Get the gar­den started? If might be painful to pry him­self away, but if he loves her – if he wants to grow – he will choose to read the scores in Monday’s paper.

“For Hugh it may be ‘The Wide World of Sports’ that has to be for­gone; for another it may be a shop­ping trip, a nap, a chance to make some extra money, a hobby, an unfin­ished paint­ing. What­ever it is, giv­ing it up, even tem­porar­ily, may hurt. Our pref­er­ences are sticky, like the adhe­sive on a ban­dage; there may be a wince when we tear them away. But it has to be done if we want to relate eas­ily and lov­ingly with those around.

“Any time we refrain from self-centered ways of act­ing, speak­ing, and even think­ing, we are putting oth­ers first. Anger, for exam­ple, is often noth­ing more than vio­lated self-will. Hugh expected a bonus and didn’t get it, so he sulks. Elaine wants their son Jack to stop tin­ker­ing with his car and spend more time on his school­work, but Jack has other ideas; both get resent­ful and quarrel.

“To be blunt, when we are crossed like this by peo­ple or events, we do our human equiv­a­lent of roar­ing, bar­ing our fangs, and lash­ing out with claw, horn, tail, or hoof. The house­hold can become quite a menagerie.

“But anger is power, and we can learn to har­ness this power by putting each other first. What­ever the fla­vor of our anger – irri­tabil­ity, rage, stub­born­ness, bel­liger­ence, or sullen silence – into com­pas­sion and under­stand­ing. Those we live with will cer­tainly ben­e­fit from that, and so will we.”

Read the entire article

Bringing Heaven to Earth

Posted on February 10, 2011 by  | Add Comment

The fol­low­ing excerpt is from an arti­cle by Eknath Easwaran which appeared in the Sum­mer 2008 issue of the Blue Moun­tain journal.

“In Ker­ala state, South India, where I grew up, the new year is ush­ered in with a cer­e­mony many cen­turies old. The night before, while most of the fam­ily is asleep, a spe­cial shrine is assem­bled with all kinds of lus­trous objects – yel­low flow­ers, brass­ware, gold jew­elry, ripe fruits, lighted oil lamps – arranged around a mir­ror draped with garlands.

“The next morn­ing, each mem­ber of the fam­ily is led to the shrine with eyes closed and asked, ‘Would you like to see the Lord?’ We open our eyes, and shin­ing in the midst of this bright set­ting we see our own face in the glass. It is a beau­ti­ful reminder of the divin­ity in each of us – the viewer and every­one else around.

“Nat­u­rally, the reminder tends to get for­got­ten later, as life closes in again. But in my home, when­ever one of us chil­dren began to mis­be­have, my grand­mother had only to ask, ‘Do you remem­ber where you saw the Lord on New Year’s?’

“When you and I look into a mir­ror, we see a famil­iar face with a dis­tress­ing ten­dency to show fatigue or age. But that is not what the mys­tics see. They look at us – through us, into us – and see some­thing tran­scen­dent, lumi­nous, time­less, ‘the Face behind all faces’:

I look into the mir­ror and see my own beauty;
I see the truth of the uni­verse reveal­ing itself as me.
I rise in the sky as the morn­ing sun, do not be sur­prised . . .
I am Light itself, reflected in the heart of every­one.
 – Fakhrud­din Araqi

“This is of fun­da­men­tal impor­tance, because it touches the very heart of our image of our­selves – our idea of what the human being and human nature essen­tially are. The great mys­tics of all reli­gions are telling us unan­i­mously that at the very core of the human per­son­al­ity, in the very depths of our con­scious­ness, lies a divine spark that noth­ing can extin­guish. Not all the mis­takes we have com­mit­ted, not all the prob­lems we may have brought upon our­selves and oth­ers, can extin­guish this spark. Noth­ing can. It is, as Meis­ter Eck­hart says star­tlingly, an uncre­ated light – the essen­tial core of divin­ity present in every creature.

“If you can remem­ber this every day in moments when you are inclined to look down upon your­self, this reminder will restore your faith and inspire you to put all your efforts into releas­ing this beau­ti­ful image from the mir­ror of pos­si­bil­ity into your every­day life.


Orig­i­nal good­ness


“In West­ern mys­ti­cism, dis­cov­er­ing this divine core of per­son­al­ity is con­sid­ered super­hu­man – ris­ing above the ordi­nary human level to a plane far, far higher. This is cer­tainly true, but the point of view of Indian mys­ti­cism is just as accu­rate: we are sub­nor­mal now; our task is to become nor­mal. Our nat­ural con­di­tion is love; anger, hatred, ani­mos­ity are unnat­ural. Our nat­ural con­di­tion is to be a saint; any­thing less is a masquerade.


“This sounds like Polyanna, but the mys­tics are not deny­ing our neg­a­tive side. They are well aware of the many seri­ous flaws in human char­ac­ter. But it is refresh­ing and prac­ti­cal to remem­ber that before orig­i­nal sin came orig­i­nal inno­cence. The core of per­son­al­ity is orig­i­nal good­ness. It is cov­ered, if you like, by sin, but the cov­er­ing can be removed, and when it is, the essen­tial good­ness of our nature is revealed.

“In fact, I don’t use the word sin very much. You sel­dom hear me talk about sin unless I am quot­ing. It can become a kind of obses­sion, and any obses­sion is bad because it hin­ders spir­i­tual growth. When we keep on dep­re­cat­ing our­selves, we can end up wor­thy of dep­re­ca­tion. By rein­forc­ing a low image of our­selves, we come to expect no bet­ter. ‘I’m just a sin­ner,’ we say. ‘What can you expect?’


“I have met many peo­ple who suf­fer from such a guilt com­plex that it ham­pers their spir­i­tual progress. This is one of the clever­est aces the ego can play. ‘You – you’re no good! What can you pos­si­bly say in favor of your­self?’ I don’t mean we should ignore our weak­nesses; in fact, the pur­pose of med­i­ta­tion is to over­come them – all of them. But to do that, it’s sim­ply not help­ful to go about dep­re­cat­ing your­self. The best thing is not to think about your­self at all; give your atten­tion to those around you.


“In our mod­ern civ­i­liza­tion, there are mil­lions of peo­ple who have come to have such a poor, worth­less image of them­selves that they become accus­tomed to all kinds of unel­e­vat­ing behav­ior. In spite of all our afflu­ence and all our tech­no­log­i­cal achieve­ments, the gen­eral image of the human being has been brought so low that we think we are merely phys­i­cal crea­tures whose only aims in life are self-preservation and pleasure. 


“When you are brought up to believe that this is your legacy as a human being, it can lead to seri­ous prob­lems later on in life. I believe this accounts for a great deal of the insen­si­tiv­ity and self-destructive behav­ior that seems so com­mon today. That is why all our chil­dren need to be brought up with the lofty image pre­sented in all the world’s great reli­gions: that there is a divine source of love and wis­dom, beauty and com­pas­sion, in every human being, and the pur­pose of life is not to make money or enjoy plea­sure but to dis­cover this spark of divin­ity in the depths of con­scious­ness, which will help to estab­lish peace on earth and good will among mankind.
”

Read the entire article

Easwaran on The Imitation of Christ: Talk 17

Posted on February 7, 2011 by  | Add Comment

This is the sev­en­teenth 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 2, Chap­ter 1, “Of the Inward Life.”

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 Practice for Today: Slowing Down

Posted on February 4, 2011 by  | Read Comment | Add Comment

“Sim­plify your life so that you do not try to fill your time with more than you can do. Start by list­ing your activ­i­ties. Then prune the list, strik­ing out any­thing that is not truly nec­es­sary and any­thing that is not beneficial.”

- Eknath Easwaran

Slow­ing down means set­ting pri­or­i­ties and reduc­ing the stress and fric­tion caused by hurry. Click here for basic instruc­tions on slow­ing down.


  • 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.

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